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O RI GI N
OF
THE FOUR G~OSPELS,


B Y
CONSTANTINE TISCHENDORF,
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG.
TRANSLATED, UNDER THE AUTHOR'S SANCTION, BY
WILLIAM L.. GAGE.
FROM THE FOURTH GERMAN EDITION,
REVISED AND GREATLY ENLARGED.
PUBLISHED BY THE
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,
28 CORNHILL, BOSTON.




Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1867, by
THE   AMERICAN      TRACT SOCIETY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.




TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
T    was a pleasant, sunny morning in May of
J last year, when I called at the modest house?  in Leipzig where the world-renowned Prc'   fessor Tischendorf makes his home. It lies in
a quiet, pleasant part of the city, away from
its narrow streets, with their tall, grim, gaunt, gray
buildings, some of them centuries old, away from
the quaint churches, the castellated and fantastic
Rath Haus, or City Hall, as we should call it, away
fiom the places which Bach, and Mendelssohn,
and Goethe, and Dr. Faustus used to fiequent, and
in the new and cheerful streets of the New Town.
For Leipzig grows like an American city; its ancient limits no longer hold it in, but it is shooting
away into the country on all sides, and turning the
battle-field where Napoleon received his first great
shock, into densely-built streets and squares. One
would almost think that a paleographist like Tischendorf, a man whose life-work is the exhuming of*
lost and buried manuscripts and the making out
of their contents, would choose for his home one
3




4


TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.


of those old, weather-beaten, gaunt houses in the
heart of the city; but when I saw the man, I could
detect at a glance that it was not his nature to
choose anything less free, pleasant, and cheery
than those suburban streets, and their modern,
sunny houses.
I did not venture to call upon this eminent man
for the mere gratification of a natural curiosity, but
for the purpose of ascertaining one or two facts
which I needed for a note to Ritter's work on the
Holy Land, which I was then editing and translating. As Ritter had been a near and valued friend
of Tischendorf, it was a matter of great satisfaction
to the latter that an American had proposed to
give to the people of England and the United
States a version of the works of that great and excellent man; and no welcome could be more cordial than Tischendorf extended.  He is by no
means the old, smoke-dried, bad-mannered, garrulous, ill-dressed, and offensively dirty man, who often answers in Germany to the title of Professor.
On the contrary, Tischendorf is a man looking
young and florid, though probably hard upon sixty.
I have seen many a man of forty whose face is
more worn, and whose air is older, than that of this
greatest of German scholars. Nor has he at all
that shyness which a life in the study is almost
*sure to engender; he is free, open, genial, and has
the manner of a gentleman who has traveled
largely, and who is thoroughly familiar with society.




TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.


5


And if there is more than a tinge of vanity in
his talk, if he does not weary of speaking of his
own works, his own exploits, his own hopes and
purposes and successes, we only feel that he can
not praise himself more than the world is glad to
praise him, and that all the eulogies which he
passes upon himself are no more hearty than those
which all the great scholars of the age have lavished
upon him.
Tischendorf, like all really great men, is as approachable as a child, and is not obliged to confine
his conversation to learned subjects. He does not
speak English at all, but will give his English or
American visitor the choice of five languages,Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and German. In all
of these he is at home, speaking the first four not
in any stiff, pedantic way, but with grace and
fluency. Yet he loves best his mother tongue, of
course.  In talking, his countenance lights up
pleasantly, his style becomes sprightly, his action
vivacious, he jumps up, runs across the room to
fetch a book or document or curiosity, enters into
his guest's affairs, speaks warmly of friends, and
evidently enjoys with great zest his foreign reputation.  Of two Americans he spoke with great
warmth, — Prof. H. B. Smith of New York, and
Prof. Day of New Haven. His relations with the
great English scholars and divines are very intimate; and aIrchbishops and deans and civil dignitaries of the highest rank are proud to enjoy




6


TP,,ANSLA TOR 'S PREFACE.


the friendship of this great and genial German
scholar.
Tischendorf gave me with his own lips the account, which in its printed form * is so well known,
of his discovery of the ancient Sinaitic Bible. IIe
told me of his three separate journeys to the convent at the foot of Mount Sinai in search of ancient
manuscripts; of the bringing to light, at his first
visit, of large fragments of the Bible as well as of
valuable, apocryphal documents; of his discovery
in 1853, at his second visit, of only eleven additional lines from the book of Genesis; of the obstacles put in his way, the great liberality of the
Russian government, the help afforded him by
eminent princes, and the success which finally attended him, when, in the autumn of 1859, he was
able to return from  Cairo to St. Petersburg and
lay the original manuscript of the Sinaitic Bible
in the hands of the Emperor of Russia. It is one
of the oldest written documents extant; dating
back to the fourth century, about the time of the
first Christian Emperor.   No wonder that the
night on which Tischendorf made this great discovery he was unable to sleep for joy, and danced
in his room for very excitement.
Have any of my readers ever read Freytag's
masterly romance entitled "The Lost Manuscript"?
* Civen in the Massachusetts Sabbath School Sc ciety's recent pub.
lication cf TiDchendorfs little work for popular. reading, ' When
were our Gospels written?"




TRIANSLATOR 'S PREFACE.


7


It seems to me that he has embodied in this work,
which is one of the finest products of German genius, very much of the feeling which such men as
Tischendorf experience in pursuing such investigations, and in coming to such results as this. But
more momentous by far in its relations to the human race is the search for an ancient Bible than
that for a lost Tacitus; the one the record of a
nation's decline and ruin, the other the promise of
a world's restoration!
During our interview, Prof. Tischendorf told me
that he was then re-writing his work "When were
our Gospels written?" making it a book for scholars instead of for popular readers, and enlarging
it to three times its original size. He believed
that both works were needed, in England and
America no less than in Germany, and suggested
to me to undertake the translation of the larger
work. I promised to do so at my earliest leisure,
and the result is now before the public. The name
of the work 1 have ventured to change. In the
German it bears the same title with the smaller
sketch, "When were our Gospels written?" but
fearing lest some should suppose that the two
books are almost identical, merely different issues
of the same work, it has seemed no violence to
give the treatise the name, " Origin of the Four
Gospels." The learned author has not succeeded
in throwing his materials together in a way to attract hasty readers; his style is in this work rather




8           TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
heavy, hard, and disjointed; but great, invaluable
facts are there; and there is no lack of a clear,
well-poised, thoroughly guarded critical judgment,
sound faith, and earnest purpose. If our Christian public at large have reason to be grateful
for the publication of the little work of Tischendorf, our clergymen, theological students, and professors have no less cause to thank the great Leipzig scholar for furnishing them with this armory
of bright, keen weapons to be. employed in the
overthrow of unbelief.




AUTHOR'S PREFACE,.!tHEN in January, 1865, I set my hand to the
rlj9 task of preparing a work which should
(WS solve for the satisfaction of cultivated readZlS~ ers no less than of thorough scholars the
question of the genuineness of our Gospels, - a
question which stands related in the closest manner to the great topic of the present age, the Life
of Jesus, -I was fully aware that those theologians
who have for some time brought the scourge of
their skeptical and unbelieving theories upon the
field of New-Testament scholarship would take
great offense at my work, and express themselves
strongly against it. For who does not know that
these men have long forgotten how to subject their
prejudices to the results of conscientious investigation? Equally well known is it that they are accustomed to regard nothing as having scholarly
and scientific value unless it proceeds from their
own circle. On my part, however, I felt it to be
my duty to take up arms against this organized
movement to convert theological science into so9




10


AUTHOR'S PREFACE.


phistry, and give powerful support to the antiChristian spirit of our time; to meet it with the
results of rigid inquiry, and with the earnestness
of convictions which have matured from a lifetime
consecrated faithfully to Christian learning. It
seemed to be only in this way that I could advance
the sacred interests which I had at heart, and throw
light upon the questions which are vitally connected with belief in the Lord.
Did I expect to escape contradiction and the
anger of opponents? By no means. Others might
hesitate about committing themselves absolutely
to a service in behalf of the interests of truth, fearing to encounter the sharp thrusts which might be
directed against them; but I believed that I ought
to and must cherish no such fear, and solaced myself
with the thought that it would be a hard matter if
what I might suffer from the calumny of enemies
were not offset by the approbation of those who
believe in the purity of my intentions and the uprightness of my aim. I have not been disappointed
in this. The displeasure of my opponents has been
manifested in a shameless manner. But, on the
other hand, there has not been wanting the satisfaction of seeing my little book received in many
quarters with the warmest acceptance and heartiest
recognition, as well out of Germany as in it. In
France, Holland, England, Russia, and America,
translations have appeared; even an Italian one
was made at Rome. Yet opposition has at no sin



AUTHOR'S PREFACE.


11


gle moment failed to display its real character; the
weapons of lying, persecution, and calumny have
been brought to bear against me; and in so doing,
the blind zeal which has been displayed has at
times suffered the grossest ignorance to peep out.
Two men in particular have undertaken the task
of assailing my work with the weapons mentioned
above,- Dr. Hilgenfeld, of Jena, and Dr. Volkmar,
of Zurich. The first has devoted to this task an
article in the Review which he edits, heading it,
"Constantine Tischendorf as Defensor Fidei." As
examples of the disingenuous statements with
which he figures [strotzt], I adduce the following.
Although in my work my main task was with the
canon of the four Gospels; although I in no place
undertook to put the whole New-Testament canon
on the same footing, as, indeed, no thorough scholar
can do; and although I do not speak specifically
of the whole canon, and merely put together as of
equal canonicity the four Gospels, the Pauline
Epistles, the first of John, and the first of Peter,
yet Hilgenfeld writes, p. 330: " The cheering result
which issues from this illustration of the subject is
the fact that the four Gospels, and even the whole
canon of the New Testament, can be assigned to
the close of the first century." Page 333: "Than
the presupposition that the close of the New-Testament canon falls at the end of the first century,
nothing is more incompatible." Page 336: "The
modern apologist, who puts a full- and fair ending




12


AUTHOR'S PREFACE.


of the New-Testament canon at the close of the
first century." Is this legerdemain, or a purposed
misleading of readers? It is, it must be, one of the
two. Naturally, he shuns quoting a single passage
of my work in support of the charge which he
brings against me.1
Page 333, note 2, Hilgenfeld, in commenting on
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iii. 392, and alluding to Papias,
thus writes: "That the line of presbyters is opened
here by the apostles, can only be more than doubtful with a critic like Tischendorf."  But would any
reader suspect from this that I was following the
express declaration of Eusebius, to whom we are
indebted for almost all our knowledge of Papias's
book, and to whose silence the negative school
itself is indebted for its powerful evidence against
John? And that the " Defensor Fidei" is here in
accord with the two heroes of the negative school
-Strauss and Renan    has not the third hero of
that school ignored this, or sought to whitewash it
over?
On page 337, Hilgenfeld writes: "The 'honorable weapons' on which Tischendorf prides himself
are, for that matter, made very doubtful even in
the homilies of Clemens Romanus."  On this, he
proceeds to quote my words [in the first edition of
this book]: "It is of-unabated interest that the alleged and acutely argued cropping out of John's
Gospel in this celebrated record of the Jewish1 See notes in Appendix.




AUTHOR'S PREFACE.


13


Christian tendency, based on the recent discovery
by Dressel, at Rome, of the closing portion of the
document, where there is an undoubted use of
John's story of the man whose blindness was healed,
- though it may be that the genial habit of skepticism will yield to no array of truth, - has entirely
fallen out of sight." On this, he remarks: "As I,
to whose critical investigatibns into the Gospels of
Justin a note at this point refers, do not wish to
hold Dr. Tischendorf to be a base calumniator, I
must conclude that he has taken a twelve-years'
slumber over the matter with which he is dealing.
Dressel's complete edition of Clemens's Homilies,
published in 1853, is for Tischendorf a book only
'just out.' Then he rubs his eyes, and simply
comes to the same conclusion that I came to fifteen years ago, before the conclusion of the Homilies was brought to light." To this I answer, that,my allusion to Hilgenfeld was coupled with the
expression "acutely argued," and that it was expressly stated that Hilgenfeld's words dated from
1850; and when I had occasion to speak of Dressel's work as "new," I appended the date, 1853.
Still some trace of his base calumniation must remain.  And Hilgenfeld draws my own words,
" Though it may be that the genial habit of skepticism will yield to no array of truth," clown upon
his own head. A glance shows that he is entitled
to the full application of it; and one may not hear
of the "genial habit of skepticism" without seeing




14


AUTHOR'S PREFACE.


that Dr. Hilgenfeld is alluded to. He acts as if he
did not know that it is Dr. Volkmar who has so
weakened his confession of a use of John's Gospel
by the Clementines that the doubts respecting the
althenticity of this Gospel remain undisturbed; and
he writes: "But Tischendorf, although an honorable
man in everything else, has in this instance been
buried, with his critical knowledge, in the deepest
slumber." Everywhere Hilgenfeld acts as if he believed that all that he advances must be contested
by me. I did not purpose to take him for the subject of my book: he comes, as all can see, only under consideration so far as he follows in the direction which I oppose. Does he leave this direction
at any point, and under any circumstances, he begins to cry out about " dishonor," "going to sleep,"
"Spanish knight-errantry," and the like, as in page
336, where says, "In him (Justin) I have long recognized the use of the three first Gospels, and eventhe possibility of an acquaintance with the fourth.
This puts Tischendorf in the attitude of spurring
his Rosinante, Don Quixote-like, against windmills as imagined giants, in his zeal to show the
use of the four Gospels by these apologists." The
zeal of the Spanish knight lies in the following
forcible words: "That Justin repeats our Matthew
in many passages is undeniable; that he knows and
follows Mark and Luke, is in several places extremely probable."2  Then a page and a half are
devoted to a discussion of the effort which has been




AUTHOR'S PREFA.CE.


15


made to discredit this universally accredited result:
as much more follows respecting the use of John,
neither exactly answering to Hilgenfeld's views about
fighting against windmills. Looking back at his
loose statements, specimens of which have here been
given, and more familiar with the discovery of his
dishonesty, the same pitiable "Theologus quem
terrestres certe superi... extra ordinem theologicum arcuerunt" writes in his "N. T. extra canonern
receptum," "Ceterum   Tischendorfii argumenta
qualia omnino sint iam diiudicavi et huius viri subdolam in impugnandis adversariis rationem palam
detexi." In the same work he boldly continues
the flow of his dishonest effusions, writing on page
69," Tischendorfium in famoso libello."... Page
44: " Calumniatoris partes agere, quasi negaremus
Matth. evang. h. 1. laudari nemo non videt." But
what is on that page 44 to which he refers? Not
a word respecting him; I only transcribed verbally
what Volkmar wrote, where he prefaced his invectives against myself and others with the applause
which he had received from Hilgenfeld and Strauss:
"quod Ed. mea Esdrse Prophetae;... omnibus
qui hucusque de ea re ex Ed. mea iudicarunt persuasit, etiam Hilgenfeldio;.... et Straussio....
Reussium satis pigebit." Is not this to wear without shame the liar's brazen brow?
But Dr. Volkmar has surpassed even Hilgenfeld
in the use of these weapons. I had occasion to
show in my book, by a number of examples, that a




16


A UTHOR'S PREFACE.


great many trickeries had been employed for the
purpose of discrediting the evidence borne by the
second century to our Gospels. This evidence w:.:s
in part put aside, where it could be, by bringing
forward the testimony of lost writings; sometimes
the witnesses were made more modern than they
really were, and transformed from a decisive epoch
to one without significance, so far as the matter
under discussion is affected, while sometimes they
were charged with ignorance or deceit: here the
writings which gave evidence were regarded as
not genuine, or at any rate as interpolated so far as
to invalidate their testimony; while there the sentiments of ancient writers have all their pith taken
out by falsification and perversion. All this is. effected by Volkmar with a skill that is unparalleled,
so far as my modest knowledge enables me to
judge. I ought not to refrain from giving some
instances of his ways of proceeding. In respect to
Herakleon, he writes, page 28: " Tischendorf states,
' This man was reckoned by Origen as contemporaneous with Valentine, which is confirmed by Epiphanius.' Yes, good God; * but if this is made out,
why waste another word upon it?"  On page 130:
" Far from belonging to the earlier disciples of Valentine, he is one of the very last distinguished heads
of that Gnosticism, and one who would recommend it
to the Church: c. 190-195 on Luke, and c. 200-220
* A familiar oath used by German divines, ladies, and other persons,
and only less common than the hourly-repeated" Lord Jesus." TRANS,




AUTHOR'S PREFACE.


17


on John." Now, on what does this assertion rest?
First: "Origen only declares that Herakleon was
accounted to be the friend of Valentine;" page 23.
Second: "He was the chief opponent of the school
of Valentine, unknown even to Irenous;" page 210.
Third: "This is confirmed by Epiphanius because
csrat'Zct, in his language, only refers to the fact
that the Half-Valentinians are followed in chap. 41
by the founder of Marcionitism in this, my Panarion of all heresies." But with all this, he has
sought in vain to falsify history. Following the
lead of Dr. Lipsius,3 whose heresiological investigations Volkmar boasts that he has only continued
with the greatest satisfaction to himself, he overlooks the passage in Irenveus, Book ii. ch. 4 (not
alluded to 4 in the index indeed), where Herakleon
and Ptolemy are distinctly mentioned as wellknown personages. Having made this unfortunate
oversight, he advances confidently to weaken the
force of y7vc,otEto in Origen, to explain the a8a'Zezrat
of Epiphanius in a joking fashion, and, lastly, to
unearth in the llteiroav of Hippolytus a contemporary of Hippolytus between 200 and 220. Celsus
encountered a similar fate. Respecting him, Volkmar writes, page 80:" Of Celsus's work, it is notorious that it manifested acquaintance not only with
the canonical, but with the apocryphal Gospels,
and more particularly with that of John."  "It is
quite another matter to determine the epoch of
Celsus." "Celsus wrote his book about the middle
2




18


A UTHOR'S PREFACE.


of the second century." "Does not Origen say, at
the close of his work, 8: 76, that this Celsus announced that he was intending to put forth another
writing of positive character, and that we must
wait to see whether he should accomplish his purpose? Does not this look as if he were a contemporary of Origen's?... What Baur has incontestably demonstrated, that the New Platonist opponent
of Origen was contemporaneous with him, is not
simply ignored by this Tischendorf, the appealer
to the ignorant multitude; it is absolutely unknown
to him." But the argument brought forward by
Volkmar rests on nothing less than a falsification
of the words of Origen; yet such a step could only
be taken by a scholar of his rare attainments, who
had neglected to read what Origen says expressly
with regard to Celsus, that "he had long been
dead." In both cases, therefore, in that of Celsus
as well as in that of Herakleon, there must be a
choice in the means of cure; at any rate, to those
which have been applied there must also be joined
the excision of the passage in Irenseus and Origen.
And is it not possible that the same Old Catholic
critic (found out by Ritschl) who had partly invented and partly interpolated Ignatius's letters
and those bearing his name, and who at the same
time tricked out the Epistle of Polycarp with passages from Ignatius and Ignatius's Epistles, may
have had his hand in this matter as well?
That which personally touches me in these out



AUTHOR'S PREFACE.


