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THE 
 
 DATE OF OUR GOSPELS 
 
 In the Light of the Latest Criticism. 
 
 SAMUEL IVES'^CURTJSS, 
 
 Professor in Chicago Theological Seminary. 
 
 CHICAGO : 
 
 F. H. revell, 148 and 150MADISON street. 
 1881. 
 
Copyright, 1881, 
 
 BY 
 
 F. H. Revell. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following review of Judge Waite's book 
 indicates the opinions of leading New Testatment 
 critics of almost every shade of religious belief 
 with reference to the origin of the Gospels. On 
 the one side is a lawyer, who late in life gave 
 attention to these studies; on the other are men 
 who have enjoyed every advantage for preparation 
 in New Testament criticism, and who have de- 
 voted their lives to scientific investigations as 
 to the time when the Gospels were composed. I 
 leave the candid reader to judge whether sciolism 
 or science is to determine the question respect- 
 ing the date of the Evangelic Records. 
 
 I have also added a lecture, which is largely 
 based on Norton's Genuineness of the Gospels^ and 
 which is designed to furnish a cumulative argu- 
 ment, showing what the admission that our Gospels 
 were written in the last quarter of the second 
 century really involves. 
 
 I trust that this little treatise may be of some 
 help to every one who sincerely desires to know 
 more as to the origin of the Gospels, and who is 
 not conversant with the general literature of the 
 
 subject. 
 
 Samuel Ives Curtiss. 
 Chicago, March 29, 1881. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Review of Judge Waite's " History of the 
 Christian Religion to the Year Two 
 Hundred. " 
 
 II. 
 
 When Were Our Gospels Written? 
 
PART FIRST. 
 
 Before enterins^ upon the specific criticism of 
 this book,* some preliminary remarks are in 
 place. I presume all will agree that there is 
 need of a special training for the pursuit of eveiy 
 science, and that the more advanced the science 
 becomes the greater the necessity of such a train- 
 ing. Before a man can attain eminence in any 
 scientific department he must have mastered all 
 the important discoveries in that department. It 
 would obviously be absurd for a geologist to set 
 himself up as an authority in geology who should 
 be unfamiliar with the views of leading geologists 
 during the last two decades, and who should quote 
 the opinions of men in the last century to estab- 
 lish his positions, when an examination of recent 
 authorities would have prevented him from wast- 
 ing his time to no purpose. Still there are many 
 who are led by curiosity to pursue studies for 
 which they are unprepared for want of the right 
 training. Their love of knowledge is commend- 
 able, and they are deserving of praise so long as 
 they recognize the incompleteness of their inves- 
 
 * History of tire Christian Religion to] the Year 
 Two Hundred. By Charles B. Waite, A. M. Chicago: 
 
 C. y. Waite & Co., 1881. 
 
2 DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 tigations. But when they attack established in- 
 stitutions and claim to be public teachers, it is 
 right to try to convince them and the public that 
 they are not scientists, but sciolists; and that the 
 positions which they set forth with so much con- 
 fidence are due to an ignorance of the subject. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Biblical criticism is 
 as trulj^ a science as that of geology or anthro- 
 pology — a science which has occupied the close 
 attention of many untiring investigators and brill- 
 iant students for the last hundred years. These 
 men belong to all schools of belief. So far as 
 they deserve the title of scientists, they are char- 
 acterized with an ardent love of truth. They 
 would rather make an admission which is un- 
 favorable to them than carry a point by unfair 
 means. Their opinions have been recorded, and 
 although there are many differences among them, 
 it is perfectly possible to ascertain what the con- 
 sensus of New Testament criticism is; for ex- 
 ample, whether critics generally agree that the 
 books of the New Testament did not arise before 
 tiie last quarter of the second century. 
 
 Now there are certain prerequisites which are 
 absolutely necessary for the pursuit of such an 
 investigation. Since German scholars have made 
 such extensive contributions in this department, a 
 familiarity with the German language is abso- 
 
II^TRODUCTORY. 6 
 
 lufcely necessary. To lack a knowledge of Grerraan 
 is to incapacitate one for becoming a master in 
 this department. This, however, is simply a me- 
 dium. It is necessary besides to be familiar with 
 the principles of historical and Biblical criticism. 
 Without it the greatest industry will be misdi- 
 rected. Furthermore, the student must have a 
 complete knowledge of the literature of the sub- 
 ject, and of the best authorities. This is the last 
 place where mere numbers are decisive. Not every 
 book which may have been written on the subject 
 is an authority. The leaders in this department 
 have as clear and settled a reputation as the emi- 
 nent astronomers or chemists, but they are per- 
 haps less familiarly known to the general public. 
 The last prerequisite which I notice is that of a 
 judicial and unbiased mind. The question is, 
 What are the facts? These must be understood 
 and weighed without regard to the preferences 
 of the writer. 
 
 I deem it important to dwell upon these points, 
 not only that the public may see the grounds of 
 m.y criticisms upon our author, but also that they 
 may be in a position properly to estimate the many 
 similar attempts which will be made in this direc- 
 tion. 
 
 Whether Judge Waite would claim the posses- 
 sion of these prerequisites I do not know. The 
 
4: THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 question is not whether he is an amiable gentle- 
 man, a person of literary tastes and culture, and 
 of good common sense. He may possess all these 
 qualities which commend one to the confidence of 
 the public, and yet be totally unfitted to examine 
 these questions and to pass a judgment upon them. 
 
 JUDGE WAITES METHOD. 
 
 Now, without any personal knowledge of the 
 gentleman, I desire to point out plainly the de- 
 fects of this very plausible book — I call it plausi- 
 ble because, without the least heat, he would seem 
 to all who are inclined to doubt to establish his 
 positions triumphantly. And yet I cannot dis- 
 cover a trace of one of the prerequisites which I 
 have mentioned. He has not had the required 
 training. He does not seem to be acquainted 
 with German. He does not know the literature of 
 the subject, although he has consulted so many 
 books; and in this discussion, however excellent 
 and impartial he may be upon the bench, he does 
 not display an unbiased and judicial mind. In- 
 deed he employs methods which are in vogue 
 among advocates in making out a case, or what 
 the Germans with reference to Baur and the Tue- 
 bingen school call tendencj^-criticism; that is, his 
 entire investigation is predetermined by a theory. 
 There is an obvious effort to disparage ail testi- 
 mony offered on the other side. This will appear 
 
JUDGE WAITE S METHOD. 5 
 
 farther on in his treatment of the Apostolic Fath- 
 ers; Eusebius, the Canon of Miiratori, etc., are all 
 disparaged. There seems to be a tendency, which 
 is probably unconscious, to withhold evidence 
 which might be prejudicial to him. 
 
 Unbelief is in every case given the benefit of 
 the doubt. This may be a safe principle in crim- 
 inal law, where it is esteemed better that nine 
 guilty men should escape punishment than that 
 one innocent man should suffer, bat in a question 
 where not only truth is at stake, but especially 
 truth which concerns man's weal or woe, every 
 argument in favor of the Christian system and its 
 charter must be weighed with scrupulous care, 
 and it seems to me that these, rather than infidel- 
 ity, should have the benefit of the doubt. 
 
 Passing now to an examination of the author's 
 work, I wish to have it understood in advance 
 that I do not feel called upon to controvert, with 
 much argument, positions which Mr. Waite never 
 could or would have taken if he had been more 
 conversant with the literature of this subject. I 
 refer here especially to the evidence which he ad- 
 duces for the priority of certain Apocryphal Gos- 
 pels (pp. 128-221). 
 
 There are three points which he urges in his 
 conclusion: ''No evidence is found of the exist- 
 ence in the first century of either of the following 
 
^ THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 doctrines : The immaculate conception, the miracles 
 of Christ, His material resurrection." 
 
 As these doctrines are plainly taught in the 
 Gospels, the author can only establish his position 
 by relegating them to the second century. This 
 he seeks to do by external and internal arguments 
 claiming that Luke arose 170 A. D.; Mark, 175; 
 John, 178, and Matthew, 180. I need not say that 
 scarcely any critics of eminence maintain such late 
 dates, except the author of Supernatural Religion, 
 who is the inspiration of so many agnostics in this 
 country, and who can scarcly be ranked as a critic. 
 The following is Hilgenfeld's criticism upon him, 
 which is all the more significant, as he belongs to 
 the most liberal party in Germany:* "It cannot 
 be denied that the author [i. e. of Supernatural 
 Religion^} has taken great pains to look about 
 carefully in old and new writings. One may also 
 thankfully recognize many an excellent remark. 
 But the author shows a similar partisanship against, 
 as the orthodox show for the traditional authority 
 of the Gospels, and it cannot be denied that, in many 
 respects, he has transcended the proper limit. * * 
 * * Such conduct is not calculated to retain and 
 secure respect for criticism." The force of these 
 strictures will appear when it is known that Judge 
 
 * Zeitschrift fuer wissenschaftliche Theologie, Leip- 
 zig, 1875, vol. 18, pp., 583-584. 
 
JUDGE WAITE S METHOD. * 
 
 Waite, who is evidently influenced by Supernatu- 
 ral Religion, but cannot for a moment be com- 
 pared with its author in learning, has taken posi- 
 tions which the author of Supernatural Religion 
 is too wise to urge. 
 
 Let us now begin our investigation of Jndge 
 Waiters book with an examination of the propo- 
 sitions which he so confidently maintains in the 
 conclusion, that there is no proof of the doctrine 
 of the immaculate conception, of miracles, and of 
 Christ's material (i. e. actual) resurrection in the 
 first century. Our author sets our Canonical 
 Gospels entirely aside as too late to have any bear- 
 ing on this question. What evidence does he 
 afford in support of these propositions? None 
 whatever. Either the tradition is true, which 
 maintains that the Gospels of Peter and of Paul 
 are our Gospels of Mark and Luke, or it is false, 
 as Judge Waite claims, and these Gospels are lost. 
 If the tradition as to these Gospels is true, as many 
 excellent critics hold, then we know these doctrines 
 were taught, for they are contained in our Gos- 
 pels; but if this tradition is false, then the asser- 
 tion that it cannot be proved that these doctrines 
 were held in the first century can be met with the 
 counter assertion that it cannot he disproved. 
 For if the documents named are not our Gospels, 
 then they are lost, we have no clear record of 
 
8 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 what was in them, and they cannot be cited on 
 either side of the question. In that case, we 
 shonkl have to consider whether our Gospels were 
 in existence at that period. Although the evi- 
 dence down to a certain age is not strong when 
 each argument is examined singly, yet we shall 
 find, if we begin in the last quarter of the second 
 centur}^, and move back into the first century, 
 that the critical evidence for the existence of the 
 Gospels is very strong up to a certain point, and 
 that beyond that poinb the moral evidence, when 
 we combine all the arguments, is such as to satisfy 
 every unprejudiced person. The only reason why 
 scholars are so cautious in dealing with this sub- 
 ject is that unbelievers practically claim that all 
 evidence which is merely circumstantial should 
 be excluded. It is asserted that if we cannot 
 trace the Gospels back earlier than the time of 
 Justin Martyr (d. 165) by critical evidence we 
 must stop there, we may not construct a cumu- 
 lative argument from the circumstantial evidence 
 which remains, carrying us back to the first cen- 
 tury. Now, this course is obviously unfair where 
 men are seeking after truth. It may be said that 
 such circumstantial evidence would not suffice to 
 establish a case in court. Granting this, for the 
 sake of argument, does the fact that there is not 
 sufficient les:al evidence that certain events took 
 
DESTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. 9 
 
 place disprove their actual occurrence r" Have we 
 not experienced many tliino^s in our lives of which 
 we miglit not be able to furnish satisfactory evi- 
 dence in a court of justice? Have they, therefore, 
 never occurred? Might not, however, the state- 
 ment of a citizen, who was a man of veracity and 
 a public benefactor, oe accepted, even in a court 
 of justice, in regard to matters which he could 
 prove only by circumstantial evidence, when all 
 his other testimony was fully established? Now, 
 this illustrates the condition of our argument in 
 tracing the history of the Gospels backward from 
 the last quarter of the second century. We have, 
 as I have remarked, a good degree of certainty up 
 to a given point, and beyond that a strong proba- 
 ability. 
 
 DESTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. 
 
 It is customary, however, for the critics, in be- 
 ginning with the apostolic age, to assail each po- 
 sition until they reach a period where the argu- 
 ments against them are impregnable. This is 
 obviously unfair. We cannot rightfully expect 
 any quotations from the Apostles who may liave 
 been living after the Gospels were written, since 
 each was in possession of an oral Gospel. 
 
 Descending to the next period, that of the 
 Apostolic Fathers, it must be remembered that it 
 was not productive. These Fathers were over- 
 
10 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 shadowed by the age that preceded them. They 
 have left very few writings. Their minds were 
 impressed more with persons and sayings than 
 with documejits. They naturally tended to use 
 the same Bible which Christ and his Apostles had 
 used, that is, the Old Testament, and while they 
 felt their inferiority to the Apostles, yet, when 
 they had occasion to quote the sayings and 
 doings of Christ, in an age when manuscripts 
 of the Gospels were not divided into chapters 
 and verses, they were not likely to be anxiously 
 literal in their quotations, since they had so 
 often heard the oral Gospel, and the written Gos- 
 pels had been prepared rather for the wants of 
 the future church than for them. They had no 
 occasion to quote the Gospels by the names of the 
 different Evangelists, for the substance of the Gos- 
 pel was already known to the churches to which, 
 they ministered. Tliey had no special occasion for 
 emphasizing the immaculate conception, Christ's 
 miracles, or the circumstances of his resurrection. 
 If they had laid special stress on those things it 
 would have been natural for skeptics to have 
 charged them with originating these doctrines. 
 Hence their allusion to these facts are not at ail 
 inconsistent with the accounts in the Canonical 
 Gospels. 
 
ADMISSIONS. 11 
 
 According to Judge Waiters own admission 
 " the first allusion to the immaculate conception 
 is in the Epistles of Ignatius, A. D. 115." Does 
 not the very fact that there is merely an allusion 
 indicate that the immaculate conception was gen- 
 erally accepted as a fact which needed no proof? 
 So, too, he says that '^ the first mention of the 
 miracles of Jesus was in the Epistle of Barnabas, 
 A. D. 71-132." Does that imply that the gospel 
 account of miracles had not been previously in 
 existence? Likewise he says that the material 
 resurrection was taught by Justin Martyr. On 
 the other hand he seeks to prove that Paul in 
 holding the doctrine of a spiritual resurrection 
 knew nothing of the facts of Christ's resurrection. 
 This seems absurd. For Paul had no occasion to 
 enter into the particulars of Christ's resurrection. 
 The fact th^t he simply mentions that Christ 
 was raised does not at all prove that he did not 
 know the manner as described in the Gospels. 
 Indeed what he says respecting Christ's resurrec- 
 tion in no way contradicts the narrative given in 
 the Gospels, but rather presupposes it. Hence it 
 follows that the evidence which Judge- Waite 
 adduces in support of these three positions in 
 regard to the immaculate conception, miracles, 
 and the actual resurrection of Christ is purely 
 negative. It fails to prove his propositions. It 
 
12 THE DATE OF OUK GOSPELS. 
 
 simply amounts to this, that there were three 
 Gospels in the first century, which he thinks were 
 entirely different from our first three Gospels. 
 These Gospels are lost. Notwithstandina: our 
 ignorance as to their contents Judge Waite thinks 
 that they did not teach these doctrines. I need 
 not dwell upon the transparent weakness of such 
 an argument. 
 
 APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS. 
 
 Our Canonical Gospels, according to our author, 
 did not exist in the first century. He claims that 
 all seeming references to them in the Apostolic 
 Fathers are to be explained away as derived from 
 what the church has designated Apocryphal Gos- 
 pels, from which our Gospels in the last quarter 
 of the second century were derived. He says that 
 Marcion preceded our Luke, and that Justin Mar- 
 tyr knew nothing of our Gospels. » I shall not 
 waste any ink or paper to prove that the Prote- 
 vangelium, the Gospel of the Infancy, the Acts of 
 Pilate, etc., in their present forms as known to us, 
 and as quoted by Judge Waite, arose at a later 
 period than our Canonical Gospels. While I 
 might be amused to see into what a trap he has 
 fallen, I feel a sincere^ compassion for a man who 
 doubtless thinks with many others of his admirers 
 that this is one of the most convincing parts of 
 his book. A knowledge of the original sources 
 
LUKE AND MARCION. 13 
 
 and the literature of the subject would have saved 
 him from this pitiful blunder. I simply refer to 
 Professor Lipsius's article on the Aioocryphal Gos- 
 pels, in Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian 
 Biography^ London, 1880, vol. ii, pp. 700 sq.; and 
 Holtzmann, Apokryphen des Neuen Testaments ^in. 
 Schenkel's Bibel-Lexikon^ Leipzig, 1869, vol. i, pp, 
 170 sq. As neither of these articles are by ortho- 
 dox men, or by those who have the slightest bias 
 toward orthodoxy, they are calculated to inspire 
 confidence in persons of every shade of belief or 
 disbelief. Both are authorities; Meyer's Konver- 
 sat ions-Lex ico7i says of Professor Lipsius of Jena, 
 that he is one of the most eminent scholars in 
 G-ermany. 
 
 LUKE AND MARCION. 
 
 Still further, a knowledge of the course of crit- 
 icism and of the latest authorities would have 
 kept Judge Waite from claiming that Marcion's 
 Gospel preceded that of Luke. The opinion that 
 Marcion's Gospel was not a Gnostic recast of cur 
 Luke's Gospel, but that Luke's Gospel was derived 
 from Marcion, was held for a time years ago 
 by some Germans, and more recently by the 
 author of Supernatural Religion^ but the weight 
 of scholarship is overwhelmingly in favor of the 
 priority of Luke. Even the author of Supernat- 
 ural Religion has been compelled, in the last edition 
 
14 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 of his work, London, 1879, to make the following 
 admission, which nullifies his entire argument as to 
 the priority of Marcion. He says (vol.ii, p. 138): 
 
 " In the earlier editions of this work we con- 
 tended that the theory that Marcion's Gospel was 
 a mutilated form of our third Synoptic, had not 
 been established, and that more probably it was an 
 earlier work, from which our Grospel might have 
 been elaborated. Sin ce the sixth edition of this work 
 was completed, however, a very able examination 
 of Marcion's Grospel has been made by Dr. San day 
 which has convinced us that our earlier hypothesis 
 is untenable, that the portions of our third Syn- 
 optic, excluded from Marcion's Grospel, were really 
 written by the same pen which composed the mass 
 of the work, and, consequently, that our third 
 Synoptic existed in his time, and was substantially 
 in the hands of Marcion.'' 
 
 The hypothesis which found favor with Baur 
 and the Tuebingen school thirty-five years ago has 
 long since been given up in Germany, even by 
 Baur himself in the main. Ritschl, who recorded 
 his adherence to the theory in 1816, gave his re- 
 cantation five years later as follows:* " I see that 
 the hj^pothesis j)ut forth by me, that Marcion did 
 
 * See Weiss, Is^ritiscli Exegetisches Handhiich ueher 
 die Evanyelien Markus and Lukas, Goettingen, 1878, 
 p. 240. 
 
LUKE AND MARCION". 15 
 
 not change the Grospel of Luke, but that his Gospel 
 is a preliminary step to the Canonical Luke, has 
 been refuted by Volkmar and Hilgenfeld. Who- 
 ever reflects upon the exceeding one-sidedness with 
 which Hahn has defended the traditional view will 
 know how to excuse me for being led by him to 
 the contrary one-sidedness" (i.e. that the author of 
 Luke's Grospel made use of Marcion's).* Says Reuss 
 of Marcion : " He took his material principally from 
 Luke as the least Judaizing ^ * * i^ f^ct his 
 books were castrated editions of single apostolic 
 writings." And Hilgenfeld remarks :f ''Among 
 the Germans it will not pass for progress that he 
 [i. e., the author of S. R.] is determined to con- 
 sider the Gospel of Marcion as independent from 
 that of Luke." If the author of Supernatural 
 Beligion is compelled to yield this point. Judge 
 Waite cannot any longer maintain his position 
 with reference to Marcion, except among those 
 wlio are so ignorant in regard to the matter, or so 
 prejudiced, that they will not see. 
 
 * Compare Lipsius, in Smith and Wace's Dictionary 
 of Christam Biogra2Jhi/, Yo\. ii, p 115; Holtzmann, in 
 Schenkel's Bibel-Lexikon, vol. i, pp. 178-179; Die 
 GesGliiclite der Ueiligen Scliriften Neuen Testaments, 
 Braunschweig, 1874, vol. i, p. 254, 
 
 t Zeitsclirift fiter WissenscaftlicJ-ie Theologie, Leipzig, 
 1875, p. 584, in a criticism of the sixth edition of Super- 
 natural Religion. 
 
16 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 Our author has followed Supeniattiral Religion 
 in findiuo that Justin Martyr does not refer to 
 our Canonical Gospels. 
 
 This is ground which has been searched again 
 and again by the most critical minds in Europe. 
 Starting with America, and with a New Testa- 
 ment scholar who has a distinguished continental 
 reputation, we find Professor Ezra Abbot, D. D., 
 LL.D., of Harvard College, in his work on The 
 Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, Boston, 1880, 
 maintaining in a masterly way that Justin Martyr 
 used all our Canonical Gospels. Crossing over to 
 England, we find the same position ably argued 
 by Dr. Wescott, on the Canon of the New 
 Testament, London, 1875; by Sanday, The Gos- 
 pels in the Second Century^ London, 1876 ; by 
 Dr. E. A. Abbot, in the Encijclopedia Britan- 
 nica, New York, 1879, pp. 816 sq., with some 
 qualifications in regard to John's Gospel^ which 
 are met by our Professor Abbot. Passing to 
 Germany, and taking a look at the standard criti- 
 cal New Testament introductions, we find that 
 Bleek, and his editor, Mangold, ^ maintain that 
 Justin Martyr was acquainted with our four Gos- 
 pels; that Reussf says, in regard to the char- 
 
 * Enleitung in das Neue lestat7nent,Bev\m, 1875, pp. 
 271, 371. 
 
 f Die QescMcMe dor Heiligen Schriften Neuen 
 Testaments, Braunschweig, 1874, Sec. 294, rem. 
 
LUKE A^D MARCIOi^. 17 
 
 acter oi: his citations from the Grospels, that 
 they refer, so far as we can compare them with 
 our texts, mostly to Matthew, but also some 
 things which are only found in Mark and Luke 
 are expressly cited, and the latter as from the dis- 
 ciple of an Apostle; and Hilgenfeld "^ remarks: 
 " Was in Justin's Evangelien . . . stand, fuehrt 
 bereits ueber die beiden Evangelien des Matthaeus 
 nnd des Marcus hinaus. Es unterliegt keinem 
 Zweifel dass er auch das Lucas-Evan gelium ge- 
 braucht hat. Sogar der Gebrauch des Johannes- 
 Evangelium wird schwer abzuweisen sein." '' That 
 which stood in Justin's Gospels leads us out al- 
 ready over the two Gospels of Matthew and Mark. 
 There is no doubt that he also used the Gospel of 
 Luke. It will be hard to deny even the use of 
 John's Gospel." 
 
 There can be no question, then, that the very 
 best critics in America, England and Germany, as 
 the result of the latest and most searching inves- 
 tigations, are agreed that Justin made use of the 
 three Synoptical Gospels, and that most of them 
 recognize, with varying degrees of assent, his use 
 of John's Gospel. Here again Judge Waite, in 
 denying this secondary relation of Justin to our 
 Canonical Gospels^ builds upon the sand. 
 
 * Historisch-Kritsche Einleitung in das Neue Tes- 
 tament, Leipzig, 1875, pp. 66 and 67. 
 
18 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 EUSEBIUS. 
 