19


pourings of theological bitterness is of very little
consequence compared with two other elements of
the document under consideration, - te frivolous
tone of its scientific pretensions and the treachery
to the church which it displays. For my own
part, I can only hold it as an honor to thoroughly
displease such men; and that my work has not entirely failed in reaching its mark, is proved to me
in no more effective way than by the calumnious
assaults which are made upon it; and so far as they
have tried to blacken over what I have done, I
freely pardon them, so far as roughness and want
of understanding are concerned: there would be a
valid token that I had failed in what I proposed were
I not the target for the unthankfulness of mockers.
But for the falseness which treads church and
knowledge alike under foot; for that hypocritical
frivolousness, which degrades the church into a
mere seminary for the propagation of untruth, and
elevates pure figments of the brain to the rank of
apostolical inheritances, I have nothing but a cry
of pain and of horror.
Only a few words regarding the new edition of
my work. The first edition, published in March,
1865, was followed in May by the second; the third
aimed at a greater popularizing of the subject, and
was accompanied by an historical sketch of my
travels and researches.5  It now seems advisable
to add many details to that edition, and to make
an effort to make the work more complete and




20            AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
valuable. To do this, I have more than doubled
the amount of matter. Of course it has been my
wish, in doing this, not to injure the work, so far
as its tone is suited to meet the wants of the general world of culture, although it is hard to produce
a book for this class, and at the same time to adapt
it to the wants of special sudents. I must beg the
reader's indulgence, should I be found at times to
have given one body of readers undue advantage
over another. I have written nothing which I am
not prepared fully to defend. And may the blessing of God not be wanting to my little work in
its new form.
TISCHENDORF.
LEIPZIG, July 1, 1866.




CONTENTS.
-0 —
The Gospels our sources for the life of Jesus: treatment of
them by Renan, 23-31. Importance of the historical witnesses
for the Gospels, 32-34. Evidence from the last decades of the
second century: Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clemens of Alexandria,
the canon of Muratori, the oldest Latin and Syriac translation,
34-37. Shortly before Irenaeus: Theophilus and Tatian, Claudius Apollinaris, Dionysius of Corinth, Athenagoras, 38-51.
First and fourth quarters of the second century: Clemens of
Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp, 52-61. Justin and the Epistle to
Diognetus, 61-77. The Gospel of the Hebrews, 78. The literature of heresy before and in the middle of the second century:
Ptolemy, Herakleon, Basilides, the Naasenians (Ophites), and
Perates, 79-102. Marcion, 102-115. Montanism and the Alogians, 116-123. Celsus vs. Christianity, 124-130. The New
Testament apocryphal literature: the Protevangel; the Acts of
Pilate; the Gospel of Infancy, 130-152. The pseudo-Clementines, 153. Barnabas, 154-166. When and how to come to a
decision regarding the four Gospels, 166-171. The testimony
of Papias; that in the Vatican prologue to John; that of the
21




22                     CONTENTS.
presbyters, in support of John, 171-200. New Testament textual
criticism, 201-209. Its evidence as to a lost form of Matthew
and Mark, 209-211. The text of the second century presupposes
a full history of the canon, and gives evidence of its existence
at about the close of the first century, 211-213. Evidence omitted: second Peter, the closing verses of John's Gospel, the Testaments of the twelve patriarchs, 213-215. Misunderstandings
and hypotheses regarding the Gospel of John, 215, 216. Concluding remarks, 216-219.




ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.
HE life of Jesus has become the center
of the religious controversies which agitate our age.   The importance of this
fact is great. At its foundation lies the
confession that Christianity is not grounded so
much on the doctrines of Him from whom it
receives its name as upon his person. Every
acceptation of the word Christianity which is
antagonistic to this confession, disowns the real
character of the term, and rests on a misconception. The person of Jesus is the corner-stone
on which the church bases its foundations; to
it the doctrine of Jesus and of his disciples
always and with the utmost distinctness points;
with the person of Jesus Christianity stands or
falls. To rob this person of his greatness,23




24      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


of that greatness which the entire church ascribes to him under the name Son of God, -
and yet to think to retain the Christian faith
and the Christian church, is a futile attempt, a
vain mockery. Even the morality which some
might hope to rescue from the general shipwreck of faith is weakened by the unavoidable
and remorseless contradictions which arise;
for if the morality is sound, it must be a good
tree growing from a diseased root. The life of
Jesus is the most momentous of all questions
which the church has to encounter, - the one
which is decisive whether it shall or shall not
live.
Whence do we derive our knowledge of the
life of Jesus? Almost exclusively from our
four Gospels, in which the divine person of Jesus, the center of the Christian belief, and the
main object too of all attacks upon it, is presented in essentially the same light as in the
Epistles of Paul, unquestionably the oldest of
all the apostolical documents. All else that
we know of him is confined to a few expressions and acts, and, with unimportant excep



TESTIMONY OF TACITUS AND PLINY.


25


tions, is in direct connection with, and dependence on, the- Gospels. By far the most of
these sources are to be found in apocryphal,
i.e. not genuine, untrustworthy fragments, not
bearing the true names of their authors, and
aiming with more or less skill to supplement
and complete the gospel narrative; others,
partly of Jewish and partly of heathen origin,
avow at the very outset the intention of assailing the Gospels. Finally, we possess in two
classic writers of the first and the two following centuries, Tacitus and Pliny, a few incidental expressions which have a lasting interest: the first6 testifying that Christ, the founder
of the religion which had gained so strong a
hold even in Nero's time, had been punished
with death by the procurator Pontius Pilate
during the reign of Tiberius; while Pliny asserts7 in a communication to Trajan that the
Christians, already a numerous body in Bithynia, were in the habit of singing songs of
praise to Christ as to a God.8 Our Gospels
therefore, if not the only authorities relative
to the life of Jesus, are by all odds the most




26      ORIGlI OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


important ones, and the only direct sources
that are in existence. If then the life of Jesus is only made known to us by the Gospels,
if we are directed to these books for the solution of all our questions about the birth, the
activities, the conversation, character, and fortunes of Jesus, we have of course no less
weighty an inquiry before us than this, Whence
spring our Gospels? For upon the origin of
these books hinge their trustworthiness and
all their value.
So much depending upon this first step, very
many are the investigations which have been
made in these modern times into the origin of
the Gospels. It has been a question with what
justice the names of those prominent members
of the twelve, Matthew and John, and the
names of the helpers and followers, Mark and
Luke, have been assigned to the four Gospels.
Just so far as the authorship of these documents has been admitted as due to those revered men, the Gospels have been accepted as
authentic and trustworthy records of the life
of the Lord. Their names have been regarded




RENAN'S LIFE OF JESUS.


27


as a satisfactory guaranty that, in the writings
with which they were coupled, truth only could
be sought, that in them truth only was wished,
and that in them truth was authentically recorded. There is indeed another way of testing the reliability of the Gospels. After the
rise of the rationalizing or rationalistic spirit,
and when the attempt was made to set the
reason of man above everything which had
previously borne the name of Divine Revelation, hands were laid at once on the biblical
miracles, and it was claimed that they must be
explained by the light of the imperfect culture
of that time, and the incorrect appreciation of
the Old Testament. Out of this grew the theory of accommodation, as it was called, which
asserted that Jesus made his words chime in
with the expectations of his age, and that he
gave himself out to be a more important personage than he really was. This theory of the
rise of the Gospels has culminated in the piece
of botchwork which issued from the Paris press
in 1863. The author of that book, not troubling himself with any speculations respecting




28      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


the share which the apostles may have had in
delineating the gospel portraits, but following
his own self-imposed theories about miracles
and revelation, has displayed boundless recklessness and given way to the most unbridled
phantasies respecting the gospel history, caricaturing both it and its hero. He has written
a book which has much more the character of
a shameless calumny of Jesus than of an honest investigation into his career. Can we apply the term historical inquiry to an attempt
to show9 that John wrote the fourth Gospel
out of a spirit of self-love, not without jealousy of Peter,l~ and full of hatred to Judas
Iscariot?  Can we dignify by so high a term
as scientific investigation such a theory as his
respecting the cause of the sympathy felt for
Jesus by the wife of Pilate, that she saw the
"gentle Galilean," the " fine-looking young
man," from a window of the palace that looked
out on the temple-court, and that in consequence the thought that his blood was to bo
spilled rested like a mountain load upon her
soul?12 To cite one or two more examples of his




RENAN'S LIFE OF JESUS.


29


mode of dealing with the Gospels, what shall
we say of his manner of treating the raising of
Lazarus, where he endeavors to show that Jesus, whose role was becoming more and more
difficult every day, practiced an involuntary
piece of deception upon the people and the credulous sisters of Lazarus? His theory is that
the latter, while still sick, caused himself to be
laid out for burial, and deposited in the family vault; that Jesus, wishing to see his friend
once more, caused the tomb to be opened, and
on seeing Lazarus come forth was himself led
to believe that the dead man had come to life
again, - the power of resuscitating him, meanwhile, being ascribed by the witnesses to the
wonderful gifts of Jesus.l3 Or what shall we say
of a theory of the conflict in Gethsemane,'4
which seeks to throw light on the Saviour's grief
by such words as these: " Perhaps his thoughts
were running back to the clear springs of Galilee where he had often found refreshment, to the
vine-stock and the fig-tree beneath whose shade
he had rested, to the young maidens who it may
be had responded to his love. Did he curse




30      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


his hard fate, which denied him all the old joys
of his life? Did he lament his high call, and
weep, a sacrifice on the altar of his own greatness, that he had not continued to be a simple
Nazarene artisan?" 15 What shall we think of
the supposition that the dreary landscape of
Judaea —with Jerusalem, the sacred center
of the Jewish faith and worship-drove the
thoughts of the Galilean to the luxuriance of
his own country's hills, and added to his grief? 16
What shall we say of his exclamation, that
if a better understanding of Christianity is to
prevail among men, and the apocryphal shrines
which now claim veneration are to be superseded by authentic ones, the temple, the great
church for all Christians, is to be built upon
the hill of Nazareth, — the soil beneath which
are sleeping the carpenter Joseph and thousands of Nazarenes? 1n What shall we say to the
crudest of all Renan's vagaries, the investing
with the crown of immortality and the glittering halo of a saint the head of that Jew dying
on the cross, at the outset a mere kindly poetical enthusiast, and at last an idolizing fanatic,




GERMAN SUPPORTERS OF RENAN.


31


involved irretrievably with the dominant party,
and rushing willingly into the arms of death?18
Surely it requires no further citations to justify the expression of a condemnation of Renan's book: these few instances are sufficient
to put the reader in possession of materials adequate to enable him to judge of the character
of the work. That, in spite of its frivolous pretenses to science, in spite of its fantastic caricatures of history, it has found such favor and
endorsement in Germany, only shows how
widely are diffused, even in Germany, the lack
of sound criticism, and of acquaintance with
biblical history, as well as the depraved taste of
an age which is sunk in unbelief.
In this matter, German science and scholarship have subjected themselves to a severe
reproach. Not only is the prevalent rationalism, which places our common human reason
above a divine revelation, and so sets aside the
supernatural claims of the Gospels, a product
of this French book, but German zeal is aroused,
as well, to supply what is lacking of scientific
accuracy in Renan's work, and to make his




32      ORIGI.N OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


results more trustworthy. And so we have
one of the frightful spectacles of our time,French levity and German learning reaching
brotherly hands to each other over the fresh
grave of the Saviour. Unbelief, it would seem,
gives even more strength than belief.
In those quarters where regard is paid to
historical authority, one of the points brought
into the foreground in the attacks upon the
authenticity of the Gospels, is the lack of early
evidence that they were in existence at the
opening of the Christian era. Nor can any one
deny that this objection, if it can be maintained,
is entitled to much weight. If it is as late as the
year 150, or still later, that we receive the first
tidings about John's Gospel, who. would not
find it hard to believe that it was written by
the beloved disciple of the Lord a half century
before? If there is not in our possession evidence in support of the other Gospels dating
from that time, or from the years just preceding
it, who can deny that it does not raise doubts
respecting their authenticity?  It is true, we
must take into account the paucity of the liter



IM'R01t TANJCE OF O EIl TI'IIO WG TIIEAI.  33


ature which comles down to us from the earlier
epoch of the clhurch; and besides, many a good
book migllt llave belen written without verbally
incorporating or directly using our Gospels;
especially at a time when those who had been
eye-witnesses had not been long dead; wben
the life of the churches was directly sustained
by the spirit of the Gospels; and when the written letter had not begun to be dominant over
the living evangel. If tllese considerations
diminish tlhe importance which might be attached to the absence of biblical quotations in
the primitive Christian literature, yet it is
clear, on tlhe other hand, that if such quotations are really to be found there, the manifest
acquaintance which they might show that men
had witll the Gospels in the first lhalf of the second century must be of the greatest weight in
establislhing their age, their apostolical origin,
anid their genuineness. And therefore it is a
sacred duty thlat those who would subject the
authenticity of our Gospels to a thorough scrutiny, should make oneC of their chief duties a
most careful investigation into the most ancient
3




34


ORIGIN OF T'IE FOUR GOSPELS.


sources of testimony respecting tlhe existence
and the recognized credibility of the records of
Jesus' life.
It seems to me that this duty has been by no
means faithfully enough moet for the first three
so-called synoptical Gospels, and still less for
that of John, whose want of authenticity has
been inscribed in flaming letters upon the banners of the negative school. The writer of
these lines imposes upon himself the task of
trying to throw some lighlt upon the authority
of the evangelical documents, although in preparing the work not for special students, but
cultivated Christians generally, it may not be
possible to enter so exhaustively into the subject
as under other circumstances might be desirable.
We can make as our starting-point the un.
questioned fact that in the last decades of the
second century our four Gospels were known
and acknowledged in all portions of the clurch.
Irenaeus, from 177 on, Bishop of Lyons, wlhere
the first Christian church of Gaul was established, wrote a great work in the last decades




EARL Y QUOT.ATIOINS.


35'


of the second century, directed at the earliest
heresies, the Gnostic, atnd on every page made
use of the Gospels, providing himself from them
with materials to overthrow a system  which
was threatening to destroy tlhe doctrines of the
church. The number of passages where lhe
has recourse to the Gospels is about four hundred, and about eighty of these contain quotations from John. From the closing decade of
tlhe second century on, the able and learned
Tertullian lived and labored at Carth-age, iu
Africa, and in his numerous writings there
exist hlundreds of citations from the text of the
Gosp3ls, which hie made use of as his most decisive autlorities. The same is true of Clemens,
the celebrated teacher in the school of catechumens at Alexandria, ab)out the end of thle seeond century. Nor must I fail to allude to a
catalogue, generally known by the name of its
discoverer, the Italiani scholar, Muratori, of all
the books wvlich we're regarded as canonical in
tlle very earliest times. This work was probab)ly prepared at Rome, and shortly after the
time of the Roman bishop Pinus, i. e. some



36      ORlIGIN OF TilE FOUR GOSPELS.


where between 160 and 170. In tl;is catalogue
of the books tlhus reckotned as comprising the
New Testament, tle four Gospels are at thd
head.'9 It is true, tlhe first few lines which relate to Maatthew and Mark have been lost; but,
at the close of thle still extant words respectillg
the latter, the Gospel of Luke is spoken of as the
third, and that of John as the fourth; enabling
us to see that even in the very earliest days the
order was followed with which we are so familiar.
I have thus summoned witnesses from Gaul,
from proconsular Africa (the present Algiers),
from Alexandria, and from IRome. Two others
can be cited fitly here, althonglh one of tlhem
goes back to a remoter date: I mean the two
oldest translatiolns from the Greek text used by
tlhe apostles thlemsnelves.  Oine of these is the
Syriac version, and1 bears the name Peshito;
the other is the Latin version, known under tle
title Itala: bothl of them give tlhe four Gospels
the first place. The canonical acceptance of all
four must unquestionably lhave been general, as
we see that they were transferred openly, and




EARLY TRANSLATIONS OF THE GOSPELS. 37


as a whole, into the lanlguage of tle newly-converted  Clristians, the Latins and Syrians.
Tlle Syriac translation, which takes us to the
neigllborhood of the Euphrates, is almost universally assigned to the end of the second century; and, althougl positive proofs are wanting
in support of this date, yet we are not without
good grounds for accepting it. The Latin version, on the contrary, liad begun to gain general recognition even before the end of the second century; for both Tertulliain, in his quotations from Irenaeus, and the Latin translator of
Irenmus's great work against heresy, writing
about the end of tle second century, make use
of the text of the Itala. Tlis, of course, implies that tile Latin translation was made some
years before tlie close of thle second century. I
shall have occasion subsequently to allude again
to the striking fact tlhat it was necessary to
translate the Gospels into Latin alnd Syriac as
early as tlhe second half of th. second century,
and tllat tlie number of documents was limited
to the four withl which we are iow familiar.
Looking a little more closely into the testi



38      ORIGl  OF TIE IOUR GOSPELS.
mony of the two great Fathers, IrenIeus and
Tertullian, we have to ask, Can their evidence
bo so limited in its application as to only prove
that the four Gospels were fully accepted in their
day?  Irenous not merely invests these documents with entire authority in the citations
which he makes to overthrow the Gnostic heretics; it even appears in his work tlat the Gospels, or rather, to use his own expression, the
fourfoldness of tlle Gospel, has been conformed
to the analogy of the four quarters of tile globe,
the four chief winds, the four faces of the cherubim. ne asserts tllat the four Gospels are the
four pillars ol which the churc!l rests as it covers the whole eartl, and in this number four
le recognizes a special token of the Creator's
wisdom.20  Is such a representation compatible
with the fact that at the time of Irenatus the
four Gospels first began to be accepted? or
that anL attempt was then being made to append
a fourth and newer oiie to the three older ones
then current?  Is it not mucll more credible
that the acceptance of all the four was then of
so long standing and so tloroughly complete,




IRENL'&US' S TESTIMONY.


39


that the Bishop of Lyons could allude to the
fourfoldhness of the Gospel as a thing u1niversally
recoguized, and i-i consequence of this very recognilition speak of it as a thling which larnionizes with grreat anid nchalclgi.ogm cosmical relations? Irenanus died in the second year after
the close of thle second century, but iil his youth
he lhad sat at the feet of thle veleratle Polycarp, whlo had been a disciple of Jolhn th!e evangelist, and had beein acquainted witll many eyewitnesses of Jesus' lit'e. In menltioning this
fact Ireneus 21 alludes very tenderly to the statement of his revered teacher Polycarp, that all
that he had heard frorn thle lips of John and
other disciples of Jesus coincided fully with the
written account. Yet let us hear his owni words
as given in a letter to Florinlus: " I saw you
wlhile I was yet a youth ill Lower Asia with
Polycarp, when you were living in scenes of
princely splendor, anid when you were striving
to gain tile approval of Polycarp. What took
place then is fresher in my memory than whvlat
has occurred more recenltlv.  What we took ill
in our youth grows up as it were with us, and




40      ORIGIN 0OF TIHE FOUR GOSPELS.


is incorporated in us. And so I can even now
bring back to mnind just the place where the
good Polycarp used to sit when he talked to us,
howlhe lo.oked as he came in and as he wentiit
out, how lie lived, bow lie used to speak to the
people, how lie used to allude to his intercourse
with John and repeat the words of others who
had seen the Lord, how lie used to recount
what hie had heard fromt their own lips about
the miracles and the teachings of the Lord,and all in fiull accoi'dance with the writtenii arrative." "2
Thus writes Irenivus respecting Ins intercourse with. Polycarp and respecting the commuliicatiois of Polycarp. The date of the youig
lrenwus's initercourse will the aged saint must
be set approximately at about the year 150. Irenmus died in. 202, according to old accounts a
martyr, while Polycarp perished at the stake in
1651, "1 after hiaving," to use his own expression,
served the Lord ei'ghity-six years."  And is it
to be believed that Irenimus never heard from
his teacher, whose comunillicationis respectiiin
John lie expressly refers to, one word regarding




POL YCARI"'S TES'I,1iONY.


41


the Gospel of John?   Indisputably, one part
of Polyearp's testimony relative to John's Gospel carries us back to Jolin himdself. For Polycarp's evidence respecting the work of hlis
teacher must be based upon the testimony of
his teacher himself.  The case becomes all tlih
more clear thle more closely we look into it oa
the adversaries' side, and range ourselves wit!
those wllo deny the validity of John's Gospel.
According to this view, Polycarp, althotugh saying so much to Irellaus regarding Jolhn, did
not drop a word regarding thle Gospel of Johln.
But supposing lhe didlnot, is it credible that
Irenveus fully accepted that Gospel, that work
which seemed to be tle noblest gift of John to
Christiallity, the report of an eye-witness respecting the life, death, ai:d resurrection of tlhe
Saviour of the world, as a Gospel which rali directly counter to tlhe testimoiny of the tl-hree
otlher evangelists?  \Would not the veIy circumstance that Polyearp made ino mention of
it hlave con-vinced lrelineus of its want of authenticity? And yet it is asserted that in order
to meet and overthrow false teachers, and the




42      ORZIGIN OF TIHE FOUR GOSPELS.


men wvlo falsified the canon, lie did not hesitate
to reckon the Gospel of John as strictly embraced amlong the sacred books.
This on which I amYl now laying stress is
notlling new; it has long stood recorded on the
pages of Irenaeus, anid has long beel read there.
But it has not had its due weighllt; else how
could it have been so lighltly passed over? For
my own part I must completely justify the assig:iiig of umuch greater weight, on the part of
correct and thorough investigators, to the testimony of Polycarp and Trenous respecting the
Gospel of John, than to all the difficulties aiLd
all the objections urged by skeptical scholars.
And is the case not similar with Tertullian
and his testimony respecting the Gospel? This
man, who had been transformed from a worldly
heatllen lawyer into a powerful advoceate of
divine truth, enters so critically into thle question of the origin and relative value of the
four Gospels as expressly to subordinate Mark
and Luke to Matthew and John, on the ground
that the former were mere helpers and coupanions of the apostles, while the latter were so



TERTULLIAN'S TESTIMONY.


43


lected by the Lord himself and invested with
full authority.23  The same author propounds
also an inexpugnalhle cainon of historical criticism, a test of the truth of the early Christian
documents, and especially those of apostolic'
origin, in tlat lie makes the value of testimony
dependent on the epoch of the witness, and demands that wlhat was leld as true in his day
should be judged in the light of its prior acceptance. If it had been accepted before, it was
fair to suppose that it had been equally accepted
in the time of the apostles; its authenticity
must therefore have been admitted by the apostolical church, founlded as it was by the apostles
themselves.24  And is it to be believed that this
acute man was capable of being deceived in his
acceptance of the Gospels and in his defense of
them by any thin web of sophistry or touch of
charlatanism? The passages just referred to
are taken fiom his celebrated reply to Marcion,
who in a wanton and heretical spirit had impugned the authenticity of the Gospels. Three
of the four lie liad wholly excluded, and of the
fourth lie retained only just so much as it pleased




44      ORIGINT OF T'HE FOUR GOSPELS.


llim to do. In replying to him, Tertullian ex.
pressly bases his argument on the ground that at
the time when the apostolical church was founded all the four Gosp1els woere accredited. Has
such a statement 110o weighlt ill thle moutll of' a
man like Tertullian? When lhe wrote, scarcely
a hunidred years had elapsed since thle death of
Johli. At that date the testimony, appealed
to by him, of the church at Ephesus, in which
John had labored so lonlg and amid which lie
had died, must have been full anid decisive respecting the genuineness or spuriousness of
John's Gospel. Nor was it a matter of any
difficulty to ascertain wbat was the judgment
which thifs church passed oil the Gospel. And
we must not overlook thle fact that we hlave not
to do, in this matter, with a scholar who is contelntinii himself with merely learned iivestirations, but withl a man full of earnestness 1especting his faith, and taking very seriously thle
question of Ituman salvation. The Christian
documents whicl asserted a connection between
themselves and the origin of the new faith, the
documents at which all the worldly wisdom of




IIEN,,V US AND TER TULLIAX.


45


the timce in wlhiclh Tertullian hlimsell was reared
took offense, - werec they likely to be accepted
by hlim without inquiry, and in a blind credulity? And inasmuch as lie expressly assures
us that he bases hIis acceptation of all the ftor
Gospels on the credit of the apostolical chlurch,?5
is it not an unworthy suspicion, thle doubting
that he made thorough inquiry into the capacity
of the apostolical church to pass an authentic
judgment oil the Christian documents?
I insist therefore, to sum up the matter, that
the testimony of Irnellus and Tertullian respecting the four Gospels is niot to be taken as
an isolated, unrelated fact, but that it must be
considered as a valid result of all the historical
evidence which was at tlheir command. And
hlow 'ar we are justified in this, is shownl not
only by the authorities already adduced, 'tllhe
author of tlhe Muratori list of New Testament
books, tlhe African translator of the Gospels
into Latin, thle originator of the Itala, but by
all the other witnesses whllo lived prior to the
time of Ireisetus and Tertullian.
Many of my readers are acquainted with the




46     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


so-called Iarmonies of the Gospels, —the works
in which tlhe four sacred narratives are co-ordinated into a single one. In this way an effort
has been made to draw from the Gospels alone
a closely followed and faitlful portrait of our
Lord's life, those points which one narrator lIas
brought more prominently into view than thle
others being employed as supplementary to the
other accounts, and a complete picture being
the result. In these woVks the narrative of
John has been drawn upon to supply the incidents occurring in the last tlree years of Jegus'
life, and to follow  his course step by step.
Harmonies of this kind were prepared as early
as the year 170 by two men wlose names are
known to us: one of them was Theophilus,
Bishop of Antioch in Syria; the other was
Tatian, a disciple of Justin the great theologian and martyr.26 True, both of those works
are lost; but Jerome speaks in the fourth century of the one prepared by Theophilus as still
existing, describing it as a combination of tlie
four Gospels in one continuous narrative;27 respecting the second we have the testimony of




EARL Y lARM1ONIES.


47


Eusebius 28 and Tlleodorct,29 the latter of wliom
speaks with intimate knowledge. Tatian himself alludes to his tork as " the Gospel made
up of four, the Diatessaron."  Both of thes(
men wrote other works lwhicl are still extant.
In 180 and 1S1 Theoplilus indited the tlhree
hooks to Autolycus, a learned heathen who hlad
assailed Cliristianity. In tills work are extracts from Matthew, Luke, and John. It is
especially noteworthy that lie cites the latter
(ii. 22), alludiiig explicitly to the name of the
author. His words are, " This is taught by the
Holy Scriptures and all inspired men, among
whom is John, who says, ' In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God,' and
then follows, 'and the Word was God: all
things were made by lim, and without him
was not anytlhing made that was made."'
This makes it certain that tlie IHarmony of Theophilus embraced the Gospel of Jolh.30  The
same is true of Tatian: for in his Addresses to
the Heatlen, a work filled with learning, and
very decided in its tone, written probably between 166 and 170, there are several passages




48      ORIGINV OF TIlE FOUR GOSPELS.


quoted from Johln's Gospel, such as this: " The
Light shineth in darkiiess, and the darkness
comprelienddeth it not....'. Thle Life was the
Lighlt of menl....  All things were made by
him, and without him was not anythling made
that was made."  From this it would seem certainl that his Harmony, like that of Theophilus,
although it may have taken some liberties with
thle order of the narrative, included the Gospel
of John: and this chimes admirably with the
statement of Bishop Bar Salibi, that the Diatessaron of Tatian, accompanied by a commentary
by Epllraim, and thus discriminated from the
Diatessaron of Ammonius, began with the
words, " In the beginning was the Word."
These Harmonies last mentioned, one of which
must with much probability bo ascribed to a
date within the first sixty years of tile second
century, have far more worth than what would
be gathered from single scattered extracts, for
their preparation points back conclusively to a
time wlien the four Gospels were already accepted as a perfect record, anld when the lnecessity had begun1 to be felt of deducing a higher




CLA UDIUS A POLLINVARIS.


49


unity and a more harmonious completeness
from  them  than the diversity of the various
books and the apparent discrepancies had rendered apparent. If these efforts are to be assigned to a date as darly as the second decade
subsequently to the middle of the second century, it makes the inference a necessary one
that the use and recognition of the four Gospels
must be assigned to a much earlier date.
Similar testimony we owe to a cotemporary of
the two men just named, Claudius Apollinarigs
Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, whose epoch
is assigned by Eusebius (iv. 26) to the reign of
Marcus Aurelius. For in a fragment preserved
in the Chronicon Paschale lie declares that if
the Quartodecimanians (so called from holding
like the Jews that the fourteenth of Nisan was
the day for celebrating the paschal sacrifice)
appeal justly to Matthew in support of the view
that Jesus partook of the last supper with his
disciples at the precise time of celebrating the.
paschal offering, there must be an antagonism
among tlhe writers of the several Gospels. Now
as in this contest Matthew, Mark, and Luke
4




50      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


must be ranged on the one side, and John on
the other, the words of Apollinaris indicate
that all the Gospels were conceded in his day
to have equal value. To this may be added
tlat in one passage still extant in the same
Chronicon there is undeniable reference to
John's allusion (xix. 34) to the piercing of
Jesus' side.
According to Eusebius, the choice of Dionysius as Bislop of Corinth occurred in the year
170. The same historian has preserved for us
(Euseb. iv. 23) some fragments of letters and
other documents from the pen of Dionysius.
To one church he sent in the epistolary form
expositions of Scripture; and to the Romans
lie wrote, after animadverting severely upon
the efforts to discredit the genuineness of his
own letters, that it was not at all strange that
men sought to discredit the Gospels, since these
too were documents whose value was so great
that tleir authenticity should be indisputable.
The expression, Holy Scriptures, might not necessarily refer to the New Testament; but the
word which Dionysius employs —writings re



ATHENAGORAS'S APOLOGY.


51


specting the Lord,- the same term which Clemens of Alexandria uses (Strom. vii. 1) -has
the same signification with the expression New
Testament, and relates evidently to the books
which were then accepted as constituting the
New Testament canon.
The Apology written by Athenagoras of Athens, in the year 177, contains several quotations from Matthew and Luke; it displays also
unmistakable marks of being influenced by
John's Gospel; as, for example, in the passages
which speak of the Logos as the Word of God,
and which allude to the Son of God who is in
the Father as the Father is in the Son. It contains the very expression found in the first
chapter of John, third verse, " All things were
made by him," and in the seventeenth chapter,
twenty-first verse, " as thou, Father, art in me
and I in thee."
I have taken these witnesses to the credibility of our Gospels fiom the epoch prior to Ireinses and Tertullian, and just at the threshold
of the Irenlan period, the second and third
decade after the middl of the second century




52     1ORIJGIN OF TIHE FOUR GOSPELS.


There are, however, left to us other witnesses
much earlier, and, like tlose just quoted, men
who speak to us right from the very bosom of
the church.3'
Between the apostolic epocl and that whicl
followed there intervene the so-called apostolic
Fathers; for as direct disciples of the apostles
they must be reckoned as in immediate connection with the apostolic age. If in the little which
these men have left us we do not find anything
which can be construed as definite testimony as
to the authenticity of the Gospels, still we are
not to conclude from their silence that the Gospels were not in existence before their time. But
should there be in tleir writings a constant
use of the Old Testament, and not the slightest
use of the New, in spite of the fact that the
latter lay so mucl nearer to hand,32 the probability must be accepted as great that at that
time the Gospels were not accepted as of equal
weight with the Old Testament.
And this appears to have been the case with
the epistle of the Roman Clement, written in
the second or third decade before the close of




EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP. 53


the first century, and about a decade after the
destruction of Jerusalem. At that time no
canon of the Gospels was in existence. It is
indeed unquestionable that in his epistle, rich
ill quotations from the Old Testament, Clement
refers here and there to passages33 in the Pauline Epistles, which have indeed chronologically
priority over the Gospels, though not in any
other sense.34
It is otherwise with those other constituents
of this literature to whose discussion we now
come,-the epistles of Ignatius and that of
Polycarp. The first of these have reached us
various in extent and variously edited. Three
extant only in Latin are manifestly later additions to the older literature; and so too are five
others, written in Greek, Latin, and Armenian,
their authenticity being disowned by the fact
that Eusebius makes no allusion to them.
Thare are besides seven epistles, which are extant in a longer and a shorter form: of the
longer one, there is also an ancient Latin version; of the sllorter, a Latin version and Syriac,
and Armenian ones as well. With this is to




54     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


be joined the fact that twenty years ago a Syr.
iac version of three of these seven epistles was
discovered, more brief than the short Greek
text. After the debate respecting the longer
and the shorter epistles had been decisively settled in favor of the shorter, the question arose
whether the three extant in the Syriac translation are not to be preferred to these seven
shorter ones. When several scholars declared
themselves in favor of this, others defended the
earlier origin of the seven Greek epistles, insisting that the three in Syriac were a mere
extract, intended for devotional uses. We hold
this to be the more correct view.    Similar
occurrences are not unknown in the apocryphal
writings of the New Testament. An extraordinary proof in this case is afforded by the circumstance that these seven epistles are not
only recognized by Eusebius (iii. 36), but are
alluded to in the letter of Polycarp. In order
to escape the force of this testimony, the most
decisive passage in the latter epistle, defended
as it is by Eusebius himself, must be set aside
as unauthentic. Besides this, the assigning of




EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP. 55


superior value to the three Syriac letters is
invalidated by tle fragmentary character of
many passages; one is so manifestly an excerpt
fiom the Greek text that it must be admitted
tlat one sectioii has been lost througlh the carelessness of the copyist. We claim the right,
therefore, of holding to the authenticity of the
seven epistles ascribed by Eusebius and Polycarp to Ignatius, and written while he was on
the way from Antioch, through Smyrna and
Troas, to his martyrdom at Rome. Examining
them with reference to our present theme, we
find several allusions to Matthew and John.
Take this passage (letter to the Romans, chap.
6): " For what is a man profited if lie shall gain
the whole world and lose his own soul?" taken
literally from Matt. xvi. In like manner, the
passage in his epistle to the people of Smyrna,
in which he asserts of Jesus that he was baptized
by John " in order that all righteousness mightbe fulfilled by him," reminds one of Matt. iii. 15:
"for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness."  In the letter to the Romans (chap. 7),
he writes, " I want the bread of God, the bread




56     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


of heaven, the bread of life, which is the body
of Jesus Christ the Son of God;... and
I want the draught of God, the blood of Jesus,
which is imperishable love and eternal life."
Compare this with the sixth chapter of John,
verse 41: "I am the bread which came down
from heaven;" verse 48: " I am that bread of
life;" verse 51:  And the bread that I will
give is my flesh;" verse 54: "Whoso eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal
life."  To the Philadelphians he writes (chap.
7), "What if some wished to lead me astray
after the flesh? but the Spirit is not enticed;
he is from God; he knows wherever he cometh
and whither he goeth, and he brings to punishment that which is hidden."  These verses
have as their basis John iii. 6 to 8,35 while the
last clause grows out of the twentieth 36 verse.
Were these allusions of Ignatius to Matthew
~and John a mere isolated phenomenon, and one
which would be adverse to other points in this
discussion on which no doubts rest, they would
not have decisive weight. But so far fiom
militating against other points of evidence, they




POLYCARP'S EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIzANS. 57


are in full agreement with them, particularly in
view of the fact that at the time when the letters were written, between 107, the date generally assigned, and 115, they contain references
to two of the most important of the four Gospels.
The letter of Polycarp tc the Philippians
connects itself most closely with those of Ignatius. According to his own testimony, it was
written very soon after the martyrdom of Ignatius; that is, between 107 and 115. It contains
very brief quotations from Matthew, as, for example, in chap. 2: "Think on the Lord how lhe
said, Judge not, that ye be not judged [Matt.
vii. 1]. Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you
[similar to Matt. vi. 14]. Be merciful, that
you may obtain mercy [compare with Matt. v.
7]. And with what measure ye mete it shall
be measured to you again [a literal quotation
from Matt. vii. 2]. And blessed are the poor,
and they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"
[taken almost verbatim fromn Matt. v. 3 and
10]. Further, chap. 7: "We will implore




58     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


the Omniscient God not to lead us into temptation, remembering the words of the Lord,
Tle spirit is willing but tlie flesh is weak"
[compare Matt. vi. 13 and xxvi. 41]. Special
weighlt must be ascribed to tlhat passage in
Polycarp's letter which clearly manifests the use
of the First Epistle of John. Polycarp writes,
chap. 7: " For every one who does not confess
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is antichrist:" in John (iv. 3) the passage runs, " Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh is not of God; and this is that
spirit of antichrist."  Tlhe importance of this
use by Polycarp of the Epistle of John is based
upon this, that - although the heroes of doubt
bring into suspicion even that which is really
indisputable- tlhe Epistle and the Gospel of
John are shown, by their essential unity of incident and language, to have necessarily had
the same author; and tlus the use of the Epistle argues the use of the Gospel as well. I
have shown above, from Polycarp's intimate
relation to John, how valuable is his testimony:
it has such great weight as scarcely to allow a




POLYCARP'S LETTER TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 59


word to be uttered in disavowal of the writings
which he coilfirms. The unwortly skill of
modern scholars has not shrunk, however, from
setting aside the fact of Polycarp's testimony
and unnerving its strength. A writer of much
acuteness says, " We are not compelled to regard the words of Polycarp as an actual quotation from John, for that may have been a sentence which had come into circulation in the
church, and may have been committed to paper
by John just as well as by Polycarp, without
compelling the latter to learn it from tlhe former."  Before this conjecture had been bruited, a fellow-believer had fallen upon another
way out of the difficulty: " Can the thing not
be reversed? May not thle author of the Johannean Gospel, which is as little genuine as so
much else tlhat has for two thousand years received the reverent homage of Christendom,may not this false Joln have cited as well from
Polycarp?" It requires a great deal of courage
to give utterance to such an idle fancy; yet
there are men of learning who are not lacking
in this courage. But the universal and radical




60      ORIGIL OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


medicament which must be relied on at the
last admits in this iIstanc3 of a double application. If the Gospel of John can be thrown
overboard so easily, the Epistle of Polyearp can
not so readily be disposed of. Polycarp, then,
did not write the epistle. Yet the disciple of
Polycarp, Irenoeus, believed and gave his witness to just the contrary.  But there are never
lacking specious grounds for a false position;
and the professors of the nineteenth century
have the art 'of putting out of sight even an
Ireuneus and his fellows.
The attack on the authenticity of Polycarp's
epistle is all the more worth refuting, because,
if successful, it does away no less with the genuineness of Ignatius's epistles, all the more
troublesome if they are to be accepted in the
limits which Polycarp and Eusebius assigned to
them. On this account the latest outbreaks of
critical presumption and audacity have been
directed against the whole Polycarp-Ignati us
literature. What one of these critical heroes
does not venture, another does. One goes to
work more in '^root and branch" fashion, an



JUS TIN MAR T YR.