 The constant tendency of our author's book is 
 seen in his treatment of the Fathers and of Euse- 
 bius. Whf'uever there is any danger that their 
 testimony may cast a barrier in the way of his 
 arguments, he seeks to disparage them. Such a 
 course may be natural enough for one who is ac- 
 customed to the usages of a court-room^ but it is 
 carried to such an extreme, especially in the case 
 of Eusebius, as to cast grave reflections upon the 
 methods of one who claims to be seeking after 
 the truth. We look in vain in any modern criti- 
 cal works for such a contemptuous handling of 
 the Fathers. 
 
 Grranted that they were credulous like the men 
 of their age, is all their testimony to be rejected 
 on that account? 
 
 Old Scaliger, who died in 1609, is summoned 
 from his grave to repeat an exploded slander 
 against Eusebius, that ''no writer has contributed 
 more to Christian history, and no one is guilty of 
 more mistakes." This is but a specimen of the 
 way in which the Judge conjures up the shades of 
 the past for the delectation of sciolists, who are 
 ready to discuss an}^ theme in the heavens above, 
 or in the earth beneath, with the assurance that 
 they are perfectl}^ competent to settle the ques- 
 tion. But it is absurd to quote these ancient au- 
 
EUSEBIUS. 19 
 
 thorities when scholars in the last decade have 
 made new discoveries in the same fields, and can 
 speak with authority. I know of no critics of any 
 repute, and I have consulted many, who call in 
 question the honest intent of Eusebius' statements. 
 Semisch, in Herzog and Plitt's Real Encyklopaedie,'^ 
 in commenting on Eusebius' silence with regard to 
 the bad things in Constantine's character, remarks 
 that his fault lay in this, and not in a material 
 falsification of them, and afterwards adds: ''His 
 character for historical fidelity cannot in the main 
 be denied in that which is handed down.^' The 
 following estimate of Ensebius, by Bishop Light- 
 foot, one of the most careful English scholars, is 
 taken from Smith and Wace's Didionarij of Chris- 
 tian Biography ^■\ where, after speaking of the 
 enormous labor incurred in preparing the church 
 history and defending him from the asper- 
 sions of Gibbon, he says: ''The writer con- 
 tents himself with condemning the sins and 
 shortcomings of Christians [which Lightfoot 
 says are denounced in no measured language] 
 in general terms without entering into details, 
 and declares his intention of confining him- 
 self to such topics as may be profitable to his 
 own and future generations. This treatment 
 
 * Leipzig, 1879, vol. 4, pp. 394-395. 
 
 f London. 1880, vol. 2, p. 324, sq. 
 
20 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 may be regarded as too great a sacrifice to edifica- 
 tion. It may discredit liis conception of history, 
 but it leaves no imputation on his honesty. Nor, 
 again, can the special charges against his honor 
 as a narrator be sustained. There is no ground 
 whatever for the surmise that Eusebius forged or 
 interpolated the passage from Josephus relating 
 to our Lord, quoted in H. E. i., 11, though Heini- 
 chen (iii., p. 623 sq., Melet. ii.) is disposed to en- 
 tertain the charge. Inasmuch as this passage is 
 contained in all our extant manuscripts, and there 
 is sufiicient evidence that other interpolations 
 (though not this) were introduced into the text of 
 Josephus long before his time, no suspicion can 
 justly attach to Eusebius himself. Another inter- 
 polation in the Jewish historian, which he quotes 
 elsewhere (ii., 23), was certainly known to Origen. 
 Doubtless, also, the omission of the owl in the 
 account of Herod Agrippa's death (ii., 10) was 
 already in some texts of Josephus (Ant. xix., 8. 2). 
 The manner in which Eusebius deals with his very 
 numerous quotations elsewhere, where v/e can test 
 his honesty, is a sufficient vindication against this 
 unjust charge. * * "*" J.s regards the canon of 
 Scripture, indeed, he takes special imins; he lays 
 down certain principles ivhich shall guide him in 
 the production of testimonies; and, on the ivhole, he 
 adheres to those iwinciples with fidelityy [The 
 italics are mine.] 
 
FAUSTUS. 21 
 
 I close with the following quotations from Mey- 
 er's Konversafions-Lexikon ;* " His main work, the 
 Church History, written between 324 and 326, 
 contains a rich collection from the public arch- 
 ives, church libraries, and private collections, 
 increased through traditions, inquiries from those 
 who had been participants in that which had taken 
 place, or which they themselves had experienced, 
 and although in many respects wanting in criti- 
 cism, and unpartisanship, and evenness of treat- 
 ments, yet in general bearing the character of 
 fidelity and credibility." 
 
 There can be no doubt, therefore, that when 
 Judge Waite charges Eusebius with forgeries, and 
 claims that his testimony ought not to be taken 
 except as supported by others, he is guilty of using 
 arguments which, in the judgment of modern 
 criticism, cannot stand. 
 
 FAUSTUS. 
 
 Judge Waite quotes Faustus, a Manichaean, who 
 had a discussion with Augustine, which has been 
 preserved in the writings of the latter, as saying: 
 " Besides, as v/e have proved again and again, the 
 writins^s are not the production of Christ or of 
 His Apostles, but a compilation of rumors and be- 
 liefs, made long after their departure, by some 
 
 * Leipzig, 1875, vol. 6, p. 446. 
 
22 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 obscure semi- Jews, not in harmony even with one 
 another, and published by them under the name 
 of the Apostles, or of those considered the fol- 
 lowers of the Apostles, so as to give the appear- 
 ance of apostolic authority to all these blunders 
 and falsehoods." Our author supposes that Faus- 
 tus must have made this boast good in some of 
 his writings. But of this there is no evidence. 
 He never establishes this assertion anywhere, but 
 affirms that the Paraclete (i.e., the Holy Grhost) 
 teaches him what to receive and what to reject. 
 Augustine retaliates on him by asking him what 
 proof he has that Christ sent his Paraclete, and 
 says: " You reply that you find the proof in the 
 Gospel. You do not accept the Gospel, and you 
 say that it has been tampered with. Will you 
 first accuse your witness of corruption, and then 
 call for his evidence ? To believe him when you 
 wish it, and then to disbelieve him when you wish 
 it, is to believe nobody but yourself. Where, 
 then, will you find the proof required to show 
 that it is from the Paraclete that you have learned 
 that the Gospels were not written by the Apos- 
 tles?" In another place he is inclined to claim 
 that a passage in Romans is spurious because Paul 
 asserts that the Son of God was born of the seed 
 of David according to the flesh. He simply con- 
 cedes that Paul wrote the passage because Angus- 
 
FAUSTUS. 23 
 
 tine will not hear of anything being spurious in 
 his writings. Augustine responds to such denials 
 of the genuineness of the Scriptures, as follows: 
 " In your inability to find a reason for not receiv- 
 ing what is written in the New Testament, you 
 are obliged, as a last resource, to pretend that the 
 passages are not genuine. This is the last gasp of 
 an heretic in the clutches of truth."' From this 
 it is evident that Faustus, instructed by the Para- 
 clete (i. e., the Holy Ghost), as he claimed, rejected 
 all passages in the Old and New Testaments which 
 were contrary to his doctrines as spurious, without 
 the slightest evidence. This is all the more evi- 
 dent when we go back to Celsus, who is quoted 
 by Origen. According to Judge Waite, he did 
 not write The True Worcl^ in which he refers 
 to the New Testament books, until early in the 
 third century. Unfortunately for Mr. Waite, 
 however. Dr. Keim^ who belongs to the most lib- 
 eral German school, and who made a very careful 
 investia^ation of the subject, Celsus' Wahres 
 Wort, Zurich, 1873, sets the date in the year 177 
 or 178 A. D.; see Smith & Wace's Didmiary of 
 Christian Biograj^hy."^ 
 
 When pushed with arguments which he cannot 
 answer he does not, like Faustus, urge the spur- 
 iousness of the Gospels, as he might well have 
 * London, 1877, vol. 1, p. 436. 
 
24 THE DATE OF OUE GOSPELS. 
 
 clone if Judge Waite's theory were true, that they 
 were not written before the last quarter of the sec- 
 ond century. His refuge, like that of so many 
 skeptics of the present time, is in interpolations. 
 He is the forerunner of Judge Waite and his 
 compeers, who assume that the supernatural ele- 
 ments and all the unpalatable doctrines were 
 interpolated. The following is his charge and 
 Origen's answer: 
 
 '' Certain Christian believers "^ * "^ have 
 corrupted the Gospel from its original integrity, 
 to a three-fold, and four-fold, and many-fold de- 
 gree, and have remodeled it, so that they might 
 be able to answer objections." 
 
 To this Origen replies: "Now I know of no 
 others who have altered the Gospel save the fol- 
 lowers of Marcion, and those of Valentinus, and 
 I think, also, those of Lucian. But such an alle- 
 gation is no charge against the Christians^ but 
 against those who dared to trifle with the Gospel." 
 
 Taking the quotation from Faustus in connec- 
 tion with that of Celsus, it will be seen that their 
 charges of forgery and interpolation rest on mere 
 assertions, and apply to those parts of the New 
 Testament which they do not like. 
 
 THE OLD YERSIOJ^S. 
 
 A further illustration of Judge Waite's ten- 
 dency-criticism is seen in the date which he 
 
MURATORIAN FRAGMENT. 25 
 
 assigns to the old \^ersions. He says (p. 304): 
 " The four Gospels were written in Greek, and 
 there was no translation of them into other 
 languages earlier than the third century." 
 The best and latest authorities assign the old 
 Latin version to about the middle, or not 
 later than the end of the second century. 
 Hilgenfeld says the New Testament was trans- 
 lated into Latin in the second century. Wescott 
 assigns the date of that translation to the year 
 ITO A. D. Bleek, Tregelles, Scrivener, Sanday, 
 all assign it to the middle of the second century. 
 Roensch holds that it could not have been made 
 later than 200 A. D. Of course these dates are 
 very unfavorable to his hypothesis that the Gos- 
 pels first arose in the last quarter of the second 
 century. 
 
 MURATORIAN FRAGMENT. 
 
 Another illustration of the unvarying tendency 
 of our author's argument is in his attitude toward 
 the Muratorian fragment, respecting which, after 
 speakins: very depreciatingly of it, he sa3's: "It 
 is supposed by some to have been written in the 
 second century. =i^ * * There are eminent 
 critics, however, who hold that the orisjinal was 
 not written earlier than the third century. The 
 document itself, a production of about the eighth 
 century, cannot be loolted upon as a very satis- 
 
26 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 factory evidence of the condition of the church 
 in the second century." Now, the fact is that 
 the most eminent New Testament scholars in 
 America, England, and Germany, with a few ex- 
 ceptions, hold that the Muratorian fragment was 
 written in the last quarter of the second century 
 (most setting the date at about 170-180 A. D.) 
 Some of them are: Professor Ezra Abbot, of 
 Harvard College; Dr. E. A. Abbott, Canon Wes- 
 cott, W. A. Sanday, Credner, Wieseler, Bleek, 
 Reuss, Hilgenfeld, and man}^ others. 
 
 Even the author of Supernatural Religion has 
 to admit that the mass of critics, thirty-two in all, 
 are against him, while only eight can be found 
 who assign a later date, and these, with the excep- 
 tion of Donaldson, merely hold that the fragment 
 dates from the end of the second or beginning of 
 the third century. This is a case where the author 
 of Supernatural Religion and Judge Waite show 
 that they "have few equals in their power of re- 
 sisting evidence opposed to their prejudices." — Pro- 
 fessor Abbot. In view of the investigations of 
 the most distinguished scholars, the Muratorian 
 fragment is a 'very important witness for the 
 canonical character of our Gospels in the last 
 quarter of the second century. 
 