61


other more artistically. Tile one contents himself with rejectinlg on his own authority all
those passages ill Polycarp's letter wllicll allude
to the person and epistles of Ignatius, imputilg
theni to a forger known to have lived lolg before Eusebius's time; tlle other, oil the contrary,
casts away the whole letter. In like manner,
the one satisfies himself with regarding the
tlhree shortest Syrian epistles of Ignatius as
genuile; the other holds it more advisable to
assert that not a single one of the collective letters of Ignatius is genuine. Such dealings as
this would soon convert the temple of God into
a common ruin.
For my own part, I do not hesitate to advance
fiurther in the period of Polycarp. Justill the
Martyr, even before his violent death in Rome
in 16-8 made his memory dear to the cliurch,
had attained to great celebrity through his
writings. Three of his works are still extant
in the complete form, and their authenticity is
undisputed,- the two apologies and the dialogue with the Jew Tryphon. Eusebius displays perfect familiarity with the two which




32      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


were written to defend Christianity against thle
attacks of high pagan authorities, and speaks
of them as two separate works, one of which
was dedicated to the Emperor Antoninus, the
other to Marcus Aurelius. Jerome repeats the
statement of Eusebius, and most scholars 37
down to the present day have coincided with
him. The first work must be assigned to the
year 138 or 139, the other to the year 161, the
first year of the reign of Marcus Aurelius.
Respecting the first, however, it should be said
that it was in 139 that Marcus Aurelius (Berissimus) was named as Casar, yet the inscription
does not address him witli the imperial title.
Very recently there have been new views taken
respecting this matter, and there has been
unjustified evidence 38 broughllt forward to support the assigning of the year 14739 to tle production of the first of the two works in questionl: some, moreover, have felt themselves justified in taking a position not warranted by
Eusebius and Jerome, and in regarding the
second apology as no independent production,
but a mere appendix to the first. Neither the




JUSTIN MAIR TYR'S TESTILMONY.


63


one view nor the other appears to me to be
thoroughly grounded. Still, the value of Justin's testimony is very little affected by the question whether lie wrote a few years prior or subsequently to the year 140. Yet the fact that
these two works of Justin's were written prior
to the middle of tlhe second century makes the
question one of great interest whether he discussed our Gospels in them. It is a topic which
has been treated in our time by many persons,
and with great variance of opinion. What is
the essential result gained from these investigations? That Justin often quotes from our own
Matthew, is indisputable.40  That in various
passages he follows Mark and Luke, is extremely
probable.4'  Yet this fact has been invalidateJ
by the efforts of some to show that Justin did
not use our Gospels as his basis, but writings
very like them in character, perhaps the Gospel of the Hebrews, or, according to some, tlle
Gospel of Peter, which was derived from tho
latter, but which, with the exception of a few
passages,42 has remained entirely unknown to
us to the present time. One support for this




64      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


view is found il thle fact that some quotations
of Justin are also found in the pseudo-Clementine homilies, having there the same or similar
differences from the readings in the canonical
text.43 The supposition is, perhaps, an admissible one, that Justin, at the very earliest times,
drew that Gospel of the Hebrews, which contained such repeated references to Matthew,
into the circle of his evailgelical quotations in
one of his first works; for we have Eusebius's
authority, in the first half of the fourth century,
for the fact that at his time tils Gospel was
reckoned by several authorities as belonging to
the canon. On the other hand, it is a manifest and groundless exercise of arbitrary authority to hold that such of his quotations as
harmonize more or less closely witl our received
text are taken from a source respecting which
we are left to conjecture alone. Such a view is
all the more inadmissible from the fact that
free extracts from our Gospels are fully in accordance with the character of the times in
which they fall; and this is the same epoch,
the first half of the second century, to which




JUSTIN MARTYR'S TESTIMONY.


65


we trace the main origin of the diverse materials which enter into the canon, and more especially the Gospels. With equal freedom Justin makes his quotations from the Old Testament, even if he may not be proved to take his
text exclusively from the standard Septuagint.
And the fact is not to be overlooked, that the
passages quoted by Justin from the Gospels can
not be judged by the documents comprising the
New Testament text which has come down to
us, and which forms the substance of our usual
editions; it is clear that many of our most
widely diffused readings have proceeded from
earlier or more recent corruptions in the primitive text; the Gospels especially were subject
to arbitrary changes within the very first ten
years after they had been committed to writing.44
My discussion thus far of the extracts which
Justin makes from the Gospels relates solely to
those which he draws from the synoptic ones,
the first three. Despite the prevailing skepticism in this matter, it is as good as certain that
Justin made use of those three Gospels: but
5




36      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


all the more obstinate is the assertion that he
had no acquaintance with John's Gospel. But
what in fact is his relation to John? In. my
opinion there are most cogent reasons for believing that John was read and used by Justin.
The delineation of the person of Christ, characteristic of John, as, for example, in the opening of the Gospel, "In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God," and in verse fourteen, "And
the Word became flesh," as well as the general
designation of Jesus as the Logos or Word of
God,45 appears unmistakably in not a few passages in Justin, such, for instance, as " And Jesus Christ was begotten in a manner wholly peculiar to himself as the Son of God, while he
is also the Word (Logos) of the same." " The
primeval force (&Vagt;) after the Father of
All and God the Lord, is the Son, the Word
(Logos); and I shall show how he through
the incarnation (aaQmoiotu~Oe}') became man."
"The Word (Logos) of God is the Son of the
same."  " As they have not confessed all that
belongs to the Logos, which is Christ, they have




JUSTIN'S TESTIMONY.


67


often uttered what is at variance with itself."
"Tlrough the Word (Logos) of God, Jesus
Christ our Saviour became flesh (6craocoirotuOe.l)."
To these passages, taken from the brief second
Apology, I add the following, taken from the
first (chap. 33): "By the expressions the
Holy Ghost and the Power of God in Luke i. 35
[the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the
power of the Highest shall overshadow thee],
we are to understand the Logos, which is the'
first begotten of God."  In the "Dialogue,"
chap. 105, we find that " the same was begotten
by the Father of All after a peculiar manner
as the Word (Logos) and Power (avctyi ), becoming flesh through the instrumentality of
the Virgin Mary, as we learn from the memorials which I have already displayed." In order
to invalidate the proof found here that Justin
wrote not independently of John, critics have
made an effort to point out the differences between the conceptions of Logos which they both
maintained, and to show that Justin had a superficial and merely external view of it. But
is it to be supposed that those who first accepted




68      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


the doctrines of John were able to fathom and
exhaust them all? On the contrary, does not
the fact that Justin was not able to penetrate
to the depths of John's theology show that in
his very allusions to it, without fully comprehending it,.he was not independent of it? It
seems to me that the internal connection between both meets the opponents of the authenticity of John's Gospel in no more convincing
manner than in showing how the doctrines
of John may be culled from the words of
Justin.46
There-are not wanting passages in John's
Gospel, moreover, which may be found specifically reproduced in Justin. In the " Dialogue,"
chap. 88, he writes of John the Baptist, "The
people believed that he was the Christ; but he
said to them, I am not Christ, but the voice
of a preacher." This is in direct connection
with the words of John i. 20 and 23; for the
first words in the reply of the Baptist have been
reported by no other evangelist than John.
Twice can Justin's expressions only be explained by supposing him to have been familiar




JUSTIN'S TESTIMONY.


69


with the account in John ix. of the man who
had been born blind. He speaks expressly of
the miraculous healings effected by Jesus, and
says in the first Apology (chap. 22) that the
Saviour restored to health one who was born
lame, palsied, and blind.47 In like manner in
the "Dialogue" (chap. 69) he declares that
Jesus healed those who were blind, deaf, and
lame from their birth,48 giving to one sound
limbs, to another hearing, to a third restored
sight. What a trick of art is it to take the
words " I was born blind," 49 spoken by the man
who was a defender of Christ, and who corresponds to the blind man of Jericho, and to
make them refer to an unknown source used
by Justin, an ostensibly lost authority of the.
narrative which he gives elsewhere! To what
end is this? To no other than to discredit the
Gospel of John, and to deny that it was before
Justin when he wrote.
The words of Zechariah xii. 10 Justin quotes
(first Apology, 52; also " Dialogue," 14 and
33) precisely in the. language of John xix. 37,
" they shall look on him whom they pierced."




70     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


The text of the Seventy, which Jerome express
ly confirms, has an entirely different translation50 of this passage; yet there is one of the
older versions given us by Aquila, Symmachus,
and Theodotion, which coincides with the language of John and Justin. There is nothing
more improbable than that John and Justin
were here independent of each other, and followed a translation of the Hebrew text which
is unknown to us. Is the acceptance of this
theory, one of the most untenable of positions,
taken to avoid the manifest connection between
the words of Justin and those of John?
To close this part of our discussion, we find
in Justin's first Apology, chap. 61, Christ has
said, " Unless ye are born again, ye can not enter the kingdom of heaven. It is manifest to
every one that those who have been born once
caii not enter again into their mother's womb."
This passage has been the theme of much controversy; but I am fully of the opinion that
Justin had in view the passage in John iii. 3 to
5, " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a
man be born again,51 he can not see the king



JUSTIN'S TESTIMONY.


71


dom of God.52 Nicodemus saith unto him,
How can a man be born when he is old? Can
he enter the second time into his mother's
womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born
of water and of the Spirit he can not enter
into the kingdom of God " [kingdom of heaven
according to the Sinaitic Codex and other ancient authorities.]  Now what means is there
of escaping the inference which the parallelism
in these two passages gives rise to? Those
who have attempted to do this have quoted Matt.
xviii. 3, " Verily I say unto you, Except ye be
converted, and become as little children, ye
shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,"
and have given utterance to the suspicion that
in some lost Gospel, perhaps that of the
Hebrews, to which reference has already been
made, this passage was recorded just as Justin
has given it, his authority therefor being not
John, but some previous writer.53  In order
therefore to avoid what lies directly in our
path, we are compelled to have recourse to,
some unknown higher authority. The second




72      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


part of Justin's expression gives all the less
reason for appealing from John to Matthew, that
the fifth verse in the passage in John (standing in direct connection with the third), "he
can not enter into the kingdom of heaven"
[Himmelreich], is the apparent basis of
Justin's expression, "ye can not enter into
the kingdom of heaven."  The phrase "kingdom of God" was completely overshadowed by
the more usual one, kingdom of heaven.54 Decisive too of the personal use of John by
Justin is that expression of the latter relative
to the entering again into the mother's womb
and being born, derived from John iii. 4. To
suppose such a coincidence of thought and language to have been accidental, is a feat of
trickery which can deceive no one capable of
forming an independent judgment.
To this result, which confirms the authenticity of the first three Gospels as much as it does
the fourth, I must add two points more, which
still strengthen my conclusions. One of these
is, that Justin is in the habit of alluding to
the "Memorabilia of the Apostles, known as




JUSTIN'S TESTIMONY.


73


Gospels," without specifically mentioning the
names of the authors. Yet while doing this he
makes particular mention of the fact that the
writers were apostles 55 and companions of Jesus, and by speaking of their combined writings as the " Gospel" he leads us to the undoubting conviction that it was invested with
full canonical authority: and such an investiture naturally allows the names of the writers to fall into the background and to be
unnoticed, while their writings might have
general acceptance. In the second place, we
have to' notice that Justin, even in his first
Apology (chap. 67), asserts that in the Christian congregations the "Memorabilia of the
Apostles or the writings of the Prophets " were
read every Sunday. Here then is an instance
of the Gospels and the prophetical books being
placed on the same plane, the first being exalted to the same canonicity which the latter
had enjoyed from the first. It is an error or a
self-deception to deny that Justin's words do
not warrant the acceptance of those books as
canonical, on the ground that there were writ



74      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


ings read in the church which were not accepted as a part of the canon. There were
such books indeed, but they formed a class
subordinate to the canon, and pre-supposing
the formation of it. Of course there was not
at the outset an immediate recognition of the
equality of the Christian records with the hallowed books of the Old Testament; but after
the church had enlarged the canon by admitting those sacred writings which had sprung
from a common source, and had given them
equal honor with those previously accepted,
there came into view certain books which had
more or less claim to recognition as canonical:
and thus it came about that some were admitted to the prerogative of being read in the
churches, without sharing- the same honor
which was given to those accepted as fully canonical. At a later period the church found it
to be for its interest to assign to these books, to
which usage gave a kind of half-canonical character, a rank equal to the highest. That this
does not apply in the least to the earliest formation of the Christian canon is shown by the




JUSTIN'S TESTIMONY.


75


Muratori Fragment which speaks of the Apocalypse of John and of Peter. We accept these,
but the last named is not admitted by some of
our scholars to the honor of being publicly read
in church. This doubt expresses distinctly the
want of full canonical authority which led to
the rejection of the writing in question. Later
usage can not do away with this; and just as
little can the fact that in some instances the
direct relation of a paper to a single congregation became a source of advantage to the common church, as is testified by Dionysius of
Corinth (Euseb., Hist. Eccl. iv. 23) in the case
of the letters of Clemens and Soter to the Corinthians. In the Muratori Fragment already
referred to, it is stated, toward the end of the
Shepherd of Hermas, that he was to be recommended for private use, but not for public worship, and that he was to be included neither in
the number of prophets nor apostles.
The manner in which Justin expresses himself in the passage quoted above (first Apology,
chap. 67) makes it impossible, in my opinion,
to doubt that in his time the Gospels were ac



76      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


cepted as of canonical authority. We possess
in fact a much earlier testimony of this equality in one of the generally accepted seven
short letters, in that to Smyrna, the seventh
chapter, where are the words, " It behooves us
to give heed to the prophets, and especially to
the Gospel, in which the passion and the resurrection are fully portrayed." Here too, as
the reader observes, there is a manifest coupling of the prophets and the authors of the Gospels, i. e. the books which in their full extent and
defined limits form the Gospel, and a proof
that both were in common use in the church.56
These are proofs from the first quarter (whether the year be taken as 107 or 115) and from the
second quarter (139, or, as some suppose, ten
years earlier) of the second century, that at
that time the Gospels were held as of equal
validity with the prophets, and were admitted
to canonical authority, a place being assigned
them  directly after the prophetical books.
What is not told us in detail respecting the
various Gospels may be inferred from many
other testimonies. I have already shown, from




JUSTIN'S TESTIMONY.


77


various passages of Justin Martyr's undisputed
writings, that our Gospels, without the exception of the fourth, that of John, were admitted
to form one GOSPEL, and to be invested with
canonical authority. Is it possible, therefore, for
the opinion to be justified that at Justin's time
other Gospels than ours were in use as having
had a sacred origin, in spite of the fact that,
decades after Justin, these, and no others,
were in repute through the whole Christian
chuich? Does it not contravene all that we
know of the origin of the canon, that at the
outset, and even in the age of Justin, only
Matthew, Mark, and Luke were regarded as
canonical, and that John was subsequently
smuggled in?
According to the views of many, Justin was
the author of the Letter to Diognetus; but those
who assign to this an earlier date, and consider it the work of an older cotemporary of
Justin's, are more correct. Although this short
apologetic epistle contains no definite quotation
from any one of the Gospels, it contains many
allusions to evangelical passages, and especially




78      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


to John. The words of the sixth chapter,
"Christians live in the world, but are not of
the world; " those of tle tenth, " for God has
loTed men, for whom he created the world;
to whom he has sent his only-begotten Son,' contain almost unmistakable references to John xvii. 11, " these are in the
world;" 14, " the world hateth them, for they
are not of the world; " 16, " they are not of the
world, even as I am not of the world;" and to
John iii. 16, " for God so loved the world that
he gave his only-begotten Son."
But before advancing further we must come
back to the Gospel of the Hebrews, whose use
in connection with our synoptic Gospels is rendered probable by the language of Justin, by
the pseudo-Clementine, and even by Tatian's
Diatessaron, or Harmony of the Gospels, and
testified by Eusebius (iv. 22: 3)' of Hegesippus.
Does not this bring into great uncertainty the
character of the earlier Gospel canon? It certainly appears to do so if the Gospel of the
Hebrews is admitted to a place side by side
with the synoptic Gospels, and be regarded




GOSPEL OF THE HEBREWS.


79


as an independent production. Against such a
view there are a variety of considerations to be
urged. I have already mentioned that the
authorship of this Gospel was ascribed to Matthew. We shall see, further on, that at a very
early period, in its original Hebrew form, it was
held to be the work of Matthew, and that Greek
editions, with many changes in the text, were
in use among the judaizing Christians. This
has led to the result that the passages of the
Gospel of the Hebrews which have been transmitted to us from antiquity, and more especially
those which have recently been brought to light51
by the writer of these pages, manifest a striking
parallelism with our Gospel of Matthew. All
these circumstances lead to the conviction that
at the beginning-, and probably during the first
half of. the second century, the Gospel of Matthew and that of the Hebrews were regarded
not as essentially different productions, but as
different editions of the same document, and
that by degrees greater light was diffused regarding the variations in them. Thus Irenalus
states of the Ebionites, in two passages (i. 26:




80      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


2; iii. 11: 7), that they made use of the Gospel
of Matthew; while Eusebius (iii. 27), probably
referring to the first of these passages, corrects
Irenaeus's statement, and puts the Gospel of the
Hebrews in the place of that of Matthew. Yet
it happened, near the end of the fourth century,
that the most learned theologian and most experienced critic of his age, Jerome, while in
possession of the Gospel of the Hebrews in the
Syro-Chaldaic dialect of the country, and full
of the recollections of an older tradition, believed that it was the original text of Matthew
fallen into his hands. After becoming more
fully acquainted with it, and after translating it
into Latin and Greek, he acknowledged that
many believed that it was the work of Matthew
himself.
Thus far we have been concerned almost exclusively with the writings of men in whom the
church, from the second century, in which they
lived, onward, recognized venerated pillars of
the faith. Yet at the same epoch there was a
rich literature, which, in conjunction with what
was ecclesiastical, put forth a rank growth,




IREN/EUS'S TESTIMONY.


81


which elevated far above the simple Christian
doctrine a system of speculations evolved from
the schools of heatlhen and Jewish philosophy:
I refer to the heretical views which became
current, and which may be also known as tlie
doctrines of the Errorists. Even from this literature we derive convincing proofs that by the
middle, or even before the middle of the second
century, our Gospels had attained the highest
degree of consideration. This is interesting
not more for the light which it throws upon the
earlier history of heresy than for that which it
sheds upon the age and the origin of our Gospels. In calling upon these errorists to give
evidence respecting the Gospels, we have no
less an authority than Irenseus, that Bishop of
Lyons of whom I have elsewhere spoken in dotail. Irenasus himself utters the expression,
" So firmly are our Gospels grounded, that even
the errorists are compelled to acknowledge
their credibility, and each one of them must
begin witl them in order to lay the foundations
of his own system."58 This is 'a judgment
passed by the second half of the second century
6




82      OR'IGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


on the character of the first half. And this
first half of the second century is just the period
to which the opponents of the genuineness of
our Gospels are accustomed to appeal. Now, are
we to suppose that a man like Irenaeus, who lived
only a few decades after the period to which I
am referring, was not better acquainted with the
facts than the scholars and professors of the
nineteenth century? The more the respect due
to the true progress of science in our age, the
less is owed to those scholars who employ their
knowledge and acumen for the purpose of
thrusting at truth. The accuracy of what Irenaeus testified to can be substantiated even today with facts; and our tread is all the more
secure if we do not withhold our belief. What
the earliest Fathers have testified respecting the
primitive errorists (and to the hints of the former we owe the larger share of our knowledge
about the latter), shows us, in the most convincing manner, how radically separate they
were from  the Gospels, and from the books
which were considered holy by the church.
Irenleus himself is one of the chief preservers




VALENT'LE.


83


of these indications; after hliln comes a work
(discovered only twenty years ago) of a disciple of Irenceus, IIippolytus by name, a man
who lived so nearly cotemporancously with
those errorists as to warrant beiing received as
equally good authority as Irenlmus regarding
them.
One of the boldest and most gifted thinkers
among those errorists was Valentinus,59 who
came from Egypt to Rome about the year 140,
and resided tlere for the twenty years sacceeding. He undertook the task of writing a complete history of those " supernal transactions
which took place in tlie realm  of the divine
primeval Powers and supernatural Being before
the sending of the only-begotten of the Father,"
hoping to be able to determine the better from
the character of these events the nature and
mission of the Son of God. In carrying out
this stupendous design, he did inot overlook thle
bumble task of culling from John's Gospel a
grceat number of conceptions and expressions,
such as the Oilly-Begotten, the Word, Light,
Life, Fullness, Truth, Grac3, Saviour, Comfort



84      01IGI' OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


er, and of using them for hlis purpose.  Tllere
is in this suchl an Itundeniiable connection betwecnl thle Gospel of Jollllhn and the edifice of
Valentine's construction that only two explanations of it are possible. Either Valentine made
use of Johvn or John of Valentine.  The latter
alternative, according to my previously stated
views of the second century, must be regarded
as pure nolnsense, and closer investigation into
the matter confirms this.  If science, hostile to
the churcll, is able to reconcile itself to this
fact, it passes judgment on itself'. Ireneus
states explicitly that the sect of Valentine made
the fullest use of the Gospel of Jolln; 60 and lihe
gives the most explicit demonstration that the
first chapter of John was drawn upon for one
of the main features of thle Valentinian system,
the doctrine of the first eOgdoade.'  Tihe statement of Irenauus confirms that of Hippolytus,
for lihe cites expressions of Jolhn which Valentilne
had quoted.  This is the inovt clelarly the case
with John x. 8; for Hippolytus writes, '" Whereas the prophets and the law, according to Valentine's belief, were filled with a subordinate




VALENTINE.


85


and foolish Spirit, Valentine says, ' The words
of the Saviour are, "' All who came before me
are thieves and murderers."' "62 And as the
Johannean, so were the other Gospels used by
Valentine.  According to the statement of
Irellnus, he considered (i. 7: 4) the subordinate
Spirit already mentioned, which he termed
Demiurgos and Taskmaster, to be represented
by the centurion of Capernaumn (Matt. viii. 9;
Luke vii. 8); in the dead and resuscitated
twelve-year-old daughter of Jairus he recognized an image of his "sub-wisdom" (Achamoth), the mother of the Taskmaster (i. 8: 2);
in like manner in the history of the womman
who had suffered for twelve years from an issale
of blood, and was healed by the Lord (Matt. ix.
20), lie recogniized the pains and restorationi of
his twelfth primeval spirit (/Eoiln) i. 3: 3; and
the expression of Jesus recorded in Matt. v. 18
lie applied to the tenll  ons hinted at in the
numerical value of the Iota, the smallest letter.
What do they who deny the high antiquity
of John's Gospel say to this? They assert that
all that pertains to John was not brought out




86     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


by Valentine himself, but by his disciples. In
fact, the expression is much more frequent in Irenaeus " they say " - the followers of Valentine
- than ' he says," meaning Valentine himself.
But who is wise enough to discriminate between what the master said and what the disciples added, without echoing their master in the
least?63 We must here touch once more upon
the passage of Ireneus (iii. 11: 7) where he
expresses himself respecting the relation of the
heretics to the Gospels. After the sentence,
"So securely are our Gospels founded, that
even the errorists give testimony for them,
and every one of these begins at the Gospels
when he wants to try the foundations of his
own system," he goes on to say, " For the errorists make exclusive use of the Gospel of
Matthew, and are convinced from his pages
alone of their error respecting the Lord. Marcion, however, avails himself of the mutilated
Gospel according to Luke, and the very part
which he retains makes his blasplecmy against
the only God apparent. Those who separate
Jesus from Christ, and insist that it was Christ




VALENTINE.


87.alone, and not Jesus, who suffered, assign a
preference to the Gospel according to Mark.
If they read it with real love of truth, they can
be cured of their error; but they who cleave to
Valentine make the fullest use of John's Gospel for the confirmation of their doctrine of
iEons; and from this it can be seen that they
teach nothing correctly, as we have shown in
our first book." Does this representation of
Ireneus accord with the view that the use of
the Gospel according to John began with the
disciples of Valentine, and not with Valentine
himself? Irenmeus declares the use of the
Johannean Gospel to have been a characteristic
feature of Valentine's school; and those names
and conceptions already alluded to, which pervaded the whole system, testify convincingly to
this: yet was all this a mere affix to the system? So much respecting Irenseus. In Hippolytus the expression is even more definite
regarding Valentine. If now it is indisputable
that the author does not always discriminate
closely between the sect and the founder of the
sect, have we an example of this in the case




88      ORIGIN OF TIE FOUR GOSPELS.


now under consideration? In those instances.
where, in the course of a consecutive delineation, we are called upon to consider now the
founder and then the sect, is it not more logi- -
cal to conclude that tlhe founder and the sect
are to be taken as inseparably connected?
From one disciple of Valentine's, Ptolemaus
by name, we receive a learned epistle, directed
to " Flora."  In it, in conjunction with several
quotations from Matthew, is one from the first
chapter of John: " All things were made by
him  (the Word), and without him   was not
anything made that was made, says the apostle."  The method employed to rob such quotations of their force is to make the errorists
who use these words as modern as possible; if
it be possible to trace them back only to the
close of the second century, the proofs drawn
from them  do not acoinplish anything more
than to substantiate what is already known,
that at that time, as the opponents of the church
gladly concede, the church in its ignorance had
fallen into the use of the canon of four Gospels.  But how recent was Ptolemaus's time?




PTOLEJMA US.


89


In all the most ancient sources he appears as
one of the most distingislled and most influential disciples of Valentine's. As the epoch of
the latter was about the year 140, do we go too
far in setting the time of Ptolemaus at about
160 at the latest?  Ireieus (in the second
book) and Hippolytus name him in connection
with Herakleon; and, in like manner, PseudoTertullian (in the affix to De prescripitionibus
haerticorum) and Philastrius place him directly
after Valentine.  Irenaeus in all probability
wrote the first and second books of his great
work before the year 180, and in both he concerns himself very much with Ptolemaus.
Here, however, we must bring in the testimony of Herakleon, the other very eminent
disciple of Valentine. Herakleon wrote all entire commentary on the Gospel of Jolhn; his
work is known to us through the many fraginents which Origen has woven into his own
commentary on the same Gospel. From these
fragments it is plain that Herakleon's object
was carried out with consummate skill, to base
the assertions of his school on John: in this he




90      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


took the course which we have already remarked in Valentine. Wholly absorbed in his
own ideas, he found tlem reflected in a certain
double sense of Scripture which he traced particularly in John. In the passage, for example,
iii. 12, " after that, he withdrew to Capernaum," he held that there is an allusion to the
domain of material and worldly things to which
the Saviour condescended. The want of susceptibility in this domain of sense he tlougllt
to be indicated by the fact that John has given
us no account of what Jesus said or did while
in Capernaum. The Samaritan woman at the
well of Jacob was to him the representative of
all souls which feel themselves drawn to what
is divine; the water of Jacob's well, which
could not satisfy all spiritual necessities, was
the transitory Judaic economy.   The man
whom the woman is required to summon is
her spiritual complement, her pleroma, her angel tarrying in the higher world of spirits. The
water wlhicl was offered to her indicates the divine life which was poured forth by the Saviour;
the jar of the woman portrays her susceptibility




UERAKLE ON.


91


for this divine life. Is not this commentary
the most striking proof of the high authority
which the Gospel of John must have had even
then in the church, when the very errorists who
had turned away from the church so willingly
souglit the confirmation of their own ideas in
it?  And does not this show at a glance the
absurdity of the theory which derives John's
Gospel from the school of Valentine? But the
question recurs, How old is Herakleon? It is
one which has been urged with consummate
skill against our ancient sacred literature; and
the answer has been given with incr( dible
thoughtlessness, that he was the cotemporary
of Origen and of Hippolytus.  Unquestionably
the oppressive weight of the matter under discussion has been experienced, and hence has
arisen the blindness to the evidences of antiquity
which are still in existence.64
Ireni us mentions Herakleon in connection
with Ptolemaus5 in a way which shows him to
have been a well-known representative of tlle
school of Valentine.  This acceptation of his
words is all the more fully justified by the fact




92      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


that lie makes no further allusion to Heraldeon.
Clemens reminds us in the fourth book of dis
Stromiata, written soon after the death of Cornmnodus (198), of ail interpretation given by
i1rakicleon to Luke xii. 8, and- terms himi at thle
same time the most distinguished member 66 of
Valentine's school. Origen states, at the comnencenient of his citations from llerakleon,
that lie was held to be a friend of Valentine's.61
iippolytus alludes to him in vi. 29 in the following words: " Valentinus and JIerakleon and
Ptolemaus and the whole school of these disciples of Pythagoras and Plato."   Epiphianius
says (llaer. 41), "1 Cerdo (the same who, according to Irenvaus, iii. 4: 3, was with Valentine in Rome) follows these (the Ophites,
Kainites, Setliians) and lerakleon." According to this evidence, lierakleon can not be assigneid to a date more moderii than 150 or 160.
The expression whiich Origen has used of his
relations to Valentine must, according to the
usages of speech, be understood as applicable to
a personal relation.68  Epiphanius has certainly
erred (an occurrence not often met in him) in




HERAKLE OX.


93


letting Cerdo, whose epoch must be set at about
140, follow Heralleon; but we have not the
sligltest riglit to suppose that he has made a
mistake equal to the entire length of a man's
life, and even more.69 And on this account we
may rejoice in the fact that a Gnostic partisan
write a complete commentary on the Gospel
of. John soon after the middle of the second
century.
IHad this Gospel then freshly appeared, and
was it so flattering to the representatives of the
Valentinian Gnlosis that these gave it a cordial
welcome?   Assuredly it was no light task for
them to draw out of the simple words of John
tlheir own profound system. And it is not a
little remarkable that the church thoroughly
shared in tlhe fancies of the errorists who had
wandered so far out of the way. In addition
to this, tlerQ were tlose who knew that John
had duly died at Ephesus without leaving behind any such legacy as a Gospel, and that such
a work as it was could not have lain hid till
that late day in a corner. If the reader was
not able to come to an understanding with him



94     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


self in this wondrous thougllt-structure, he
only confirmed this fact, that the commentary
of Ileralkeon is one of the strongest proofs that
thel, when. it was written, tile Gospel of John
had long been revered as one of the hallowed
writings of the church, so that it seemed to
Hera.kleon a thing of special importance to show
that this apostolic document, if it should be
rightly interpreted, must be used to confirm the
system of Valentine.
While dealing with Valentine, or, according
to the order of time, before reaching Valentine,
we encounter Basilides, the period of whose
activity occurs, according to Eusebius, at the
epoch of Hadrian.   With all his exhaustive
speculations on the Primeval, aIld the secret,
incomprehensible and lofty forces which springc
firom it with living impulse, with all his medlitations on the principles of light and darkness, life and death, his method of grasping
the sublject of faith allied him by a close bond
with the adhlerents of time chlurcl, who stood on
a lower platform, so far as profession is concerned, thaln was the case with Valentine.




BASILIDES.


95


One of his chief productions appears to be a
commentary in twenty-four books onl the Gospel. E-usebius (iv. 7) infers tile existence of
this work from the statements of a cotemporaneous opponent of Basilides, Agrippa Castor
by name. Fragments from his book appear to
have been preserved by Clemens, Origen, Epiphanius, and the so-called Archelaus Disputation. Has this work any relation to thell subject now under review? It certainly appears
to have. For the expressioa.n q(loted by Eusebius from Agrippa Castor, thlat Basilides wrote
twenty-four books~,  1 on t!he Gospel," almuost
compels us to turn our thoughts to those Gospels whichll, according to tllat earliest form of
speech which comes to lighlt even in Justin and
Ircnous, were designated as " the Gospel," even
althoughl the Gospel of the Hebrews, passing
under the name of 5Mattllew, was the substitute
for our Matthew. That this view of the work
of Pasilides, on the skeptical side, is simply
ludicrous, may be seen at a glance.  Still it is
in lharmoiny with what we gather from the letters of Ignatius, from Polyearp, and from Jus



96       ORICI  OF TIHE FOUR GOSP'ELS.


tin, respecting the place which the Gospels
held in the first half of the second century.
Tlie fragments which have been alluded to do
not invalidate this view, but rather confirm it.
So, too, what Clemens cites (Strom. 3: 1) as
from Basilides is closely connected witl Matt.
xix. 11, 12;1 the quotation from  Basilides,
found in Epiphanius (Halr. 24: 5), is il direct
alliance with Matt. vii. 6;72 that found in Origen in the commentary (lib. v. cap. 5) to the
Epistle to the Romans begins with the words
from Romans vii. 9; his words are, " For the
apostle has said, ' Once I lived without the
law.' "  From this we infer the general connection of Basilides with our New Testament.73
To this must be added what we learn through
tlle Philosopllumena of Iippolytus concerning
Basilides.  Tllis work contains a detailed account of him, having direct quotations from
Paul74 and Luke,75 an allusion to Matthew, and
two passages from John. In vii. 22, we read,
" And that is what is said in the Gospels, ' lie
was the true Light, which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world."'   John i. 9.




BASILIDES.


97


In this passage the expression "in the Gospels" is entitled to its due weight: it presupposes the existence of the evangelical canon
hinted at in the other forms of quotation, such
as " the Scripture says," and "it is written."
Furthermore, in vii. 27, we find the expression
" That everything has its time " is amply confirmed by the words of the Saviour, when he
says, "My hour is not yet come."  John ii. 4.
Does not this bring into perplexity tlose who
are so certain that at the time of Basilides not
a word of John's Gospel was written? But no;
there is a ready way out of this difficulty. That
to whicl the words, " in the Gospel it is said,"
give a happy indication, is made to mean, (because, forsootl, no trace of a collection of Gospels can be traced back to that epoch,) that Hippolytus is not dealing with the genuine Basilides, but witl a Basilidian document which was
the product of his own time. Without entering upon an investigation of that discrimination which Hippolytus, who is so familiar with
all that pertains to the ancient heretics, has
made between his Basilides and the one yet
7




98      ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


more ancient, we must at least grant that he
has made distinct and explicit76 reference to
the older Basilides, and that he is not satisfied
with his reader's accepting any other. Are we
to suppose that it was a simple matter for the
man who had been the disciple of Irenaeus, and
had died in the year 235, to err so singularly,
while in the latest years of his life he was preparing a work drawn from first sources, as
to ascribe to Basilides at the time of Hadrian
what had been added during his own time by
the followers of Basilides? Are we able to determine with certainty when the old system left
off and the new began? And if we deny them
both, and dare give credence to Hippolytus, we
must admit that he has done us a great service
in showing conclusively that Basilides and his
school recognized the Gospels as books of ecclesiastical authority long before the middle of the
second century, and expressly made use of the
Gospel of John for his ends.
We come to the same result if we trace the
relations of other Gnostic sects, the Naasenians
and the Perates for example. The first derive




THE NAASENIANS.


99


tleir name from the Hebrew word naas, a snake,
corresponding to the Greek Ophites. While the
last name was long used by Irenmus and others,
tlat of Naasenians began to be made current
(aside from reference of Theodoret) 77 through
the Philosophumena of Hippolytus. That the
Naasenians were nothing but a fraction of the
Ophites is not at all substantiated by the efforts
made to support this hypothesis, and is wholly
disproved by the statement of Hippolytus, who
put the Naasenians and the Perates at the
head of the Gnostics, giving them precedence
before Simon Magus, the Valentinians, and
Basilides, but, as he states expressly (v. 6), assigning them priority over all the other Gnostics. But while we place the opinion of Hippolytus above the doubts which negative criticism has raised, we yet reckon among the most
valuable comments on the Gospels the following
excerpts made by Hippolytus from the writings
of the Naasenians living in the first half of tlle
second century. In v. 8 he has this: " For all
things, he asserts, (tle writer of tlle Naasenian
document) have been made by the same hand,.'




100     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


and without tlhat hand is nothing'made. And
what is made in him78 is Life." 7  In another
passage: "That it is which we have learned
of the Saviour, ' Except ye drink my blood and
eat my flesh, ye shall not enter the kingdom of
heaven (John vi. 53); Except ye drink the cup
which I drink (Mark x. 38; Matt. xx. 22);
Whither I go ye can not com3.'"  John viii.
21. Soon after lie says, "His voice we have
heard indeed, but his form have we not seen."
John iii. 8; v. 37.  In the same connection
we find, " Touching this our Saviour says, ' No
man can come to me except my heavenly
Father draw him.'"  John vi. 44. Again, v. 9,
" For, says he, God is a Spirit, and tlhose who
worship him must worship him neither on this
mountain nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit."
Cf. John iv. 21, 24. Soon after we meet the
words, " But if thou knewest who it is that asks
thee, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he
would have given thee living water." Connected with these passages, so evidently from John,
there are others from Matthew (vii. 6, 13,14;
i
f. W




THE NAASENIANS.


101


iii. 10; xiii. 3, et sq.), and from Paul's Epistles
(1 Cor. ii. 13, 14; 2 Cor. xii. 2, et sq.)
We ought not to refrain from adding to these
Naasenian citations from John and found in
Hippolytus, what is given to us in the writings
of the Ophites, in that pseudo-Tertullianic documelt (Append. to Text de praescr. hberet.)
wlicll those who lean to the Philosophumena
believe to be drawn from a writing still more
ancient. The quotation from John stands in
the closest relation to that glorification of the
serpent from which the sect of Naasenians derives its name; and all the more forcibly are
we compelled to assign to the founder of the
sect, and not to some later effort from it, the
application of the passage from John. In the
pseudo-Tertullian (chap. 47 of the document
de praescr. hair.) it is expressly stated, " To
these must be added those heresiarchs who are
called Ophites, i. e., Serpent-men. These pay
such honors to the serpent that they place it
even before Christ. For to the serpent, they
say, we owe the beginning of our knowledge of
good and evil.  When Moses comprehended




102    ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


the greatness and power of the serpent, he elevated one of brass, and all who looked upon it
were made whole.   Besides this, they assert
that even Christ hints at the sacredness of the
serpent, when he says, ' And as Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of man be lifted up.'"  John iii. 14. We
meet the same passage, as I shall presently
show, in the literature of the Perates. For just
as from the writings of the Naasenians many
passages were selected by Hippolytus, so were
many also taken from those of the Perates,
especially such as were originally derived from
the Gospel of John. I need cite but two of these,
Art. v. 12. "For the Son of man is not come
into the world to condemn the world, but that
through him the world might be saved." John
iii. 17; v. 16. "And as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son
of man also be lifted up." John iii. 14.80
I have as yet made no mention of Marcion, a
man whose nature and activities were strangely
divided between the faith of the church and the
Gnostic heresy. It is the more necessary for me




MAARCION.