 THE MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 Again, Judge Waite shows his bias and his 
 ignorance in regard to manuscripts, when he ex- 
 
THE MANUSCRIPTS. 27 
 
 presses liis surprise that no autographs of the 
 Grospeis have come down to us, and that none of 
 the existing manuscripts of the Gospels date further 
 back than the fourth century. The following 
 quotations from Scrivener's Introduction to the 
 Criticism of the New Testament^^^ will tend to set 
 this matter in its true light: 
 
 "As the New Testament far surpasses all other 
 remains of antiquity in value and interest, so are 
 the copies of it yet existing in manuscript, and 
 dating from the fourth century of our era down- 
 ward, far more numerous than those of the most 
 celebrated writers of Grreece or Rome. Such as 
 have been already discovered and set down in cata- 
 logues are hardly fewer than 2,000; and many more 
 still linger unknown in the monastic libraries of the 
 East. Or the other hand, manuscripts of the 
 most illustrious classic poets and philosophers are 
 far rarer and comparatively modern. We have no 
 complete copy of Homer himself prior to the 
 thirteenth century, though some considerable 
 fragments have been recently brought to light 
 which may plausibly be assigned to the fifth cen- 
 tury; while more than one work of high and 
 deserved repute has been preserved to our times in 
 only a single copy." 
 The following remark is made in Smithes Dic- 
 
 * Cambridge, 1874, pp. 3-4. 
 
28 THE DATE OP OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 tionary of Greek and Roman BiograpJnj and 
 Mythology ^"^ in regard to the manuscripts of Livj's 
 ( b. 59, B.C. d. 17 A. D.) History: '^ No manuscript 
 of Livy has yet been discovered containing all the 
 books now extant. ^ * * =i^ Of the first and 
 third decades we have manuscripts as old as the 
 tenth century; those of the fourth [decade] do not 
 ascend higher than the fifteenth century." And 
 Max Mueller, in his Lectures on the Origin and 
 Growth ofBeligion.;\ states that " but few Sanskrit 
 manuscripts are older than 1000 A. D." 
 
 MANUSCRIPTS OF THE i^EW TESTAilEN"!. 
 
 When we consider that the earliest copies of 
 the New Testament may have been written on the 
 perishable papyrus, which was chiefly employed 
 for ordinary purposes in the first century]: we need 
 not be surprised that the sacred autographs have 
 perished. Indeed, when we remember that a por- 
 tion of the precious Sinaitic Dianuscript was con- 
 signed to a waste-basket as useless by the ignorant 
 monks of St. Catharine, who had previously burned 
 two baskets full of bits of old manuscripts, and 
 was only rescued by Tischendorf's timely visit, it 
 
 * Boston, 1870, vol. 2. p. 795. 
 t :N'ew York, 1873, p. 148. 
 X See Scrivener, pp. 23-24. 
 
CHRIST AND KRISH2!5^A. 2D 
 
 need not surprise lis that we have so few very 
 ancient manuscripts of the Scriptures. 
 
 CHRIST AN^D KRISHJS'A. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of the external evi- 
 dences adduced by Judge Waite in proof of his 
 position that the Gospels were not written before 
 the last quarter of the second century, I should 
 perhaps notice the striking parallels which are 
 drawn between Christ as portrayed in the 
 existing Gospels of the Infancy and the account 
 of Krishna in the Bhagavat Purana. Before 
 discussing this subject I wish to have it un- 
 derstood that, to my mind, it is no impeach- 
 ment of the truths of the Bible that we 
 find traditions of the creation, the fall, and 
 the deluge which, even in their grotesque forms, 
 reminds us of the accounts in Genesis, and 
 which may be reminiscences from one ancestral 
 house. The fact that other nations besides the 
 Hebrews confessed their sins and sought forgive- 
 ness does not disprove the divine nature of that 
 doctrine. David is not less inspired because we 
 find in the Chaldean literature passages which re- 
 mind us of the penitential psalms. Lenormant 
 gives the following :* 
 " God, who knowest that which is secret, be gracious. 
 
 ^Bie Magie iind WaJirsagekunst der Chaldaei; -pp. 
 66-67. 
 
THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 Goddess, who knowest that which is secret, be gra- 
 cious. 
 
 my God, my sins are seven times seven, forgive my 
 sins. 
 
 O my Goddess, my sins are seven times seven, forgive 
 my sins." 
 
 These are only ''some solitary fragments of 
 pure gold from a heap of rubbish.'' — Max Mueller. 
 But the parallels between Christ and Krishna have 
 evidently risen in a different way. Either the 
 Gospels of the Infancy have borrowed certain ele- 
 ments from the account of Krishna, in the Bhag- 
 avat Purana^ as Judge Waite claims, or the 
 Bhagavat Purana has borrowed from iVpocryphal 
 Gospels. 
 
 Now, unless it can be shown, beyond the shadow 
 of a doubt, that the Bhagavat Purana, in its 
 present form, has essentially the same form as it 
 had before the Gospels of the Infancy appeared, 
 Judge Waiters claim, and that of all his kith and 
 kin, breaks down. 
 
 But Judge Waite cannot establish his position; 
 he adduces Colonel Kennedy, Avho, in the quota- 
 tion given, simply argues the matter as a question 
 of probabilities. Mr. Wilson, in The Vishnu 
 Purana,'^ says: "The inference deduced from 
 the discrepancy between the actual form and 
 the older definition of a Purana, unfavora- 
 
 * London, 1840, p. 0. 
 
CHRIST AND KRISHNA. 31 
 
 ble to the antiquitj^ of the extant works- 
 generally, is converted into certainty when we 
 come to examine them in detail; for although they 
 have no dates attached to them, yet circumstances 
 are sometimes mentioned or alluded to, or refer- 
 ences to authorities are made, or legends are nar- 
 rated, or places are particularized, of which the 
 comparatively recent date is indisputable, and 
 which enforce a corresponding reduction (»f the 
 antiquity of the work in which they are discov- 
 ered." Unless ese thino-s can be satisfactorily 
 explained, and it can be proved that the Puranas 
 have not received any modern elements siiice the 
 Christian era. Judge Waite's assumption, as I have 
 stated, must fall to the ground. All the authori- 
 ties accessible to me corroborate the above state- 
 ment in regard to the comparatively recent origin 
 of the Puranas. Max Mueller, in his Chips from a 
 German Worksliop^^ says: 
 
 ''' What is commonly called Hindu mythology 
 is of little or no avail for comparative pur- 
 poses. The stories of Siva * * * * Krishna, 
 etc., are of late growth, indigenous to India, and 
 full of wild and fanciful conceptions. But while 
 this late mythology of the Puranas,'' etc. Again, 
 in his Lectures on the Origin and Groivth of Be- 
 ligion^fhe remarks: 
 
 * Kew York, 1870, vol. 2, p. 75. 
 t XeAv York, 1879, p. 149. 
 
32 THE DATE OF OUK GOSPELS. 
 
 " We must carefully distinguish between the 
 Puranas, such as they now exist, and the original 
 Purana, a recognized form of ancient tradition. 
 * * * "^ Totally distinct from this are the 
 Puranas. So late as the time of Gaimini no im- 
 portance was attached to the Puranas, for he does 
 not even refer to them in his "System of Mi- 
 mamsa."* 
 
 The following quotation from Weber,f doubtless 
 gives the prevailing view of German scholars as 
 to their age : " The jealousy of the priestly families 
 who claimed the pre-eminence for this or that form 
 of worship and temple, and who fought one an- 
 other with malignant hatred, contributed not a 
 little to the formation of sects. The Puranas 
 belong to this time of religious divisions, * * * 
 which in their present form hardly extend beyond 
 the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era." 
 Compare Meyer's Konversations LexikonX where 
 it said of them: "Along with these reminiscences 
 of primitive times they show the peculiarities of 
 a modern tendency," etc. 
 
 There seems, therefore, to be no doubt that the 
 Bhagavat Purana may have derived those partic- 
 
 * Compare the Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 9, pp. 245, 247 ; 
 vol. 15, p. 844 sq. 
 t Allgemeine Weltgescliichte, Leipzig, 1857, vol. 1. p. 296. 
 X Leipzig, 1878, vol. 13., p. 341. 
 
IKTERl^AL CHARACTER OF THE GOSPELS. 33 
 
 ulars ill wliicli the portraiture of Krishna corres- 
 ponds to that of Christ through the medium of 
 one of the Apocryphal Gospels. Without laying 
 any weight upon the tradition given by Eusebius' 
 Ecclesiastical History, B. Y., 10, that Pantaenus 
 visited the Indies and found on his arrival that 
 Bartholomew, one of the Apostles, had already 
 preached there and left the Gospel of Matthew in 
 Hebrew, since the India referred to here is gener- 
 ally supposed to have been Arabia, it is not difficult 
 to suppose that some form of the Gospel of the 
 Infancy, which existed both in Syriac and Arabic 
 translations, may have given a coloring to the 
 myths respecting Krishna. Indeed, this is far 
 more reasonable than the theory that the Apocry- 
 phal Gospels have gathered only these things from 
 the myths of Krishna, since they do not exhibit 
 any traces of a hero who is represented as revel- 
 ing in licentiousness and mischief, for when we 
 come to the person of Christ there is no similarity 
 in the portraiture. 
 
 INTERNAL CHARACTER OF THE GOSPELS. 
 
 Leaving the discussion of Judge Waite's exter- 
 nal history of the Gospels, not because I have by 
 any means indicated all his false hypotheses, but 
 for want of time, I turn to consider very briefly 
 his criticisms on their internal character. His 
 strictures upon them are as histories. Hence he 
 
 3 
 
34 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 dwells upon their alleged discrepancies and their 
 incompleteness. It must be evident, however, that 
 he judges them from a false standpoint. As their 
 name Gospels implies, they are not histories, but 
 glad tidings, good news, for particular classes of 
 people. They differ as much from complete biog- 
 raphies as historical discourses do, which are de- 
 signed to teach specific lessons. Their authors 
 were by no means anxiously concerned to secure a 
 verbal agreement. If that had been the case it 
 would have been a very simple matter for each 
 Evangelist to have so given the inscription on the 
 cross that there should have been no deviation ; 
 but would not our skeptics have been ready to 
 accuse them of collusion? Would not four per- 
 sons who should repeat the same story word for 
 word in court excite suspicion? It is not within 
 the range of human power for different individuals 
 to report the same events and discourses, experi- 
 enced and heard in a series of years, alike or in the 
 same order. Shall we, therefore, deny that the 
 facts reported ever happened? Certainly, if we 
 had only one Gospel, skeptics would claim that it 
 was not true because it lacked confirmation. If 
 all the Gospels related the same facts in the same 
 order, it would be argued more strenuously than 
 at present, that one had been derived from another. 
 But as the case now stands variations in the ac- 
 
INTERNAL CHARACTER OF THE GOSPELS. 35 
 
 counts, which under ordinary tests would not be 
 regarded as fatal to the substantial accuracy of the 
 narrative, are urged as reasons for doubting every- 
 thing of a supernatural character. If, however, 
 we once admit the claim of Scripture that God 
 became flesh and dwelt among us, we have no dif- 
 ficulty in regard "to the immaculate conception, 
 the miracles, or Christ's actual resurrection. 
 
 Indeed, as regards the miracles, I cannot con- 
 ceive how a compassionate Redeemer could resist 
 the cries for help which were directed to Him as 
 He walked among men. Now, the fact that there 
 has been no anxious attempt to conform one Gos- 
 pel narrative to another in every particular is, as I 
 have already suggested, an indication of genuine- 
 ness, especially as it has been ably shown by Canon 
 Wescott* and others that each Gospel was designed 
 to meet the wants of a specific class, Matthew 
 being written originally for the Jews, Mark for 
 the Romans, Luke for the Hellenists, and John 
 for the Alexandrians, and so the Gospels came to 
 have a universal character adapted to every age 
 and civilization. Much is made of the differences 
 between John and the first three Gospels, not only 
 as to the facts related, but also with reference to 
 the style of Jesus' addresses. But the difficulty 
 
 * Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, London, 
 1875, p. 209, sq. 
 
36 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 disappears when we remember that Matthew, Mark, 
 and Luke present the scenes of Christ^s Galilean 
 ministry among the rude peasantry who were less 
 acquainted with the law than their southern 
 brethren, and who needed simple and direct teach- 
 ing; on the other hand, John sets forth mainly 
 Christ's Judean ministry among those who w^ere 
 conversant with the law and were accustomed to 
 elaborate discussions. The ministry of one year 
 implied by the Synoptists, considered by them- 
 selves, does not exclude the three years' ministry 
 which is derived from John's Gospel, for the four 
 taken together supplement each other. I shall 
 not enter here into the difficult subject of the 
 genealogies, or of the enrollment. They have 
 been explained sufficiently, considering our want 
 of data, to satisfy every seeker after the truth who 
 does not wish to find a stumbling-block in them. 
 Canon Farrar, who confesses that he would be 
 perfectly ready with his views of inspiration to 
 admit that they involved historical inaccuracies if 
 necessary, receives the records in regard to them 
 as true. 
 