103


to allude to him because use has been made of
his writings in a way entirely at variance with
my own convictions. He was born at Sinope,
on the Black Sea, the celebrated Pontine capital of that time, in the early part of the second
century. Subsequently to the year 128 he appears to have inculcated his peculiar doctrines
at Rome; and, making it his special purpose to
sever Judaism from Christianity, he undertook
to eliminate from the apostolic writings everything which favored the former.  rn consequence of a statement which has come down to
us from antiquity, that this writer made a collection of sacred writings (which may have
taken place before the middle of the second
century, between 130 and 140),81 and that he
admitted into this collection only the Gospel
of Luke and ten of Paul's Epistles, making such
changes, moreover, in the text of them all as
compelled them to suit his ideas, many scholars
have supposed that this was tle very first collection of sacred writings made by the church,
and that the Gospel which he admitted into
his collection was not Luke's, but was the


as




104     ORIGIN OF THE FOUlI GOSPELS.


mddel which was followed when the one which
we possess and call Luke's Gospel was written,
and that he had no acquaintance with our other
Gospels, including that ascribed to Joln.
All three of these positions we hold to be
utterly untenable. The first of them, which
gives to Marcion the priority in making a collection of New Testament Scriptures for the
use of the church, rests upon a complete ignoring of the development of the canon; the elements of this development, as my own researches reveal them, I shall take occasion to
sum up and present on a future page. It also
rests upon an ignoring of the point of view which
Marcion took in relation to the church. Taking his stand upon the ground of Paul's expressions in the second chapter of the Epistle to the
Galatians respecting those departures from the
purity of the faith which were beginning to be
manifested among the apostles themselves, he
believed himself called, in the Pauline sense of
the word, to the task of purging the Christian
faith of Jewish elements.82  In executing this
undertaking nothing was more effective than




MARCION.


105


the laying of a correcting hand, upon those
writings which even then were accepted as the
valid standards of belief among the adherents
of Christianity. The correctness of this mode
of procedure, employed even by the oldest
fathers of the church, was confirmed in a striking manner in his dealing with the Pauline
Gospels. It is confirmed, moreover, by his treatment of Luke's Gospel, of which I shall have
occasion to speak further on. And does it not
harmonize entirely with his purpose, that he excluded other New Testament writings from his
canon? It is possible that in one or another
of the excluded documents the same anti-judaical spirit would have led to like results; yet it
is perfectly conceivable, and is not open to our
criticism, that in his devotion to Paul lie contented himself with accepting ten of his Epistles
and that Gospel, whose author, owing to his
being a companion and helper of Paul, owed
a great deal to the influence exerted upon him
by Paul, so that his work might almost be
called the Gospel according to Paul.83
Very recently84 the statement has been made




106     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


with constummate naivete, that Marcion, sojourlning in a remote province like Pontus, enjoyed a limited accessibility to Christian books,
and that in making his collection he accumulated the greatest amount of materials that his
scanty advantages allowed.  The distance of
that province, which at the time of Pliny comprised a very large population of Jews as well
as of Christians, from the two centers of
Christian Asia Minor, Ephesus and Antioch, is
not greater than from Naples to Milan; and
who in all the world, except a short-sighted
professor, would draw the inference that a
scholar, living in Pontus, during the fourth
decade of the second century, making a collection of the Christian sacred books, was not acquainted with all our Gospels? The Epistles
to the Corinthians and to the Romans were
diffused and accepted; and yet we are to believe that the Gospel of John had not found
its way from Ephesus to Sinope! 85 Finally, the
theory which rests on the remoteness of Pontus loses all its force in helping us solve the
question under discussion, from the fact that




MARCION.


107


after Marcion went to Rome, and took a high
position there, he did not modify at all what
he had done in forming his collection of sacred
writings. At Rome he would assuredly have
been able to supply the lack of materials from
which he is alleged to have suffered at Pontus;
but we do not learn that he made any addition
to his canon after coming to Rome.
The second of the positions mentioned above,
that the gospel of Marcion served as a model
for that which we now accept as Luke's- a
position which bears the clearest evidence from
the outset of being the result of reckless ignorance - has been surrendered in our own time by
its own defenders. Still it is asserted by some
scholars that our Gospel according to Luke,
like that of Marcion, is a modified form of one
still older but subsequently lost; that that of
Marcion consequently did not spring from
Luke's, but that they both originated in a common source, to which Marcion remained true.
Going in this direction one step further, they
succeeded in finding in Marcion the oldest of all
the Gospel Codices. Tils view, entirely apart




108     ORIGIY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


from the last mentioned bold act of an intoxicated fancy, is in opposition to what Ireneus,
Tertullian, and Epiphanius say 86 regarding Marcion's gospel, which they possessed; in consequence, however, of the ignorance prevailing respecting Marcion's labors, and in consequence
also of some indemonstrable hypotheses, it has
gained a certain appearance of truth and consequent acceptance. The efforts to strike out the
subsequent additions from our Gospel of Luke
for the purpose of restoring the supposed older
original, suffer from that arbitrariness which
modern hypercriticism has assumed in all discussion of the origin of the Gospels. The fact
that Marcion gave no name87 to his Gospel is
made to give support to the claim that it is the
only true Gospel, and is entitled to no influence in directing our researches respecting this
Gospel.
We come to the third position, a refutation of
which will throw light upon both of the others.
Marcion is asserted to have not possessed the
other Gospels, including that of John. If Marcion found the other Gospels in their main




MARCION.


109


form, just as we possess them now, in the possession of the church of his time, the view of
the priority of his collection over the primitive
canon of the church falls to the ground; and
equally frail is the hypothesis respecting the
parallelism between the Gospel according to
-Marcion and our Luke, together with the consequences drawn therefrom respecting the autlority of our canon in its present form; and
so there is gained no insignificant proof of the
high antiquity and the genuineness of the Gospel according to John.
What grounds have we for believing that
Marcion was acquainted with our Gospels?
All tlat Irelaeus and Tertullian still more explicitly have told us in reference to this matter
makes it certain. For where Irenmus (i. 27,
2) writes concerning Marcion, that in opposition to his pupils he held his trustworthiness greater than that of the apostles, who
transmitted the Gospel (qui evangelium tradiderunt), inasmuch as he did not give the (whole)
Gospel, but a part of the Gospel (non evangelium, sed particulam evangelii), the meaning is,
*




110     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


according to Ireneus's use of language else.
where (i. 27, 2), that Marcion gave his disciples
only one of the Gospels, namely, that of Luke.
That by the expressions "evangelium" and
"particula m evangelii" we are to understand
the Gospels, and not the Sermon on the Mount,
is shown by another passage of his work (iii. 12,
12), where, in reference to Marcion and other
heresiarchs, we read, " The apostles have spread
the Gospel abroad filled with Jewish prejudices
(adhuc qua sunt Judaeorum sentientes): and
these are even more fair and wise than the
apostles." Irenaeus then goes on to say, " On
this account Marcion and his adherents have
made it their aim to diminish the extent of tle
sacred books (ad intercidendas scripturas conversi sunt), some of which they lave entirely
rejected, while they have reduced the size of
Luke's Gospel and Paul's Epistles, insisting
that the scriptures which they have retained
and revised are the only ones which are to be
accepted."  These statements of Irenaus have
no twofold meaning, and are not susceptible of
two interpretations. He evidently presupposes
li




TERTULLIAN 'S ADMISSIONiS.    1


11I


a familiar knowledge on the part of the read
er of what lie means by the " reducing of the
sacred books," and by a " non-recognition " of
some of them: and in order to understand what
lie means we have only to take his own point
of view.
Tertullian's admissions are much more to the
purpose, although in his case we have to bear
in mind that he is not writing for critical scholars, who are accustomed to avail themselves of
every lack in a complete chain of evidence to
help support their own views.  After citing
(adv. Marc. iv. 3) Marcion's misuse of the second chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians
(see a previous page), he says: " Connititur ad
destruendum statum eorum evangeliorum quax
propria et sub apostolorum nomine eduntur vel
etiam apostolicorum, ut scilicet fidem quam illis
adimit suo conferat." Among the Gospels which
he designates as those " which bear the name
of apostles, or men of apostolic character," are
to be understood the four which we possess,
unless we purposely misinterpret Tertullian's
words. Shortly before (iv. 2), he had in the




112    ORIGIN OF TIE FOUR GOSPELS.


most definite language 88 designated the Gospels
as books which had been written by actual apostles, such as Matthew and John, as well as by
men of apostolic dignity, such as Mark and
Luke. In order to escape tile force of this striking testimony of Tertullian, without accusing
him of ignorance or falsification, an unfortunate
attempt has been made to get rid of the difficulty by asserting that apocryphal Gospels are
here meant, bearing unauthenticated names
of apostles. Whoever listens for an instant to
such a plea -and how one can is hardly to be
imagined - must hold as not genuine the closing words of Tertullian, "and expressly to ascribe to his own testimony the credibility which
lie denies to theirs [the apostolic evangelists]."
Tertullian repeats, moreover, respecting the passages from Matthew's Gospel, " Marcion has
stricken this from the Gospel."  Comp. adv.
Marc. ii. 17; iv. 7. In the passage quoted on
a previous page, de carne Chr. 2, the words,
"tot originalia instrumenta Christi, Marcion,
delere ausus es," are used in direct relation to
the first chapters of Matthew and Luke. Adv.




TERTULLIAN'S TESTIMONY.


113


Marcion iv. 5 he complains of Marcion on the
ground that instead of availing himself of Luke
(a Gospel at second hand), he did not at once
take up those whose authority (as the work of
actual apostles) le knew to be higher.89 De
carn. Christ. 3, he says, " If thou hadst not purposely rejected or changed the reading of the
writings which are opposed to thy system, the
Gospel of John would surely have convinced
thee in this matter." 5We find attention called
finally to an epistle of Marcion, from the contents of which Tertullian establishes conclusively the fact that Marcion once accepted what
he subsequently rejected.90
From all this it is established with the utmost
certainty that Tertullian subjected Marcion to
weighty reproaches for rejecting the Gospels
(including John, once expressly named) which
he had once accepted, and which Tertullian, in
common with the church, continued to hold.
Au epistle of Marcion which he thought might
possibly be disavowed by the followers of Marcion 91 served to show him what was the character of the man. The question naturally comes
8




114     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


up, Is Tertullian entitled to credibility in this
affair?
It is now difficult to set aside the claims of
those who have enacted the history of the primitive Christian church, on a basis of anti-ecclesiastical prejudices and fancies. Polemical zeal,
united with a certain passionate force of conviction, sometimes carried the great African
polemic too far, and made him unjust to the
heretical opponents whom he had to confute.
But is this general fact enough to warrant us
in crying out that here lie is making false inferences? Men have even the hardihood to say
- for shamelessness is now an extinct idea -
that what Tertullian states with all correctness
must be set to the account of " malicious persecution." 92  That what Tertullian advances
finds powerful support in Irenseus is plain; but
when the clearest and most evident matters are
made to assume an obscure appearance, how
much easier to bring under suspicion the passages from Irenmus, which hint at more than
they openly express. Is anything plainer than
that the reform93 which Marcion endeavored to:~i




TERTULLIAN AND MARCION.


115


carry into the Gospels aimed specifically at correcting the canonical writings of the New Testament?   Did Tertullian need the help of
schoolmasters more than we do, to know tlat
"evangelium " has other meanings than a written record?  And is the accusation brought
against Marcion, that he rejected the apostolic
records, which were well known to him, and
which even bore the authenticated names of
apostles, and that he made arbitrary changes in
Luke as well as in the Pauline Episdes, anything else than empty inference? And why is
this attempt made?  Is not the object to get
rid of the truth, to und3rmine and destroy the
force of one of the most importaat menas of
substantiating the primitive authority of our
Gospels, more especially that of John?  Those
readers who are not specially engaged in prosecuting learned researches need nothing more
than wllat has already been given to qualify
them  for passing judgment on this matter.
Such readers ought to use every occasion to ascertian what the character of the learning is,




116     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


which those professors sustain who make it their
task to decry the authenticity of the Gospels.
One of the most interesting phenomena in
the church, and one of lasting influence, was
Montanism. Its aim was to stem the violent
tide of Gnosticism, which was swamping the
simple older faith with philosophic speculation,
and sought to benefit men by giving them a
deep inward and direct apprehension of divine
truth. Taking a stand not only against foreign
speculations but equally against the traditional
deadness of an external ecclesiasticism, it, like
Gnosticism, at length shot above the church
through its exaltation of a fanatical spirit of
prophecy, above the tranquil and orderly development of Christianity through doctrines of the
new birth and spiritual illumination.
If, following the object which I have in view,
we ask what place Montanism took in relation
to the writings of the New Testament, the
greatest difficulty in the way of finding an answer lies in the fact that we are scarcely in a
position to make a general discrimination between the form which had been given at the end




MONTANISM.


117


of the second century by means of Tertullian's
reformatory character, to the theological system then existing, and that which it had assumed at the outset ill Syria. The account
given by Eusebius, although drawn from fragments dating from the comparatively recent time
of Marcus Aurelius (161 to 180), and that of
Epiphauius, which aimed more distinctively at
a confutation of opponents, are of a very incomplete claracter. The little which Irenaeus
has respecting tils matter is hinted at in such
various fashion that one hint only darkens the
meaning of another. The scanty allusions in
the Philosophumena of Hippolytus give rise to
the suspicion that they relate rather to Tertullian's epoch than to the beginning of Montanism in the year 150.
The distinctive question which meets us here
is this: Has Montanism from the very first appropriated to itself, independently of John's
Gospel, that prophetic spirit which was poured
out, as is averred, on Montanus, his female companions, and his followers, and which stood in
intimate connection with the Paraclete which




118     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


was promised by the Saviour to his disciples
(John xiv. 16, 26)? The wanton character of
Phrygian fanaticism  leads us to suspect that
the letter of Scripture was held in no regard;
and the extracts quoted in Eusebius (v. 16 to
19), as well as the document of Epiphanius,
contain nothing which can give us any light in
this matter.  It is quite otherwise with what
Eusebius, and, long before him, Ireneus and
Hippolytus record.94 In Irenaeus (iii. 11, 9)
we read: " But others, in order to do away with
the gift of the Spirit, which, according to the
counsel of the Father, is poured out onl all flesh,
do not accept that promise made in the Gospel
of John, that the Lord will send down the Paraclete, casting away not only this prophetic gift,
but the Gospel as well which records its sending. It is truly their misfortune that, while
granting that there are false prophets, they yet
deny to the church the true and real gift of
prophecy; it is with them as with those who,
because there are hypocrites in the church, withhold themselves from all fraternal converse with
the brethren." 95 The reference of this passage




MONTAN4ISIM.


119


to the Montanists we hold in common with
Lucke and others as not at all made out;96 but
we regard the argument as conclusive, that the
opponents of the Montanists, wittily called by
Epiphanius, in a double use of language, Alogians, are meant. Epiphanius also bears evidence that the Alogians rejected the Gospel
and the Apocalypse of John. But if it is a real
characteristic of the opponents of Montanism,
that they rejected John's Gospel, it is entirely
probable that this was the result of the connection bbetween the prophetic Spirit of the Montanists and the Paraclete of that Gospel  It is not
credible that the Alogians first brought this
connection into view; according to the words
of Irenaeus, previously cited, it is certain that he
was already of the opinion that the Alogians
had rejected this Gospel simply because of this
connection, and because it seemed to be drawn
from John. Irenaeus may be incorrect in his
supposition that this was the only or the main
ground for the Alogians' rejection97 of this Gospel; but Epiphanius bears witness that they
could not account for the want of accordance




120     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


between John's and the synoptic Gospels. To
me, however, it seems to be necessarily inferred
from the statements of Irenaeus that he presupposes that the Montauists themselves brought
their prophetical Spirit into harmony with the
Paraclete of John's Gospel, and therefore made
use of the latter document. Lastly, we have a
statement of Hippolytus hinted at; it is found
in the Philosoph. viii. 19, and runs as follows:
" The Phrygian heresiarchs have been infatuated by Priscilla and Maximilla;,whom they hold
to be prophetesses because they aver that the
Paraclete las entered into them."
How then lies the matter? The short extracts given by Eusebius from the writings of
early opponents contain nothing in reference
to the connection between the Montanists'
prophetical Spirit and the Paraclete of John;
no more do the refutations of Epiphanius; but
Irensus, Hippolytus, Tertullian,9 and Eusebius
are united in averring that this connection did
exist; and the fact that the Alogians rejected
the Gospel of John, according to the statement
of Irenaeus, assuredly harmonizes with the




MONTANISM.


121


honor which was paid by the Montanists to this
Gospel.
Yet there has been the same effort to pervert
the relation of Montanism to John's Gospel as
in the system of Valentine; at least the suspicion has been bruited that that Gospel could
only have emanated from the same circle of
theological ideas and be the result of the same
movement which gave rise to Montanism. What
a chaotic confusion of thoughts is there in such
a charge as this! what a senseless opposition to
John's credibility is betrayed in the effort to
pervert and falsify the evidences which go to establish his authenticity! Let us suppose for a
minute that John's Gospel sprang into existence like Montanism about the year 150. De
spite the fact that the lateness of its appearance
must make it seem like the work of a pious
fraud, and that in its whole structure and in
its details it was unlike the earlier Gospels, the
church, no less than those who opposed the
church, and especially the Montanists, accepted
it with full confidence. To one little sect alone
did it fall to raise difficulties between the older
5




122     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.
Gospel and the more recent one, and in conse
quence to reject the latter, and yet without
gaining either credit or prominence by the act.
And is it true that there is clear accordance between the Montanist doctrine and that of John's
Gospel?  Not in the least.  Aside from the
fact that the points where they harmonize relate almost exclusively to the idea of the Paraclete (an idea which appears in the Gospel
without any full development, while in Montanism we are directed rather to the catholicizing notions entertained by Tertullian than
to those held earlier), the divergence between Montanism and John's Gospel is as great
as that between an ecclesiastic prototype and
a heretical copy.
In addition to this, the opponents of Montanism already named give noticeable testimony
against this and similar depreciations of John's
Gospel in the middle of the second century, at
the time of the Montanist movement.  They
knew nothing about the story of the Gospel of
John being a new thing first ushered into being in their time; they ascribed both the Gos



MONTANISM.


123


pel and the Apocalypse as unworthy of the
church (Epiph. haer: 51, 3) to Corinth, a cotemporary of Joln.99 The very opponents of
the book, therefore, did not doubt about its age,
nor bring it under suspicion; they always ascribed it to the epocl in which John lived.
Does not this show tlat the church had long
used that Gospel, and that on that account
there was no opening for objections to it on the
ground of age? It is to be noticed at the same
time tlat the same heretics consider the Gospel and the Apocalypse as coherent productions,
and that they acted as one man in disowning
John, and in claiming Corinth as the author.
Tha authorship of the Apocalypse, expressly
stated by Justin to be the production of John,
has not been doubted even by the Tiibingen
critics to be the work of John. From the acts
of the anti-Montanists, however, it is to be inferred that the conviction and usage of the
church agreed in ascribing both writings, the
Gospel and the Apocalypse, to John.
In this way, as the reader can perceive, even
the heretics of the first half of the second cen



124     ORIGIV OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


tury and the beginning of the second half do
good service in helping us ascertain the truth
regarding the antiquity of our Gospels. We
hold it impossible, without resorting to sophistry
and falsification, to do away with the testimony
which these heretics bear to the credibility of
our Gospels, and especially to that of John.
We now advance a step beyond the church
to the territory where we encounter the armed
opponents of Christianity, the men to whom
the whole preaching of the cross was folly and
an offense. At that very time when the Gnostic errorists were throwing the church into
into such confusion, it happened that one
of these opponents, Celsus by name, wrote a
book full of mockery and scorn at Christianity.
This production perished long ago; but so far
from doing any harm to Christianity, it proved
to be a great gain, for it impelled Origen to write
his powerful and learned defense of Christianity. From Origen's work we draw enough to
make us certain that in his attacks on the
Christian faith Celsus made ample use of our
Gospels, and that he drew from them the mate



CELS US.


125


rials which lie needed in making his attacks.
In what he says respecting the appearance of
angels at the resurrection of Jesus lie probably
refers to all four of the Gospels; for le says
that according to some there were two angels,
according to others, four at the grave (5, 56).
Origen supposed that the first referred to Luke
and John, the last to Matthew and Mark. Proceeding in a different and more definite way to
work, he drew into the circle of his criticism
various passages from the synoptical Gospels,
especially Matthew's, and also some from that
of John. Among those from the synoptical Gospels may be mentioned the account of the wise
men from the East (whom he calls Chaldeans),
the story of the slaughter of the children by
Herod (1, 58), the flight into Egypt at the bidding of the angel (1, 66), the appearance of the
dove at the baptism (1, 40), the son of the Virgin (1, 40), the direction which Jesus gives to
his disciples (Matt. x. 23), "wwhen they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another " (1,
65), the grief at Gethsemane (2, 24), the thirst
on the cross (2, 37), the saying of Jesus that it




126     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


is easier to go through the eye of a needle, etc.
- which he supposes to be a motto of Plato in a
changed form (6, 16),-the command of Jesus
(Matt. v. 39; Luke vi. 29), " Whosoever shall
smite.thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the
other also," which he also supposes to be a modified Platonism. Examples of a reference to John
are, his statement (1, 67) that the Jews in the
temple demanded a sign of Jesus (John ii. 18),
that he accepts John's expression " Logos" to
designate Jesus as the Word of God (2, 31), that
he ridicules (2, 36) the statement that at the
crucifixion blood issued from Jesus' side (John
xix. 34), and that he asserts (2, 59) that after
his resurrection Jesus displayed his pierced
hands as the token of what he had endured
(John xx. 27). It can not be claimed, in view
of this, that Celsus drew all these assertions from
living Christian tradition; for he himself is the
very one to lay stress upon the fact that he
drew upon the writings of the Christians. His
words were, as cited literally by Origen (2, 74),
from his own writings: " And this we have
drawn from your own books; we want no fur



CELSUS.


127


ther evidence, and you are impaled on your
own sword."   Origen remarks appositely that
Celsus has indeed brought forward much that
was not in the Gospels, especially some blasphemous reports about Mary, and some idle stories
about the infancy of Christ; these may be found
alluded to in the first book which Origen wrote
contra Celsum100 (1, 28 and 32).   But in
the course of his work Celsus carried out his
idea 101 of adhering closely to the " writings of
tile disciples of Jesus." And plainly this was
done out of respect to the fact that these writings, and these alone, had authority in the
church.
The question here arises, What relation to the
witness which Celsus bears to the authority of
our Gospels is sustained by that criticism which
does not accept that authority, so far especially
as John is concerned? As that evidence can
not be impugned, unbelieving scholars bring
into use again here that modernizing system
which crops into view in Herakleon, to the perfect shame of him who first made it current.
As in Herakleon, so here, the story runs, Celsus




128     ORIGLV OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


was the cotemporary of Origen. But when was
that important fact ascertained?  Drawing
from Origen himself, Dr. Volkmar'02 says, "Has
not Origen declared at the close of his work
(8, 76) that the same Celsus announced that he
would publish a work of more positive character, and that we must wait to see whether he
would accomplish the undertaking?  Origen
(254) may have written his book against Celsus
about the middle of the first half of the third
century.  Nothing is plainer than that Cel
sus, if he were alive at that time and giving
men to understand that a new work might be
expected from his pen, has no importance to us
in helping us settle this matter. But even here
we have to deal with nothing but a piece of
wretched trickery, with real poverty of resources
on the part of the critics whom I complain of.
For the statement borrowed from the close of the
work against Celsus rests upon gross ignorance
or upon purposed deception.  The words of
Origen to his patron Ambrosius, who had stinulated him to write the whole Apology, run
after this wise: "Know that Celsus promised




CELS US.


129


[unquestionably in his book directed against
Christianity, and opposed by Origen] to write
still another work in which"...  "If now
he has not written this, in spite of his promise103
it is enough for us to answer him with tilese
eight books. But if lie lhas done this, and cornpleted 04 his later work, do you hunt it up and
send it to me, that I may answer it," etc. Tile
difficulty to account for is in the words, "we
must wait to see whether he would accomplish
tlie undertaking."  But at the outset, in the
very first book, Origen says, " I do not know of
a single Christian whose faith is in peril of being endangered by Celsus, a man no longer
among the living, but who has been a long
time numbered among the dead."    They forgot, of course, to cut out this passage with tllh
scissors which lhad been so'effectually applied
to Polycarp. In that same first book Origen
says, " We have learned that there have been
two men bearing the name of Celsus, the first
under Nero, the second [i. e. ours] under Hadrian and later."  It is not impossible that
Origen erred in identifying his Celsus with the




130     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


Epicurean who lived "under Hadrian and later;" but it is impossible to make the Celsus of
whom   Origen thus speaks, his cotemporary.
Could Origen have made Celsus in his first book
to be " under Hadrian and later" (117 to 1038),
and in the eighth have said of the same man, " we
must wait to see [about 225] whether he will
accomplish his undertaking? "  So long therefore as we get no more reliable information respecting Celsus, we must remain content with
believing that he wrote his work about the middle of the second century, perhaps between 150
and 160;105 and that his testimony in favor of
the synoptic and Johannean Gospels dates from
that period, - a fact of very great weight in eilabling us to determine the early existence of
the evangelical canon.
With this result, however, we by.no means
reach the limits of the history of Apologies for
the Gospels. In order to complete this department of our subject, we now enter upon a peculiar branch of the literature of the same age
with that with which we have been dealing,a branch which, after long neglect, is in our




APOCR YPHAL LITERATURE.


131


day claiming new and respectful attention;
viz., the New Testament apocryphal literature.
Thisholds a certain position midway between
the literature of the church and that of the
heresiarchs: at aly rate. many of its features
served the ends of the former through the use
of the latter. It is necessary, however, that I
should instruct the reader what the theologians
understand by the term  " apocrypha."  The
apocryphal writings of the New Testament-for
it is of these only that I speak- are writings
which aimed to take their place on the same
footing with the writings of the New Testament, but which were rejected by the church.
They bore on the face of them the names of
apostles, or of other eminent men; but these
names have been misappropriated by unknown
writers for the purpose of recommending what
they wrote. The Apocrypha were written, partly
in order to develop ill arbitrary fashion what
their authors had drawn from Scripture, partly
to incorporate unauthenticated accounts of the
Saviour, Mary, Joseph, and the apostles, and
partly to give point and efficacy to heretical




132     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


opinions directed against Ioly Writ.  Tile
church was warranted, therefore, in excluding
them from her accepted writings. It is true
that they have been revered as authentic by
many from the earliest times; and on tils account they have a varied interest106 to readers.
I have indicated elsewhere in what sense I
propose to use them: they only.support and
strengthen our evidence of the very early origin
of our Gospels. We are, of course, independent of the question how old the apocrypha are;
and this has left an opening into which opponents
have pressed, hoping to cut us off on this side.
But we have come to the result that the two
portions of the apocryphal Gospels wlicll are
extant now, known as the Protevangel of
James and the Acts of Pilate, must have been'
written within the three first decades of the
second century, and that the main substance of
those works (though marred by many changes
in the text) is now in our possession.
The chief, if not the only, evidence for the
age of both of these writings is found in Justin.
And' first with regard to the Protevangel of




APOCR YPHAL LITERATURE.


133


James.  In Justin's Dialogue with the Jew
Tryphon, and in his first Apology, we find in
the statements respecting the birth of Jesus
and the annunciation traces of a knowledge,
and of the influence, of the book of James.
Justin relates il the Dialogue (cap. 78) that
the birth of Jesus occurred in a cavern near
the village, there being no room at the inn.
Thils statement, which confirms the account of
Luke instead of contradicting it, is contained
in the book of James, and is woven into the
substance of the whole history of the event.
Still, it is not to be overlooked that Justiu
appropriates only this single fragment respecting the birth in the cave, and in the rest follows Luke rather than the pseudo-James. The
statement respecting the want of room in Bethlehem coheres strictly with the narrative of
Luke, but is not in accord with that of the.
pseudo-James. Similarly, the annunciation is
plainly hinted in the first Apology, although
with a free following of Luke, with the mere
difference that the words, "For he shall save
his people from their sins," are connected with




134     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


the words directed to Mary, " And thou shalt
call his name Jesus." In Luke they are wanting altogether, and in Matthew they belong to
the message announced to Joseph. And have
we not a recognition of what is apocryphal in
Justin, since, at the close of his exposition, lhe
appeals to those who have declared everything
respecting our Saviour Jesus Christ? But no,
that can not be said; for the whole account
of Justin, as already remarked, corresponds
strictly to Luke, and not to the Protevangel,
only with this difference, that the passage indicated varies from the Protevangel, Matthew
giving the words as announced to Joseph, and
Justin as addressed to Mary. This feature
must, in my opinion, be ascribed to the perusal
of the Protevangel; and in the recollection of
Justin it connected itself with Luke's account
without his own consciousness of the fact. It
is unmistakable that the whole quotation was
made from memory.'07  In the Dialogue (chap.
100), the annunciation made to Mary is cited,
and the words spring from Luke, and not from
the Protevangel.s08 At the same time, there is




THE PROTEVANGEL.


135


a single extract bearing relation to the mental
state of Mary, which seems to have sprung
from a recollection of a passage in the Protevangel; only Justin has connected it with the
reply of Mary to the address of the angel, while
the Protevangel joins it to a priestly blessing
which she received just on the point of setting
out to visit Elizabeth.'09
But is there no objection urged against our
endeavor to substantiate an acquaintance of
Justin with the Protevangel? Certainly there
are lost writings which are brought into requisition. Out of one of these it is supposed that
Justin can just as well have drawn as that the
Protevangel be derived from it. The Gnostic
yevva MaQcta (de generatione Marise), and still
more the Gospel of Peter,"0 have been thought
to be that ancient work freshly brought to
light. And this brings us into renewed contact
with an old acquaintance, with that same faculty of making new discoveries of which I have
already had occasion to speak. In order to
escape the force of a work lying plainly before
our eyes, the inferences from which are un



136    ORIGIN OF THIE FOUR GOSPELS.


mistakable, it is held in the light of a copy of a
perished work, of which we have received from
the past little but the title and a few meager
extracts, which render it impossible to set solid
facts over against the play of fancy. Yet let
us look into this matter as closely as we
can. Epiphanius1' has given the first impulse
toward bringing the Gnostic production already
mentioned into relation with the Protevangel, in
citing something of what he calls the " shocking" statements of the work; namely, that
there appeared to Zacharias in the temple the
vision of a man wearing the form of an ass.
Upon which Zacharias went up to him and tried
to say, Woe to you! whom are you worshiping? but could not utter the words, the man
seen in the vision having struck him dumb.
But when his mouth was opened, and he had
communicated to others what he had seen, ho
was instantly put to death. This fragment
from the lost book is enough, I should think,
to identify its source. And is there that in it
which enables us to determine that it was the
basis of the Protevangel? The last has noth



THE PRO TE VANGEL.


W    137


ing in common with the first, excepting the
slaughter of Zacharias, but wholly on another
ground, and under altogether different conditions. But there is help at hand against accumulating difficulties respecting the connection
of both writings. The way is to conjure up
and thrust into prominence a work which
claims to have given rise to that of James.
From the Gnostic book relating to Mary sprang
this Gnostic-tinged - now unfortunately lostprimitive foundation of the pseudo-James; and
from this again the work of our catholicizing
James."2  This ingenious solution may not
have quite satisfied even him who hit upon it,
and hence he thought out and gave preference
to another combination. In the passage where
Origen alludes 1o the work of James, he mentions the Gospel of Peter; for he says the
brothers of Jesus were regarded by some, who
followed the tradition of the Gospel of Peter,
or that of James's work, as if they had been
the sons of Joseph by a previous marriage."3
Now, according to this new combination, the
question is asked, Can not the Gospel of Peter,




138     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


or the early history given in it, be the basis of
the Protevangel? The primitive history in the
Gospel of Peter rests exclusively upon the passage of Origen relating to the brothers of Jesus
'as the sons of Joseph by an earlier marriage.
With reference to this, we read without going
further. That there was such a primitive history, can, according to the statement of Origen,
be regarded as beyond doubt. From the same
passage of Origen, the conclusion is drawn that
" in the Protevangel of James the primitive history of the Gospel of Peter is contained."  But
do the words of Origen, " while they followed
the tradition of the Gospel of Peter, or that of
the work of James," warrant the inference in
the least that the latter coincides and gives
support to the primitive history of the Gospel
of Peter? But who is able to impose a check
upon the unbridled fanaticism of theorists?114
That we are now in possession of nearly fifty
Greek manuscripts, comprising, among other
things, a Syrian copy of the work under discussion, dating from the sixth century, and that
no one of the evidences of its antiquity, from




THE PROTEVANGEL.


139


Origen down, is contradictory to the text of
these manuscripts, gives us assuredly a good
right to hold fast to the conviction that this
was the writing so familiar to the ancients,"5
and so much used by them. Is not that the
most untenable of hypotheses, that our work
was derived from one which was used by the
ancients where it coincides with our own, but
of which not a trace remains? And what other
end does this hypothesis subserve than- this, to
set aside the inferences which are drawn from
the book of James, and applied not only to the
Christian literature of the second century, but
more especially to the history of the Gospel
cause? I trust it will not impel those who do
riot share these views, to regard hypotheses
which have such a basis to rest upon as something else than they really are. In opposition
to them, I am still justified in insisting that the
undeniable connection between Justin and several passages of the so-called Proto-Gospel presupposes his acquaintance with this very production. The book of James stands, in its
whole tendency, in such a relation to our




140     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


canonical Gospels, that the latter must have
been diffused a long time, and must have beei
accepted a long time before the former was discovered. The allusions of Matthew and Luke
to the virgin nother of the Lord were unable
to prevent the belief in a real son of Joseph
and Mary, -an idea consonant with the taste of
the Judaized Christian heresiarchs: the mention of the brothers of Jesus in the synoptic
Gospels appeared to bear evidence against Matthew and Luke; learned Jews brought against
the Christians the charge of arbitrarily chang —
ing the meaning of Isaiah, and making him
support the notion of a virgin mother: Jewish
hostility even went so far as to assert that Jesus
was the illegitimate son of one Panthera, and
heathen skeptics quoted Greek fables about
sons being born from virgins, in order to discredit the evangelical account. In such a time
as was the first half of the second century,
nothing could promise a better support to the
Gospel narrative than a production like the one
named after James, furnished with irrefragable
historic testimony as to the lofty destiny of




THE ACTS OF PILATE.


141


Mary from  her birth, as to her motherhood
while a virgin, and as to a relationship of Mary
to Joseph exalted far above the usual relations
of marriage.'6 Now, if this work of James
falls within the first three decades of the second century, the composition of the Gospels of
Matthew and Luke, to which the reference of
James's work limits itself, can not be set later
than the last decades of the previous century.
It is the same with the second apocryphal
work brought under review above, the so-called
Acts of Pilate, only with the difference that
they refer as much to John as to the synoptical
Gospels. Justin, in like manner as before, is
the most ancient voucher for this work, which
is said to have been written under Pilate's
jurisdiction, and, by reason of its specification
of wonderful occurrences before, during, and
after the crucifixion, to have borne strong evidence to the divinity of Christ. Justin saw as
little reason as Tertullian and others for believing that it was a work of pious deception from
a Christian hand. On the contrary, Justin
appeals twice to it in his first Apology' in order




142     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


to confirm the accounts of the occurrences
which took place at the crucifixion in accordance with prophecy, and of the miraculous
healings effected by Christ, also the subject of
prophetic announcement. He cites specifically
(chap. 35) from Isaiah lxv. 2, and lviii. 2: "I
hlave spread out my hands all the day unto a
rebellious people, which walketh in a way that
was not good."... "They ask of me the
ordinances of justice: they take delight in approaching to God. Further, from the twentysecond Psalm: " They pierced my hands and my
feet.... They parted my garments upon
them, and cast lots upon my vesture."  With
reference to this, he remarks that Christ fulfilled
this; that he did stretch forth his hands when
the Jews crucified him, —the men who contended against him, and denied that lie was the
Christ.  "Then," he says further, " as the
prophet foretold, they dragged him to the judgment-seat, set him upon it, and said,' Judge us.'
The expression, however, 'they pierced,' etc.,
refers to the nails with which they fastened his
hands and his feet to the cross. And after they




THE ACTS OF PILATE.


143


had crucified him they threw lots for his clothing, and they who had taken part in the act of
crucifixion divided it among themselves."  To
this he adds: "And you can learn from tile
Acts, composed'1 during the governorship of
Pontius Pilate, that these things really happened."  Still more explicit is the testimony
of Tertullian. It may be found in the Apologeticus (chap. 2), where he says that out of
envy Jesus was surrendered to Pilate by the
Jewish ceremonial lawyers, and by him, after
he had yielded to the cries of the people, given
over for crucifixion; that while hanging on the
cross lie gave up the ghost with a loud cry, and
so anticipated the executioner's duty; tlat at
that same hour the day was interrupted by a
sudden darkness; that a guard of soldiers was
set at the grave for the purpose of preventing
his disciples stealing his body, sinc e he ad
predicted his resurrection, but that on the third
day the ground was suddenly shaken, and the
stone rolled away from before the sepulcher;
that in the grave nothing was found but the
articles used in his burial; that tlhe report was




144    ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


spread abroad by those who stood outside, that
the disciples had taken the body away; that
Jesus spent forty days with them in Galilee,
teaching them what their mission should be,
and that, after giving them their instructions
as to what they should preach, he was raised
in a cloud to heaven. Tertullian closes this
account with the words, All this was reported
to the emperor at that time, Tiberius, by Pilate, his conscience having compelled even him
to become a Christian."
The document now in our possession corre-.sponds with this evidence of Justin and Tertullian. Even in the title it agrees with the account of Justin, altlough, instead of the word
acta, which lie used, and which is manifestly
much more Latin than Greek, a Greek expression is employed, which can be shown to have
been used to indicate genuine Acts."8  The
details recounted by Justin and Tertullian are
all found in our text of the Acts of Pilate, with
this variation, that nothing corresponds to what
is joined to the declaration of the prophet,
' They dragged him to the seat of judgment,




THE ACTS OF PILATE.