 IIi[FLUENCE OF ROMAN HIERARCHY. 
 
 i I pass now to consider the alleged influence of 
 the Roman hierarchy upon the four Gospels. I 
 shall not attempt to controvert Judge Waite's 
 
INFLUENCE OF ROMAN HIERARCHY. 37 
 
 preposterous assumption, but merely to show that 
 the claim that Victor played the part of a sover- 
 eign pontiff in excommunicating the non-con- 
 forming Asiatic churches who differed with him 
 in regard to the celebration of Easter, and that 
 Irenaeus supported his supremacy, cannot be es- 
 tablished. Griesselersays:* ''With the rejection 
 of Montanism in Rome was probably connected 
 Victor's opposition to the Asiatic mode of cele- 
 brating Easter. He called upon the bishops in 
 Asia Minor (about 196) to adopt the customs of 
 the West on this point, and after their refusal, 
 when he had been assured of the assent of the 
 bishops in Palestine, Pontus, Gaul, and Corinth, 
 broke off church communion with them. Several 
 bishops, however, and Irenaeus himself among 
 them, admonished him on account of his too great 
 haste; peace was again restored, and both parties 
 continued undisturbed in the observance of their 
 own customs till the council of Nice." It is 
 clearly evident that a Roman bishop who had to 
 yield to the protests of his brethren was not abso- 
 lute, and that Irenaeus in denouncing his course, 
 as he does in no measared language, is by no 
 means the subservient creature to the Church of 
 Rome that Judge Waite would have us believe.f 
 
 * Church History, New York, 1857, vol. 1, pp. 196-97. 
 t Compare, Schaff's History of the Christian C huroh 
 New York, 1869, vol. 1, pp. 375, 428. 
 
OO THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 In closing it will be seen that Judge Waite's 
 assumption that there is no evidence of the doc- 
 trine of the immaculate conception, of miracles, 
 and of Christ's material (i.e. actual) resurrection 
 in the first century, is, even according to his 
 theory, unfounded, because he asserts that the 
 Gospels then existing are lost and we are not ac- 
 quainted with their contents. I have shown that 
 the consensus of criticism is that Justin Martyr 
 used at least three of our Gospels, and according 
 to Professor Abbot and other able scholars the 
 fourth, that Marcion had Luke, that the Murato- 
 rian fragment mentions the last two Gospels and 
 implies the other two; that the old Latin version 
 contained the four Gospels. Here, then, is pos- 
 itive proof, in the opinion of all critics, except 
 those who are blinded by prejudice, that the three 
 (and perhaps four) Gospels were in existence in 
 the time of Justin Martyr. This result has been 
 secured by the most careful sifting of evidence. 
 Thus far the case is not argued on probabilities, 
 but is as strong and positive as anything can be 
 under the circumstances. From every point the 
 argument is strengthened. I quote for illustra- 
 tration from Sanday:* '^Irenaeus (who speaks of 
 the four Gospels,) as we have seen, was writing in 
 
 "^The Gospels in the Second Ceziiwr.y, Loudon, 1876, 
 p. 326. 
 
JUSTIIS" MARTYR. 39 
 
 the decade 180-190 A. D. But his evidence is 
 surely valid lor an earlier date than this. He is 
 usually supposed to have been born about the year 
 140 A. D., and the way in which he describes his 
 relations to Polycarp will not admit of a date 
 many years later. But his strong sense of the 
 the continuity of church doctrine and the excep- 
 tional veneration that he accords to the Gospels 
 seem alone to exclude the supposition that any of 
 them should have been composed in his own life- 
 time." 
 
 JUSTII^ MARTYR. 
 
 Returning, then, to Justin Martyr, the weight 
 of critical ev^idence shows that, at the latest in 
 the year 116 or 117 A. D., he appeals to Gospels 
 which critics maintain were coextensive with 
 our first three, and as Professor Abbot and 
 other eminent critics hold, with the four. 
 These, as Professor Abbot shows, Justin Mar- 
 tyr mentions eight times as ''Memoirs by the 
 Apostles ;" four times he calls them " the 
 Memoirs" simply; once "Memoirs made by the 
 Apostles, which are called Gospels;" once, when 
 he cites apparently from the Gospel of Luke, 
 "Memoirs composed by the Apostles of Christ 
 and their companions." Once again, when he 
 speaks of a fact only mentioned, so far as we 
 know, in the Gospel of Mark, he designates as his 
 
40 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 authority ''Peter's Memoirs," which, supposing 
 him to have used our Gospels, is readily explained 
 by the fact that Peter was regarded by the an- 
 cients as furnishing the materials for the Gospel 
 of Mark, his traveling companion and interpreter. 
 " On the day called Sunday," he says, " all who 
 live in the cities or in the country gather together 
 to one place, and the Memoirs by the Apostles or 
 the writings of the Prophets are read as long as 
 time permits. When the reader has finished the 
 President admonishes and exhorts to the imitation 
 of these good things." From this it appears that 
 the " Memoirs by the Apostles " were held in as 
 great reverence as the Prophets of the Old Testa- 
 ment; and that in the year 147 they occupied the 
 same pre-eminent position which Irenaeus assigned 
 to the Gospels forty years later; hence, irrespctive 
 of the linguistic evidence furnished by the critics, 
 we have good reason for believing that the Mem- 
 oirs of Justin, which he once calls Gospels, are 
 the same as our Canonical Gospels, since, as Mr. 
 Norton says: " We cannot suppose that writings 
 such as the Memoirs of which Justin speaks, be- 
 lieved to be the works of Apostles and companions 
 of Apostles, read in Chrirtian churches, and re- 
 ceived as sacred books of the highest authority, 
 should immediately after he wrote have fallen into 
 neglect and oblivion, and been superseded by 
 
JOHNS'. 41 
 
 another set of books." Up to this point, it seems 
 to me that we can pretty clearly trace the presence 
 of the Canonical Gospels. Earlier than this the 
 arguments derived from the quotations found in 
 the Apostolic Fathers taken alone would not 
 prove the contemporary existence of our Canon- 
 ical Gospels, still the evidence furnished by some 
 passages in Barnabas (130 A. D.) and in Clement 
 of Rome (95-100 A. D.), which correspond to 
 passages in our Gospels seem to be confirmatory; 
 and taken in connection with the fact that the 
 Memoirs, or Gospels, which were held in such 
 reverence in the churches at the time of Justin, 
 could not have suddenly secured that pre-emi- 
 nence, is important. We are thus borne on 
 toward the end of the first century, and can now 
 better appreciate the various dates assigned to our 
 four Gospels by eminent scholars. 
 
 JOHN". 
 
 Taking up the Gospel of John as the youngest, 
 we find that the progress of criticism has been 
 that of a retreat towards the beginning of the 
 second century. While Baur and Schwegler of 
 the Tuebingeri school assigned it to the years 160 
 and 170 A. D., they were beaten back so that Zeller 
 and Scholten adopted the year 150; Hilgenfeld, 
 at last compelled to admit its use by Justin 
 Martyr, retreats to a time between 130 and 140; 
 
42 ' THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 Renaii assigns it to 125 or 130^ and Keim, in the 
 first volume of his History of Jesus of Nazareth, 
 confidently placed it between 110 and 115, but 
 seeing the dangerous consequences of this admis- 
 sion, he maintained, in his last volume of the same 
 work that it arose in the year 130. '^ Schenkel as- 
 signs it to A. D. 115-120." In this connection 
 Professor Abbot, from whom I have derived these 
 statements, positively says: '*Itis the uniform 
 tradition, supported by great weight of testimony, 
 that the evangelist John lived to a very advanced 
 age, spending the latter portion of his life in Asia 
 Minor, and dying there in the reign of Trajan, not 
 far from A. D. 100. How could a spurious Gospel 
 of a character so peculiar, so different from the 
 earlier Synoptic Grospels, so utterly unhistorical, 
 as it is afiirmed to be gain currency as the work 
 of the Apostle, both among Christians and the 
 gnostic heretics, if it originated only twenty-five 
 or thirty years after his death, when so many who 
 must have known whether he wrote such a work 
 or not were still living." It will then be seen 
 that the probability that the Apostle John wrote 
 the Fourth Gospel is very strong indeed. See on 
 this point an admirable critical treatise on The 
 Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, by Professor 
 Abbot, Boston, 1880. 
 
LUKE — MARK. 43 
 
 With reference to Luke, the antiquated hypoth- 
 esis of Schleiermacher* with reference to the com- 
 posite character of Luke, which Judge Waite 
 quotes in the main with approval, has long since 
 been rejected. Weiss remarks that the genuine- 
 ness of this Gospel is assured by the external wit- 
 ness without exception. Baur and Zeller hold 
 that it arose 110-130 A. D. Hilgenfeld, Keim, 
 and Volkmar assign it to the year 100 A. D. Godet 
 says that it can be referred back as far as the 
 period from 61 to 80 A. D., and Weiss holds that 
 it arose between 70 and SO.f 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Mark, which is regarded by Weiss as the prim- 
 itive Gospel, was written, according to Hitzig, 
 55-57 A. D. Schenkel before 60; Volkmar, 73; 
 Koestlin, who distinguishes between a primitive 
 Mark (65-70) and our Gospel, before 110; and 
 Keim, 115-120. The best authorities, with Weiss 
 and Meyer, hold that it arose before the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem. 
 
 * Krit. Versui-li ueher die ScJirifteri des Luhas I, Berg 
 lin, 1837. 
 
 f Compare Weiss Kritisch Exegetishces Handbuch- 
 ueber die Ecangelien des Markus und Liikas, Goettin- 
 gen, 1878, and the introduction to Godet's excellent 
 and cheap Commentary on Luke, Kew York, 1881. 
 
44 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 MATTHEW. 
 
 Matthew was written, according to Baur, about 
 130. Hertwig, however, says* that in his opinion he 
 received no support. Volkmar places it between 
 105 and 110, Schenkel after, and Keim before, 70. 
 Hertwig says that it was certainly written before 
 the destruction of Jerusalem, between 60 and 70, 
 and this latter date is the one adopted by sober 
 criticism. 
 
 While regarding Judge Waite's work as a com- 
 plete failure from a critical point of view, and as 
 years behind the times, except so far as he leans 
 upon the author of Supeniatural Religion, I have 
 no doubt that the book will do many great injury 
 on account of its apparent learning and candor. 
 Those, however, who appreciate the weight of 
 the testimony which Christianity affords in its 
 historical existence, as confessedly the greatest 
 and most beneficent power in those lands which 
 have been visited by the Gospel, vdil not be shaken 
 by a work which the}^ may not be in a position to 
 refute, while the Christian scholar, who is familiar 
 with the ground may well senile at the assurance 
 with which uncritical and absurd hypotheses are 
 set forth. This entire class of literature will only 
 
 * Tahellen zur Einleitung ins NeueTestainenU'BQxlin, 
 1872. 
 
MATTHEW. 45 
 
 lead true Christian scholars to examine the founda- 
 tions more carefully and to revindicate those glori- 
 ous doctrines which skeptics, from Celsus down to 
 the present time, have assailed in vain. 
 
PART SECOND. 
 
 WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ? 
 
 Within the past few months the assertion has 
 been made with great persistency, in various pub- 
 lications and in the daily press, that our Gospels 
 of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not writ- 
 ten before the last quarter of the second century, 
 I have already shown in the foregoing review that 
 even those modern critics who do not accept the 
 supernatural character of the Gospels are con- 
 strained, almost to a man, on the basis of scientific 
 and elaborate investigations, to place the origin 
 of our Gospels, with a few exceptions in regard to 
 the Gospel of John, either in the latter part of 
 the first century, or in the first quarter of the 
 second. You can see how this admission gives 
 the anti-supernaturaiists trouble, but they cannot 
 help themselves. The evidence is against them. 
 It is not my purpose to weary you with evidence 
 which can only be appreciated by specialists. I 
 shall simply try, so far as I may be enabled, to 
 present a cumulative argument. A single wire 
 may be broken, but when man}^ are twisted into 
 cables, and properly secured on each side of a 
 river, they furnish an adequate support over which 
 
48 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 thousands of passengers are daily carried with en- 
 tire security. This may serve to illustrate the 
 strength of the arguments for the genuineness 
 of the Gospels when combined. If I fail to gather 
 them together it will not be because they do not 
 exist, but for want of power to make them ap- 
 parent. 
 
 Let us now examine the statement that our 
 Gospels were not written before the last quarter 
 of the second century. It is admitted that they 
 were in existence at that time. What does this 
 admission involve? 
 
 DIEFUSIOiT OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 At a time when it is conceded by all, except by 
 a notorious blasphemer, who, in such matters, is a 
 profound ignoramous, that the Gospels were in 
 existence, the Church had extended even beyond 
 the confines of the Roman world. It stretched 
 from the Euphrates to the Straits of Gibraltar, 
 from France, and probably Britain and Germany, 
 to Africa, including Palestine, Syria, Greece, and 
 Italy. Gibbon,* who is very moderate in chron- 
 icling the spread of Christianity^ estimates that 
 at the end of the third 'century there were six 
 millions of Christians, or one twentieth of the pop- 
 ulation of the Roman world. This being the case, 
 it certainly would not be extravagant to suppose, 
 
 ^Decline and Fall of the Roman Emjyire, Ch. ii. 
 
DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 
 
 with Norton, that at the close of the second cen- 
 tury there were three millions. But even this 
 estimate seems very low when we read such testi- 
 monies as those of Pliny and Tertallian. 
 
 The heathen Phny, who had been sent by Tra^ 
 jan to govern the provinces of Pontus and Bythinia, 
 early in the second century^ writes as follows: "I 
 have recourse to you for advice; for it has ap- 
 peared to me a subject proper to consult you about; 
 especially on account of the number of those [the 
 Christians] against whom accusations are brought. 
 For many of all ages, of every rank, and of both 
 sexes likewise, have been and will be accused. 
 The contagion of this superstition has made its 
 way not in cities onl5% but in the lesser towns 
 also, and in the open country. It seems to me 
 that it may be stopped and corrected. It is cer- 
 tain that the temples which were almost deserted 
 begin to be frequented; and the sacred solemnities 
 are revived after a long intermission. Victims 
 likewise are ever}/ where sold, of which, till lately, 
 there were very few purchasers."* This quotation 
 clearly shows that at thi^time more tlian one in 
 forty, a proportion on which this estimate is based,f 
 were Christians in Pontus and Bythinia. And 
 
 * Plinii Epist, Lib. X, Eipst. 97. 
 f This estimate is made on the supposition that the 
 population of the Roman Empire was then 120,000,000, 
 
 4 
 
50 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 there is no reason to believe that Christianity was 
 less diffused in other communities where it had 
 secured a foothold. 
 
 Tertullian, who had been an eminent jurist, who 
 was one of the most learned men of his time, and 
 who was converted to the faith which he had 
 ridiculed, after he was thirty j^ears of age, bears 
 this testimony to the spread of Christianity about 
 the close of the second century: 
 
 "We are but of yesterday, and we have filled 
 everything that is yours, cities, islands, castles, 
 free towns^ council-halls, the very camps, all classes 
 of men, the palace, the senate, the forum. We 
 have left you nothing but your temples. * * * 
 If we, such a multitude of men, had broken away 
 from you, retiring into some remote corner of the 
 world, your government would have been covered 
 with shame at the loss of so many citizens, who- 
 ever they might be. * * * Without doubt 
 you would have been terrified at your solitude; at 
 the silence and stupor of all things, as if the 
 world were dead. You would have had to look 
 about you for subjects.'^ 
 
 But you say that this language is rhetorical and 
 exaggerated. Granted; yet there must have been 
 a foundation for these statements, of which the 
 evidences were before the very eyes of his oppo- 
 nents. Tertullian had too keen a mind to make 
 
DIFFUSIOiT OF CHRISTIAN^ITY. 51 
 
 assertions which were utterly false and would have 
 covered him with derision. We may then con- 
 sider that we are warranted in accepting the 
 estimate that in the last quarter of the second 
 century there were in the Roman Empire at least 
 three millions of Christians. 
 
 But although there were so many, they had not 
 been united under one head. While holding the 
 same fundamental doctrines, for in this survey I 
 do not at all take into account the heretics, they 
 were widely separated from each other by differ- 
 ences of race, language and religious views. There 
 had not yet been a general council. Even rating 
 the facilities of communication which the Roman 
 government had at its command at the highest, 
 the difficulties in th() way of an interchange of 
 views between churches which were under the ban 
 are almost beyond our comprehension in these 
 days of rapid transit; and yet, that most careful 
 scholar, Professor Abbot, of Harvard College, boldly 
 declares, as unquestionable^ that ''Our present 
 four Gospels, and no others, were received by the 
 great body of Christians as genuine and sacred 
 books during the last quarter of the second cen- 
 tury;"* in other words, our Gospels were received 
 as genuine by three millions of Christians, widely 
 separated from each other by forests, mountains, 
 * Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, Boston, 1880, p. 13. 
 
62 THE DATE OF OUE GOSPELS. 
 
 and seas, speaking different languages and holding 
 different shades of religious belief, in the last 
 quarter of the second century. 
 
 KECEPTION OE THE POUR GOSPELS. 
 
 This proposition is established by the following 
 considerations: 
 
 First. The weight of critical authority goes to 
 show that an old Latin version containing the 
 Gospels was current in the last quarter of the 
 second century. 
 
 Second. The same date, although without equal 
 positiveness, is assigned by many of the foremost 
 scholars to the Syriac version of the Gospels. 
 
 Third. All critics of eminence, about forty in 
 all, with possibly two or three exceptions, concede 
 that the Muratorian fragment, which mentions 
 the Gospels as belonging to the New Testament 
 Canon, originated, at the latest, in the last quarter 
 of the second century. 
 
 Fourth. Irenseus, who was born between 125 
 and 130 A. D., after spending his youth in Asia 
 Minor, became bishop of Lyons, in France. 
 He, as well as the other Church Fathers, whom I 
 shall cite, was a man of rare education and intel- 
 ligence. Norton in his admirable work on the 
 Genuineness of the Gospels^ says: "The pas- 
 sages cited by him [Irenaeus] from the Gospels * 
 * * fill about eleven closely printed folio col- 
 
RECEPTION" OF THE FOUR GOSPELS. 53 
 
 umns; while the passages cited from all the Old 
 Testament fill about fifteen such columns. He 
 appeals to the Gospels continually and quotes 
 them as undoubted authority for the faith of the 
 great body of Christians, with the same confidence 
 which might be felt by any writer of the present 
 day. They were books in general circulation and 
 commonly studied." * Irenaeus himself says: 
 "All the Scriptures, both Prophecies and Gospels, 
 are clear and without ambiguity, and may be 
 heard in like manner by all, though all do not 
 believe.^t 
 
 Is it conceivable that Irenaeus would have made 
 such constant appeals to the Gospels, placing them 
 on an equality with the Old Testament, if they 
 had not been generally received by the church ? 
 
 Fifth. Clement, of Alexandria, who, after his 
 conversion, traveled in Greece, Italy, Syria, and 
 Palestine, seeking religious instruction, and who, 
 about the year 190 A. D., became the head of the 
 catechetical school at Alexandria, made such fre- 
 quent quotations from the Gospels that his extant 
 works are of great value in settling the true text. 
 He not only claims in one passage that '* the 
 Scriptures which we [Christians] have believed are 
 
 * The Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, 
 Cambridge, 1846, vol. i. p. 134. 
 \Lih. ii. c. 27. 
 
54 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 confirmed by the authority of the Omnipotent," 
 but proposes •' to evince from them in opposition 
 to all heretics, that there is one God and almighty 
 Lord, clearly proclaimed by the Law and the 
 Prophets, and together with them by the blessed- 
 Gospel."! Again he disposes of a reputed saying 
 of Christ quoted by certain heretics from an 
 apocryphal book, by remarking: "In the first 
 place, we have not that saying in the four Gospels 
 which have been handed down to us." Such lan- 
 guage and such a constant use of the Gospels pre- 
 supposes that they were in common use among 
 the Christians when he wrote. 
 
 Sixth. Tertullian, who was born at Carthage, 
 160, A. D., writes as follows: "Among the Apos- 
 tles, John and Matthew form the faith within us. 
 Among the companions of the Apostles, Luke and 
 Mark renovate it."§ Again, in writing to heath- 
 ens in defense of Christians, he says; "Examine 
 the words of God, our literature, which we are far 
 from concealing, and which many accidents throw 
 in the way of those who are not of our number." 
 * ''^ In this very connection he quotes two passages 
 from these Scriptures, one from the Gospels and 
 the other from the Epistles, with reference to the 
 
 ^ Stro7nata, B. iv. c. 1. 
 
 § Adcersus MarGionem, Lib. iv. 
 
 * * A2^ologetirMS, § 31. 
 
RECEPTION OF THE FOUR GOSPELS. 55 
 
 duties of Christians in respect to civil govern- 
 ment. 
 
 From this it seems that in Africa the Gospels 
 were not only accessible to believers, but also to 
 unbelievers. 
 
 Seventh. Last, but not least, we have the testi- 
 mony of Celsus, who wrote, according to the best 
 authorities, about 177 or 178 A. D. It was the 
 object of this brilliant heathen controversialist to 
 destroy Christianity by argument. Mr. Norton 
 shows conclusively that his attacks were based on 
 our four Gospels. In speaking of the remains of 
 Celsus, which have been preserved by Origen, he 
 says: 
 
 "It appears from these extracts that Christians, 
 in the time of Celsus, bad histories of our Savior 
 which they believed to have been written by His 
 disciples, and the genuineness of which was not 
 controverted by him. Without mentioning their 
 authors by name, he frequently quotes and refers 
 to them. It has been observed with truth that an 
 abridgement of the history of Jesus, correspond- 
 ing to that in the Gospels may be found in the re- 
 mains of his work. * * * He calls Christ Him- 
 self a carpenter. He speaks of His miracles, of 
 His having cured the lame and blind, fed a multi- 
 tude on a few loaves, and raised the dead; and ar- 
 gues upon the supposition that these facts really 
 
56 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 took place. * * * The numerous objections of 
 Celsus to the accounts received by Christians re- 
 specting our Savior are always made to accounts 
 found in the Gospels. * * * He nowhere im- 
 plies the existence of any narrative respecting 
 Christ as believed by Christians, which is not re- 
 lated by the Evangelists. But in attacking these 
 books, that is, our present Gospels, Celsus evi- 
 dently considered himself to be undermining the 
 foundations of Christianity; to be attacking 
 books regarded by Christians as of the highest 
 authority, as the authentic records of the history 
 of their master, composed or sanctioned by His 
 immediate desciples. We have, then, the evidence 
 of an enemy of our religion, that the Gospels 
 were thus regarded bv the Christians of his 
 age."* 
 
 CHEAPKESS OF MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 It has been shown by Norton and others through 
 quotations from classic authors that ordinary man- 
 uscripts could be produced very cheaply, so that 
 one whom Juvenal describes, about the close of the 
 first century, as exceedingly poor was an owner of 
 books.f His contempory, Martial,^ says that one 
 of his books, containing two hundred and seven- 
 
 * Evidences, etc., vol. i. pp. 143-146. 
 t Sat. iii. 206. 
 i Lib. Epig. 3. 
 
CHEAPN-ESS OF MAiq^USCRIPTS. 57 
 
 ty-two verses, could be had for two sestertii, that 
 is about seven cents, and it will be remembered 
 that in the Acts of the Apostles* we have an ac- 
 count of the burning of magical books by converts, 
 which were valued at about $7,500, showing that 
 if they possessed such manuscripts before their 
 conversion, they could certainly afford to purchase 
 the Gospels after it. It is probable that when 
 Christians could secure a copy of the Gospels for 
 a few cents that a great many copies must have 
 been scattered among three millions of Christians. 
 Now we are asked to believe that four new Gos- 
 pels, differing from those which had been pre- 
 viously accepted by the church, were received 
 without the slightest objection or debate in Syria, 
 in Africa, in Italy, and France, among Christians 
 so diverse in customs, in language, and in their 
 religious views; that they were received by Chris- 
 tians who were neither held together by a supreme 
 pontiff nor a general council, and that they were 
 accepted by some of the most eminent scholars of 
 the age, without discussion, and without the least 
 ripple of excitement being occasioned by this 
 momentous change. Other matters of inferior 
 importance have been transmitted to us from that 
 period, but there is nowhere even a hint of the 
 adoption of these new Gospels. Is such a hy- 
 * xix. 19. 
 
58 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 pothesis in view of the facts credible? Would 
 not the introluction of our Gospels for the first 
 time in th- last quarter of the second century be 
 a greater miracle than the miracles of the New 
 Testament, which unbelievers wish to banish from 
 our Bibles? Is anything, after all, so credulous 
 as unbelief ? Let a man who knows nothing 
 about Bibical criticism, the veriest quack, who has 
 been all his days a lawyer, write a book; and there 
 are at least some who will ask if the foundations 
 have not been moved? Just as though the inves- 
 tigations and conclusions of learned men through 
 all the centuries were to be overturned by the 
 crude hypotheses and absurd investigations of one, 
 concerning whose theory as to the date of the 
 Gospels, the most eminent scholar in New Testa- 
 ment criticism, in Leipzig, German}^, says in a 
 postal of recent date: '"Derjenige icelcher die 
 Evangelien in das letzte Viertel des ziveiten Jahr- 
 hundert verlegen will ist ein imivissender Narr,'' — 
 ''The one who desires to transfer the Gospels to 
 to the last quarter of the second century is an ig- 
 norant fool." Of course the writer of these 
 words had no idea that they would be published, 
 and so expressed his undisguised contempt for a 
 theory which has, so far as I am aware, not a sin- 
 gle supporter among German scholars. 
 
 But to return to thea rtion that the presence 
 
CHEAPifESS OF MANUSCRIPTS. 59 
 
 of the Gospels in the last quarter of the second 
 century simply indicates that they were first writ- 
 ten at that time. The absurdity of this proposi- 
 tion has been clearly put by Mr. Norton, who has 
 been quoted with approval by Professor Abbot in 
 the following passage:* 
 
 "About the end of the second century the 
 Gospels were reverenced as sacred books by a com- 
 munity dispersed over the world, composed of men 
 of different nations and languages. There were, 
 to say the least, sixty thousand copies of them in 
 existence;! they were read in the churches of 
 Christians; they were continually quoted and 
 appealed to as of the highest authority; their 
 reputation was as well established among believers 
 from one end of the Christian community to the 
 other as it is at the present day among Christians 
 in any country. But it is asserted that before that 
 period we find no trace of their existence ; and it 
 is therefore inferred that they were not in common 
 
 * The AutTiorsiiip of the Fourth Gospel, Boston, 1880, 
 pp. 17-18. 
 
 f Korton, in view of the trifling cost of the Gospels, 
 says : " I shall not, therefore, I think, be charged with 
 over-estimating, if 1 suppose that there was one copy 
 of the Gospel for every fifty Christians. * * * This 
 proportion, however, will give us sixty thousand 
 copies of the Gospel for three millions of Christians." 
 — Genuineness of the Gospels, pp. 51-52. 
 
60 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 use, and but little known, even if extant in their 
 present form. This reasoning is of the same kind 
 as if one were to say that the first mention of 
 Egyptian Thebes is in the time Homer. He, in- 
 deed, describes it as a city which poured an hun- 
 dred armies from its hundred gates; but his is the 
 first mention of it, and therefore we have no 
 reason to suppose that before his time it was a 
 place of any considerable note." 
 
 CHRISTIANITY FOUNDED ON FACTS. 
 
 We have already seen the absurdity of supposing 
 that our four Grospels could have been introduced 
 for the first time in the last quarter of bhe second 
 century, and no records have been left of their 
 introduction. Such a supposition must also be 
 reconciled with the fact that at that time Chris- 
 tianity in its chief characteristics, as dependent 
 upon the Gospel record, was a system based on 
 certain facts. There is, indeed,- no more remarka- 
 ble phenomenon in history than the origin and 
 growth of the Christian church when explained 
 on natural principles. Its founder died ashameful 
 death. One would have supposed, humanly speak- 
 ing, that this would have been sufficient to seal its 
 doom. A party numbering five hundred thousand, 
 who had joined a false Messiah, Bar Cochba, one 
 hundred years after Christ's death, were stamped 
 out with their leader by the Roman power, and 
 
CHRISTIANITY FOUNDED ON FACTS. 61 
 
 not one disciple of tliat deceiver, so far as I know, 
 remains. But the death of Christ, although at 
 first such a terrible shock to His disciples, seemed 
 to be the beginning of new power to His fol- 
 lowers. In a few weeks thousands were con- 
 verted in a day, and that too although the 
 doctrines preached humbled the pride of men 
 in the dust, and went counter to their natural 
 inclinations. They relinquished every worldly ad- 
 vantage. Covered with pitch they blazed in the 
 gardens of cruel Nero. They were thrown to the 
 lions. Tender maidens were gored to death by in- 
 furiated bulls. Special tortures were devised, and 
 they were massacred until their persecutors became 
 weary, and still they increased, so that at the end 
 of the second century they numbered, as we have 
 seen, more than three millions, including persons 
 of every rank and men of the highest education. I 
 will not ask whether there is anything supernatural 
 in such a history. I simply ask did they or did 
 they not know in whom they believed? Did they 
 or did they not know anything definite in regard 
 to his history? Had they or had they not auy 
 well-defined doctrines? iVnd if they had, is it 
 probable that these facts and doctrines would be 
 easily f jrgotten? Had they or had they not Gos- 
 pels which had become the sheet-anchor of their 
 faith through long years of agony, and are we to 
 
62 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 suppose that they relinquished the dear old Grospels 
 after a hundred years for new and strange ones? 
 
 The martj^r's Gospels would be the dearest Gos- 
 pels to the church, and Christians would almost as 
 soon think of plucking out their right eyes as of 
 relinquishing books which had been baptized in 
 the blood of their loved ones. 
 
 JUSTIN" martyr's gospels. 
 
 But we are not left to such suppositions, strong 
 as they may be. We have positive proof that 
 Justin Martyr, who Avas born about the end of the 
 first century, and wrote the treatise from which 
 we quote in 14T A. D., was acquainted with our 
 Gospels, which he once designates by that name, 
 but usually calls Memoirs of the Apostles, or 
 Memoirs of the Apostles and their Followers. It 
 will be seen at once that the force of our argu- 
 ment carries us to an earlier age than that of Justin 
 Martyr. For it is utterly inconceivable that the 
 Gospels mentioned by Irenseus are different from 
 those spoken of by Justin Martyr. We are not, 
 however, left to this argument, for critics are sub- 
 stantially agreed that Justin Martyr was familiar 
 with our Gospels. It has been urged that he never 
 mentions them by name, as Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
 or John, but then it must be remembered that he 
 was arguing in one treatise with a heathen, and 
 in another with a Jew. They neither knew nor 
 
jusTii^ martyr's gospels. 63 
 
 cared for the opinions of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or 
 John, nor could the}^ well understand the term 
 Gospels, which was not current among them. It 
 was therefore most natural that Justin should 
 allude to the Gospels as memoirs, or memorabilia 
 of the Apostles. It has been objected too that 
 Justin's quotations are not exact. This failing was 
 not uncommon among the early Church Fathers; 
 it is not uncommon in this day of concordances 
 and of chapters and verses. In order to verify a 
 reference in the Gospels it would be necessary for 
 him to hunt in a roll where there were no divis- 
 ions into chapters and verses, or even into words. 
 A man might be excused, therefore, for quoting 
 passages in the Gospels according to the sense, 
 especially when it was not necessary that he should 
 give the exact words to his opponents. Now in 
 view of these facts, the following citation from 
 Justin Martyr, is very significant. He says: 
 
 " On the day called Sunday all who live in cities 
 or in the country gather together to one place, 
 and the Memoirs by the Apostles or the writings 
 of the Prophets are read as long as time permits.'*' 
 
 It will be seen from this quotation that the 
 
 Memoirs of the Apostles, which in another place 
 
 he calls the Gospels, occupy the same honorable 
 
 position as the Old Testament; that they are pub- 
 
 * Apolog., I. C. 67. 
 
64 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 licly read in the churclies as our Gospels were in 
 the time of Irenaeus, and that the circumstances 
 in the case do not admit of their having been dif- 
 ferent books from those which forty years later 
 were so extensively circulated in the churches. 
 Such a supposition is in the highest degree im- 
 probable when we remember, as Norton suggests, 
 that — 
 
 " Irenaeus was in the vigor of life before Justin's 
 death; and the same was true of very many thou- 
 sands of Christians living when Irenaeus wrote. 
 But he tells us that the four Gospels are the four 
 pillars of the church, the foundation of the Chris- 
 tian faith, written by those who had first orally 
 preached the Gospel, by two Apostles and two 
 companions of Apostles. It is incredible that 
 Irenffius and Justin should have spoken of different 
 books. We cannot suppose that writings, such as 
 the Memoirs of which Justin speaks, believed to 
 be the works of Apostles and companions of the 
 Apostles, read in Christian churches and received 
 as sacred books of the highest authoritj , should 
 immediately after he wrote have fallen into neglect 
 and oblivion, and been superseded by another set 
 of books. The strong sentiment of their value 
 could not so silently and so unaccountably have 
 been transferred to other writings. The copies of 
 them spread over the world could not so suddenly 
 
GOSPELS BEFORE JUSTIl^. 65 
 
 and so mysteriously have disappeared that no sub- 
 sequent trace of their existence should be clearly- 
 discoverable. When, therefore, we find Irenaeus, 
 the contemporary of Justin, ascribing to the four 
 Gospels the same character, the same authority, 
 and the same authors as are ascribed by Justin to 
 the Memoirs quoted by him, which were called 
 Gospels, there can be no reasonable doubt that the 
 Memoirs of Justin were the Gospels of Irenaeus.'^* 
 
 GOSPELS BEFORE JUSTIN". 
 
 But we may assert more than this. The nature 
 of our argument goes to show that Gospels which 
 were received as inspired, when Justin wrote in 
 the year 147, and which were publicly read in the 
 churches, must have originated long before his 
 time. He could not have regarded these books 
 with such reverence had he known that they orig- 
 inated twenty-five j^ears before, or had he not 
 regarded them as written by Apostles and com- 
 panions of Apostles; indeed, he speaks of them 
 as ''Memoirs composed by the Apostles of Christ 
 and their companions." Now, in this connection, 
 it must be remembered, as I have remarked, that 
 Justin was born toward the close of the first cen- 
 tury or the beginning of the second; that he was 
 a man of more than ordinary education and had 
 
 * Genuineness of the Gospels, Cambridge, 1846, pp. 
 238-239. 
 
 5 
 
66 THE DATE OF OUE GOSPELS. 
 
 traveled much. All these considerations serve to 
 bring him into connection with the times of 
 Papias, who wrote in the first quarter of the sec- 
 ond century, and who records the testimony of 
 John, the presbyter, as follows: '' The presbyter 
 said that Mark, being the interpreter of Peter, 
 carefully wrote down all that he retained in niem- 
 or}^ of the actions or discourses of Christ; not, 
 however, in order, for he was not himself a hearer 
 or follower of the Lord, but, afterward, as I said, 
 a companion of Peter, who taught in the manner 
 best suited to the instruction of his hearers, with- 
 out making a connected narrative of his discourses 
 concering the Lord. Such being the case, Mark 
 committed no error in thus writing some things 
 from memory; for he made it his sole object not 
 to omit an3^thing which he had heard, and not to 
 state anything falsely.^' Of Matthew, Papias 
 says : '' Matthew wrote the Oracles in the Hebrew 
 language: and every one interpreted them as he 
 was able."* 
 
 It seems that according to this testimony, al- 
 though it is not necessary to establish my position, 
 that the Gospel of Matthew nnd Mark were 
 known before the time of Papias. Efforts have 
 been made to discredit the statements of this 
 
 * Fatrum Ajyostol oorum Opera, Lipsiae, 1878,'part 
 ii. pp. 92-93. 
 
GOSPELS BEFORE JUSTIN. 67 
 
 Church Father, because, while Eusebius speaks of 
 his learning: he sets a low estimate upon his intel- 
 lectual abilities; this, however, would not unfit 
 him for being a credible witness as to a question 
 of fact. Nor is this testimony of Papias all. 
 The Acts of the Apostles which, even according 
 to the extremest German criticism as represented 
 by the Tuebingen school were not written later 
 than 110 B. C, but which must have been written 
 much earlier, allude in the first chapter to the 
 Gospel of Luke. As regards the Gospel of John, 
 modern critics of the rationalistic school have 
 been compelled to admit that it was written some- 
 where between 100 and 1^0 A. D., most of them 
 placing it at 120 A. D. But Professor Abbot 
 mentions the fact that John died about the year 
 100, and pointedly asks: '^How could a spurious 
 Gospel of a character so peculiar, so difi'erent from 
 the earlier Synoptic Gospels, * * * gain cur- 
 rency as the work of the Apostle, both among 
 Christians and the Gnostic heretics, if it originated 
 only twenty-five or thirty years after his death, 
 when so many who must have known whether he 
 wrote such a work or not were still living ?"t 
 
 But, aside, from the testimony of Justin Martyr, 
 Papias, and the author of the Acts, it is to be re- 
 
 t The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, Boston, 1880, 
 p, 12. 
 
68 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 membered that tlie first fifty years of tlie second 
 century was a time of intellectual dearth. There 
 were too many disturbing influences arising from 
 persecutions and other causes to allow of its being 
 a period of literary productiveness. The Apos- 
 tolic Fathers were overshadowed by the Apostles. 
 They felt and expressed their inferiority. 
 
 APOSTOLIC FATHEES. 
 
 Clement of Rome, who, according to the best 
 authorities, composed an epistle to the Corinth- 
 ians, between 93 and 97, A. D., writes simply as a 
 mouthpiece of the Church of Rome, which is 
 struggling on the same arena with that at Corinth, 
 and bids them take up the epistle of the Apostle 
 Paul, who wrote to them, as he affirms, under the 
 inspiration of the Spirit. J; 
 
 Moreover, Polycarp, who had been a disciple of 
 the Apostle John, in writing to the Philippians, 
 disclaims all authority, and plainly says: "These 
 things, brethren, I write to you, * * * ^ot 
 because I take anything upon myself, but because 
 you have invited me to do so. For neither I nor 
 any other such one, can come up to the wisdom 
 of the blessed and glorified Paul."|l 
 
 We find similar expressions of humility in the 
 epistle of Ignatius to the Romans, which was per- 
 
 I Compare vii, xlvii. 
 
 II iii. 
 
APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 69 
 
 haps written in the first quarter of the second cen- 
 tury, where he makes this confession: "I do not 
 as Peter and Paul issue commaEdments unto you. 
 They were Apostles; I am but a condemned man."* 
 And Barnabas, who, according to many critics, 
 wrote in the year 71, A. D., uses such expressions 
 as these: "I farther beg of you, as being one 
 of you, and loving you both individually and 
 collectively, more than my own soulf'f and 
 again: "Now, being desirous to write many 
 things to you, not as your teacher, but as 
 becometh one who loves you," etc.]; Men who 
 expressed such sentiments as these, indicating the 
 inferiority which they felt to the Apostles, could 
 not be expected to fabricate Gospels and assign 
 them to Matthew and John, of the Apostles, and 
 to Mark and Luke, respectively, as companions of 
 Peter and Paul. But then it must be remembered 
 that Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius, and 
 Barnabas were the representative men of the early 
 part of the second century. And if they, who 
 were the leaders of the church, did not presume to 
 arrogate apostolic authority to themselves, is it to 
 be supposed that there were others of lower station 
 and less influence who would write Gospels and 
 
 * iv. 
 
 ti. 
 liv. 
 
"TO THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 attribute them to the Apostles and theh^ trusted 
 companion, and succeed in securing their reception 
 by the Church at large? 
 
 But we are not shut up to these arguments. Our 
 positions is strengthened by a credible tradition. 
 There were churches which were founded by 
 Apostles. The Fathers of the last quarter of the 
 second century affirm that these churches are wit- 
 nesses, to the apostolic origin of the Gospels. Fur- 
 thermore the tradition clearly indicates the four 
 Evangelists as their authors. 
 
 THE AKTE IsTICENE FATHERS. 
 
 Origen, who was born about the year 185, and 
 as a youth was remarkable for his learning, writes: 
 " As I have learned from tradition concerning the 
 four Gospels, which alone are undisputed in the 
 Church of God under heaven, that the first in 
 order of the Scripture is that according to Matthew, 
 who was once a publican but afterward an Apostle 
 of Jesus Christ. * * =^ The second is that ac- 
 cording to Mark, who wrote as Peter suggested to 
 him. * * * The third is that according to 
 Luke, the Gospel commended by Paul. * * * 
 Last of all that according to John."§ In his com- 
 mentary on the preface to Luke's Gospel, which 
 begins, " Forasmuch as many have taken in hand," 
 
 § Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, B. vi. 25. 
 
THE ANTE NICENR FATHERS. 71 
 
 etc., he makes the following interesting observa- 
 tion: '' In this word of Luke's 'have taken in hand' 
 there is a latent accusation of tho.se who without 
 the grace of the Holy Spirit have rushed to the 
 composing of Gospels. Matthew, indeed, and 
 Mark, and John, and Luke have not 'taken in 
 hand' to write, but have written Gospels, being 
 full of the Holy Spirit. =*' * * The church has 
 four Gospels; the heresies have many." 
 
 In like manner Tertullian of Carthage writes 
 near the close of the second century: ''We lay it 
 down in the first place, that the evangelic docu- 
 ment had for its authors Apostles, to whom this 
 office of promulgating the Gospel was assigned by 
 our Lord himself. And if some of them were com- 
 panions of Apostles, yet they did not stand alone, 
 but were connected with and guided by Apostles. 
 "^ ^ ^ Amongthe Apostles, John and Matthew 
 form the faith within us. Among the companions 
 of the Apostles, Luke and Mark renovate it.'"^ 
 
 So, too, Clement of Alexandria, who, as has been 
 observed, was at the head of the catechetical school 
 of that city,. writing about the year 190 A. D., gives 
 the tradition as follows: 
 
 " The Gospels containing the genealogies [i. e., 
 Matthew's and Luke's] were written first. The 
 following providence gave occasion to that of 
 
 * Adversus Marcionem, iv. 2. 
 
72 THE DATE OF OUR GSOPELS. 
 
 Mark: While Peter was publicly preaching the 
 word at Rome, and through the power of the Spirit 
 making known the Gospel, his hearers, who were 
 numerous, exhorted Mark, upon the ground of his 
 having accompanied him for a long time, and hav- 
 ing his discourses in memory, to write down what 
 he had spoken; and Mark, composing his Gospel, 
 delivered it to those who made the request. * * * 
 In the last place John, observing that the things 
 obvious to the senses had been clearly set forth in 
 those Gospels, being urged by his friends and 
 divinely moved b}^ the Spirit, composed a spiritual 
 
 Gospel."! 
 
 We pass now across the Mediterranean and up 
 the Ehone to Lyons, where, in 178, A. D., we find 
 Irenaeus, the successor of the aged Pothinus, who 
 at the age of ninety sealed his testimony to the 
 religion of Christ with his blood. Pothinus 
 was connected with the apostolic age, being 
 born about the year 87 A. D. Irenseus, therefore, as 
 a bishop of the church at Lyons, was connected by 
 a single link with the apostolic age. Moreover he 
 had in his youth listened to the teachings of Poly- 
 carp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John. 
 He was therefore doubly connected with that 
 period. Hence the following tradition given by 
 him is very weighty: 
 
 f Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, B. vi. 14. 
 
THE ANTE ISriCENE FATHERS. 73 
 
 ''We," says Irengeus, "have not received the 
 knowledge of the way of our salvation by any 
 others than those through whom the Gospel has 
 come down to us; which Gospel they first preached, 
 and afterwards by the will of God transmitted to 
 us in writing, that it might be the foundation and 
 pillar of our faith. * * ^ Matthew, among 
 the Hebrews, published a Gospel in their own lan- 
 guage, while Peter and Paul were preaching the 
 Gospel at Rome and founding a church there. 
 And after their departure [from life,] Mark, the 
 disciple and interpreter of Peter himself, deliv- 
 ered to us in writing what Peter had preached; 
 and Luke, the companion of Paul, recorded the 
 Gospel preached by him. Afterward John, the 
 disciple of the Lord, who leaned upon his breast, 
 likewise published a Gospel, whilst he dwelt at 
 Ephesus in Asia.'"^ 
 
 Justin Martyr (147 A. D.) undoubtedly alludes 
 to the same tradition when he speaks of " Memoirs 
 composed by the Apostles of Christ and their 
 companions, "t and Papias, as we have seen in the 
 early part of the second century, mentions Mark 
 as the interpreter of Peter, and Matthew, as having 
 written the Oracles in the Hebrew language. 
 
 * Contra Haereses, Lib. ill. 1. 
 t Dialogue, 103. 
 
74 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 It is incredible, when we consider the substantial 
 agreement of these traditions, and their well-nigh 
 universal acceptation, that they should not be 
 true; besides, Mr. Norton has argued with great 
 force that it needed but a single link in the chain 
 of succession to connect the old men of the time 
 of Irenaeus with the apostolic age. Such being the 
 case, the Christians of his time could not be igno- 
 rant of the manner in which the Gospels had 
 been regarded by their predecessors: and in his 
 time the belief in the genuineness of the Gospels 
 was established throughout the Christian com- 
 munity. J 
 
 KEYIEW. 
 
 Let us in closins:, for a moment review the 
 ground over which we have passed. I have shown 
 that notwithstanding the wide diffusion of the 
 church in the last quarter of the second century 
 our Gospels alone were universally received as the 
 ground and pillar of faith, and that although the 
 lands where they were found were widely separated 
 in race, customs, and language, still we have no 
 
 X It was my purpose in this discussion to show that 
 our Gospels have come down to us essentially without 
 interpolations. Even the exclusion of those few pas- 
 sages which have been proved with more or less 
 certainty to be interpolations does not affect any doc- 
 trine. 
 
REVIEW. 75 
 
 record of the introduction of our Gospels, and no 
 evidence that they ever dispLaced other Gospels. 
 And yet, since the origin and growth of Christian- 
 ity presuppose certain historical facts, it is impos- 
 sible, if Gospels had already been adopted by a 
 church of martyrs, that they should have been 
 resigned for new Gospels without a struggle, of 
 which some trace must have come down to us. It 
 has further been shown on critical grounds, as 
 well as from analogy, that the Gospels mentioned 
 by Justin Martyr in the year 147 A. D. were the 
 same as those spoken of by Irenaeus forty years 
 later; that Papias in the first quarter of the second 
 century doubtless alludes to two of our Gospels; 
 and that it is not probable that the Apostolic 
 Fathers, who lived at a period of great literary in- 
 activity, and who disclaimed all apostolic authority, 
 should have written Gospels which, by an unvary- 
 ing tradition, are ascribed to the Apostles Matthew 
 and John, and to the companions of Peter and 
 Paul, namely, Mark and Luke. 
 
 I can only add that the arguments given in 
 Norton's work on the Genuineness of the Gospels 
 to which I am indebted for the preparation of this 
 discourse, seem to me, in the light of previous in- 
 vestigations, to be in the main unanswerable. 
 
 It is certain that the foundations of our faith, 
 
76 THE DATE OF OUR GOSPELS. 
 
 SO far as the Grospel record is concerned, have not 
 been shaken, except among the uninformed, and 
 in the imaginations of those who wish to believe 
 a lie.