145


and set him upon it, and said," etc.: besides
this, the casting lots for the vesture is expressed
simply by the allusion to the division of the
clothes. We must give even closer scrutiny to
one point.   Justin  alludes to the miracles
which were performed in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, on the lame, the dumb, the
blind, the dead, and on lepers. In fact, in our
Acts of Pilate there are made to appear before
the Roman governor a palsied man who had
suffered for thirty-eight years, and was brought
ill a bed by young men, and healed on the Sab-:bath day;9 a blind man cured by the laying:on of hands; a cripple who had been restored;
a leper who had been cleansed; the woman
vwhose issue of blood had been stanched; and
a witness of the raising of Lazarus from the
dead. Of that which Tertullian cites, we will
adduce merely the passage found in no one of
our Gospels, that Jesus passed forty days after
Ilis resurrection in company with his disciples
iln Galilee. This is indicated in our Acts of
]?ilate, at the end of the fifteenth chapter, where
the risen man is represented as saying to Jo10




146     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


seph, " For forty days go not out of thy house;
for behold, I go to my brethren in Galilee."
Every one will perceive how strongly the
argument that our Acts of Pilate are the same
which Justin and Tertullian read is buttressed
by these unexpected coincidences. The assertion recently made120 requires consequently no
labored contradiction that the allusions to both
men have grown out of their mere suspicion
that there was such a record as the Acts of
Pilate, or out of the circulation of a mere story
about such a record, while the real work was
written as the consequence of these allusions
at the close of the third century. What an
uncommon fancy it requires in the two men to
coincide so perfectly in a single production as
is the case in the Acts to which I am now re —
ferring! And are we to imagine that they referred with such emphasis as they employed to
the mere creations of their fancy?
The question has been raised with more ju,,tice, whether the production in our possession
may not have been a copy or free revision of
the old and primitive one. The modern change




THE ACTS OF PILATE.


147


in the title has given support to this conjecture,
for it has occasioned the work to be commonly
spoken of as the Gospel of Nicodemus. But
this title is borne neither by any Greek manuscript, the Coptic-Sahidian papyrus, nor the
Latin manuscripts, with the exception of a few
of the most recent.121 It may be traced only subsequently to the twelfth century, although at a
very early period, in one of the two prefaces
attached to the work, Nicodemus is mentioned
in one place as a Hebrew author, and in another as a Greek translator. But aside from
the title, the handwriting displays great variation, and the two prefaces alluded to above
show clearly the work of two hands. Notwithstanding this, however, there are decisive
grounds for holding that our Acts of Pilate
contain in its main substance the document
drawn from Justin. and Tertullian. The first
of this to be noticed is, that the Greek text, as
given in the version most widely circulated in
the manuscripts, is surprisingly corroborated
by two documents of the rarest character, and
first used by myself, -a Coptic-Sahidian papyrus




148     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


manuscript, and a Latin palimpsest,-both probably dating from the fifth century. Such a documentary confirmation of their text is possessed
by scarcely ten works of the collective Greek
classic literature. Both of these ancient writings make it in the highest degree probable
that the Egyptian and Latin translations which
they contain were executed still earlier. But
could a work which was held in great consideration in Justin's and Tertullian's time, and down
to the commencement of the fourth century,
and which strenuously 22 insists that the Emperor Maximin caused other blasphemous Acts of
Pilate to be published and zealously circulated,
manifestly for the purpose of displacing and
discrediting the older Christian Acts, -could
such a work suddenly change its whole form,
and from the fifth century, to which in so extraordinary a manner translators wholly different in character point back with such wonderful concurrence, continue in the new form?
Contrary as this is to all historical criticism,
there is in the contents of the work, in the singWular manner in which isolated and independent




THE ACTS OF PILATE.


149


details123 are shown to be related to the canonical books, no less than in the accordance
with the earliest quotations found in Justin
and Tertullian,24 a guaranty of the greatest
antiquity.  There are in the contents, also,
matters of such a nature that we must confess
that they are to be traced back to the primitive
edition; as, for example, the narrative in the first
chapter of the bringing forward of the accused.
But the whole character of the work in our possession. does not deny in toto that which we
must infer from the statements of Justin and
Tertullian. It is incorrect, moreover, to draw
a conclusion from Justin's designation of the
Acta which is not warranted by the whole character of the work. The Acta, the vntopvctaca,
are specified in Justin's account, not less than
in the manuscripts which we possess, as being
written under Pontius Pilate; and that can signify nothing else than that they were an official
production, composed under the direct sanction of the Roman Governor. Their transmission to the Emperor must be imagined as accompanied by a letter of the same character with




150     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


that which has been brought down to us in the
Greek and Latin edition,'25 and yet not at all
similar in purport to the notable Acts of Pilate.
It is by no means necessary for us to assert
that the production in our hands has (with the
exception of the preface already alluded to) remained free from interpolations; for the distinguishing characteristic which it bears is the
weaving in of much from the synoptic Gospels,
and still more from John, relative to the last
sufferings of Jesus.'26  Is it not stated in Justin that the Acts of Pilate reveal the fulfillment
of the prophecy respecting the resurrection from
the dead, as it is given in chapter eight of
the work in our hands, in the testimony concerning the raising of Lazarus? Is it probable
that, in order to set John aside, we are to believe that in Justin's edition there was recorded
one of the two other resurrections, of which we
have traces preserved for us?
It would lead us to the denial of an unquestionable fact should we not admit the claimsof
our Acts of Pilate, in their connection with the
work of the same name known to Justin, to




GOSPEL OF THE INFANCY.,


151


serve as testimony to the authority of the Johannean as well as the synoptic Gospels, dating
from a period prior to Justin, in spite of their
frequent use of those Gospels. What importance this fact has in enabling us to determine
the age of our Gospels, and especially that of
John, is at once apparent; it weighs far more
than any verbal extracts made from John in
the epoch of Justin. If the apocryphal Acts of
Pilate must, for the reason that Justin cites
them in his first Apology to the Roman Emperor, be ascribed to the first decades of the second
century, they show, by their use of and dependence upon the Gospel of John, that the latter
dates from a period even earlier. This theory
throws no light into the impenetrable darkness,
but, among the many beams which come down
from the period directly after the age of the
apostles, and which illumine the most important question of Christianity, this is one of the
most luminous.
We might also cite Thomas's Gospel of the
Infancy for our purpose. Irenaus and Hippolytus 27 both show that it was used by the Mar



152     ORIGIN OF TIIE FOUR GOSPELS.


cosians and the Naasenians; it was therefore unquestionably one of the first results of the productive heresy of that age, and must be ascribed
to the middle of the second century. Its text
we possess only in fragments, which are at
issue128 often among themselves, and which
consequently makes it difficult to ascertain the
connection of scattered passages with those of
the Gospels. The work seems, however, to bear
witness in one respect to the results of my researches, and not in the not unimportant fact
that at the time when this book appeared, in
the middle of the second century, the Gospel
canon ordinarily accepted was already formed,
and the story of the years of Jesus' childhood
filled up a break in the account of his life.
This left a district open to historical research,
and one which heresy knew well how to prize.
Besides this there confronts us one fact more,
which admits of application to the three more or
less perfectly personal evidences of the Christian Apocraphy. The wide divergence found in
these, in respect to form as well as substance, to
language as well as spirit, to delineation as well




PSEUDO-CLEMENTINE LITERATURE.  153


as conception, bears witness tp a sacred origin
of our canonical Gospels, to which the apocryphal writings are related as the last subjoined
appendices.
I might allude here in a single word to the
pseudo-Clementine literature, whose main work,
the Homilies, is certainly to be ascribed to the
middle of the second century. The establishment of this date does not lead to the necessity
of drawing any such inferences respecting the
history of the canon as we drew in the case of
the book of James and the Acts of Pilate.
Still it is very instructive that the transition of
the Gospel of John into this Judaic-Christiantendency record,129 which was not at all disputed till the year 1853, has been shown to be
utterly untenable by the discovery by Dressel, at
Rome, of the concluding portions of it where
(xix. 22) John's narrative of the man who was
born blind is made use of beyond all doubt.
The elucidation already given respecting the
Acts of Pilate and the book of James had already
brought us to the opening first decades of the
second century, and compelled us to confess




154    ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


that there was 1inquestionably use made, at
that period, of our Gospels. No one of the remaining results of our investigations into the
ecclesiastical and heretical literature of the
second century stood in antagonism with this
fact. Not only the apocryphal writings already
named bring us back to that epoch, but a work
of great repute in the Christian literature, one
which from even the close of the second century to the opening of the fourth was assigned
by such men as Clemens Alexandrinus 130 to
Holy Writ.   It forms a part of the so-called
apostolical Fathers, regarding which we have
already spoken in our discussion of the epistles
of Ignatius and that of Polycarp. If it really
bore rightly the name of Barnabas, the companion of Paul, it would, in spite of certain unsatisfactory details, be correctly entitled to a
place among the sacred books of the New Testament. Slight as is the ecclesiastical or scientific recognition granted to this claim of authorship, yet the assertion is made with confidence,
that the epistle beating the name of Barnabas
is one of the earliest written records which have




EPISTLE OF BARNABAS.


155


come down to us from the epoch directly subsequent to the life of the apostles. If the expressions (in the sixteenth chapter) conjoined
with the word of prophecy regarding the rebuilding of the City and the Temple are in accordance with historical fact, we are brought
back from the conflicting statements respecting
the closing decades of the first century and the
opening decades of the second, to the first year
of Hadrian's reign. In its aim and general
character the epistle bears the closest resemblance, among the books of the New Testament,
to the Epistle to the Hebrews; it is directed
against such Christian converts from Judaism,
who, while accepting the new covenant, sought
to cling to the old, and hence felt that they
must share with the former fellow-believers in
the grief over the fall of the Jewish Temple.
In opposition to them, the epistle, basing itself
largely upon Old Testament prophecy and authority, arrays the proof that the new covenant
brought in by Christ had completely done away
with the older one, and that the latter had
merely been, with its temple and whole service,




156    ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


an incomplete and temporary type of the new
covenant.
Within the last two centuries scholars have
busied themselves much with this document,
but unfortunately there are lacking in all the
Greek manuscripts of it, the first five chapters;
only an old Latin translation, greatly incomplete,131 supplies the deficiency. And exactly
in those chapters which are found only in the
Latin copy is there a passage which has excited
great curiosity. "Let us be on our guard,"
thus it reads in the fourth chapter, " that we
be not be found to be, as it is written, many
called but few chosen."  "Adtendamus ergo
ne forte, sicut scriptum est, multi vocati, pauci
electi inveniamur."  The expression, " as it is
written," will be readily recognized by the reader
as a familiar one in the New Testament. It is
the phrase which always designates the difference between all passages of Holy Writ and all
others, and was invariably used by the apostles,
as well as by the Saviour, in citing the Old
Testament. If it were ever applied to a passage outside of the canon, it only followed that




EPISTLE OF BARNABAS.


157


the passage in question had been drawn by fre.
quent use into the circle of canonical writings,
just as, for example, Jude cites from  the
prophet Enoch.   It could be publicly transferred to the writings of the apostles, when the
latter were placed on the same basis with the
Old Testament. As soon as passages of the
Gospels were cited in connection with the
phrase, " as it is written," it was assumed that
they had become canonical. We had occasion
on a former page to allude to this matter, while
referring to Justin's arranging the Gospels and
the Prophecies side by side, and to the epistles
of Ignatius; the same formula was also encountered in the New Testament quotations of the
Naasenians. The words which have been cited
in the Epistle of Barnabas in connection with
the same formula are in the Gospel of Matthew,
xxii. 14, and xx. 16. If our inference is correct, at the time when the Epistle of Barnabas
was written, this Gospel was regarded as canonical.
But the Epistle of Barnabas extends back to
the highest Christian antiquity. And is it pos



158    ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


sible, some ask, that at so remote a period the
passage from Matthew should be marked by
the characteristics of canonization? The doubt
conveyed in this question has been materially
strengthened by the circumstance that the passage has hitherto existed' only in a Latin form.
It was possible to say, therefore, that this significant phrase was added by a translator living long subsequently. Dr. COedner, in 1832,
wrote these literal words: " The form of citation, sicut Scriptum est, applied to a book of
the New Testament, was wholly without usage
in that time, and not an instance of it can be
found." The portion of the Epistle of Barnabas which, contains the passage under discussion does not exist at present in the original
Greek, but only in a Latin translation. It was
an easy matter, therefore, for the translator to
subjoin the current formula of quotation; and
from internal evidence we must accordingly
lay claim to the correctness of the text in the
passage under consideration, till some one shall
show satisfactory proof to the contrary.  In
order to decide the question respecting the an



EPISTLE OF BARNABAS.


159


tiquity of the formula, it was necessary to consult the original Greek text. It was destined
not to be withheld from the Christian world.
After lying many hundreds of years among the
old parchments at the Convent of St. Catherine
in the wilderness of Sinai, it came to light in a
happy hour; for with the Sinaitic Bible, the
whole of the Epistle of Barnabas was discovered
in the original Greek.  And what is the decision which it gives respecting the subject under discussion? It decides that the writer of
the epistle himself placed the important Christian-classic expression, " as it is written," before
the quotation from Matthew, and that it was
not the work of the translator.
After this important fact was established, a
new question arose, namely, whether important
inferences could be drawn unconditionally from
this phrase. Could not the formula, " as it is
written," be accepted as referring to any book?
How little ground there is for this I have already shown in my explanations of the use to
be made of this formula; and we have no right
to weaken its force in the present instance.




160     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


But are we also compelled to recognize its relation to the passage from  Matthew?    What
would be more evident, if we are to escape the
assaults of unsound and partisan criticism?
A writer of this class has brought forward a
notion which once brought down the scorn of
Credner 132 upon it, namely, that the quotation
of Barnabas's Epistle is to be referred to the
fourth book of Ezra, quoted elsewhere in the
Epistle.'33 There, in the eighth chapter, it is
expressly stated according to the Latin and
Ethiopian text, " nam multi creati sunt (in the
Ethiop., besides, in eo, i. e. minido) pauci autem
salvabuntur," -for many have been born, but
few shall be saved. In spite of the applause
which this"34 has received in a certain quarter, it
only shows to what wanton fancies the opposition
brought against the age of our evangelical canon
leads men. The visible' absurdity of referring
a citation, taken word for word from Matthlew,
to a passage in a book of Ezra, written twenty
years earlier 13 and having quite a different
meaning, is carried so far that the expression
of the Saviour in Matthew is degraded into a




EPISTLE OF BARNABAS.


161


mere " Christian interpretation" of the passage
in Ezra.136  That Matthew is referred to elsewhere in the Epistle is supposed not to have its
weight in strengthening the citation from him
accompanied by the canonical formula, but to
prove, on the contrary, that Barnabas, with all
Iis acquaintance with Matthew, did not hold
his workl to be a sacred book."37 It is forgotten
that quite often we meet in the later Fathers,
in connection with direct and express quotations, the same weaving in of a biblical clause
that we have in Barnabas; and in these cases
the reader is pre-supposed to have that familiarity with Scripture which will enable him to determine what it is which is thus woven in, without its being definitely pointed out with words
or signs of quotation.  Thus, for example, in
chapter five of Barnabas's Epistle, we have the
exptression, " He chose for his disciples, to go
fortlh and announce his gospel, men full of sin
and unrighteousness, in order to show that he
had not come to call the righteous, but sinners;
'and therefore he revealed himself as the Son of
God." What reader of these words could fail
11




162    ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


to see in them the reflection of what our Savviour says in Matt. ix. 13," I am not come to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance"? 138
We have, moreover, in the twelfth chapter,
" Since it is a thing in the future139 that men
shall say that Christ is David's son, therefore
David himself, comprehending in advance the
error which sinners will make, say.s, 'The
Lord says unto my Lord, sit thou here on my
right hand until I make tlhine enemies thy footstool.'" Could Barnabas write this without presupposing that his readers would have Matt.
xxii. 41, et sq. in mind?  And in this presupposition is not the recognition of the authority
of the then extant Gospel of Matthew taken for
granted? And if in the same twelfth chapter
of Matthew it is shown how Moses lifted up the
brazen serpent in the wilderness in typification
of the Saviour, " who should suffer (die) and
yet himself give life to others," it is directly
obvious that Barnabas was making use of the
truth hinted at in John iii. 14, even if the
phrase, taken word by word, fails to show this.
It is possible' indeed that the writer of this




EPISTLE OF BARNABAS.


163


Epistle wrote independently in this case, as in
many others; and yet we are justified in assuming the very great probability that he had the
passage of John in mind: still, in assuming
this, it by no means follows that his Epistle is
written in the same tone as that of John's, and
was a reflex of it. The disproportionate number of express quotations from the Old Testament found in Barnabas is in direct relation
with the whole character of his Epistle: and no
inference can be drawn from it, which invalidates the canonization 140 of the Gospels.
Does, then, the fact indicated by the Epistle
of Barnabas, that the Gospel of Matthew was
reckoned a part of Holy Writ prior to the year
120, come into hazardous conflict with the results already gained by us in our study of the
second century? It is needless to try to answer such a question. There is only downright gain to our side, and thlat of a new and
important link in the chain of proofs supporting the very earliest acceptance of the * credibility of the Gospels; a nlew barrier erected against
the idle vagaries of conjecture which have hith



164    ORIGNV OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


erto been allowed to float around and hide the
history of the New Testament canon.
But are we compelled to limit to Matthew
the authenticity thus granted to his canonical
value? By no means. All our studies respecting the history of the canon lead to this
result, that the attempt was not made in the
infancy of the church to raise any one of the
Gospels, taken exclusively, to the rank of canonical writings. For we saw, in the first half
of the second century, now Matthew, now John,
now Luke, or one taken in connection with another, come into the foreground; and this
shows conclusively that at that epochl no one
was credited while another was discredited.
The small compass, too, of the literature
which has come down to us from that time,
andl the character of the Gospels, taken separatcly, - Matthew, for example, being incomparably better adapted for quotation tllan Mark,
-lead to the inference that the one bears witness to the equal worth of the other. And we
learned, too, from Justin's use of the Acts of
Pilate about the year 140, that the Gospel of




EQUAL VALUE OF THE GOSPELS.


165


John, so much used, not only in those Acts
which were written some few decades before
Justin's Apology, but also in connection with
the synoptic Gospels, must be assigned to the
opening of the second century, Justinl himself
having often made use of John, and still more
frequently of Matthew. Is not this alone satisfactory proof that if, at the time when the
Epistle of Barnabas was written, Matthew had
attained to canonical authority, John too must
have had the same? Basilides used John and
Luke at the time of Hadrian; Valentin, about
140, John, Matthew, and Luke; and are there
not safe inferences to be drawn thence that
these writers are in close alliance?
To this must be added the fact that we so
early and so repeatedly find, as, for example, in
Justin and Agrippa Castor, the separate Gospels united in one whole, and that, in view of
the collective and grand character thus given to
this whole, the name and individuality of each
writer are thrown into the background, but
that, on the other hand, Justin refers occasionally to the discrimination made, at a later day,




166     ORIG.LN  OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


by Tertullianl, in the chlaracter of the four E-vangelists, according to which some were the real
disciples of the Lord, and the othlers apostolical
companions. And how are we to understand
otherwise that soon after the middle of the sec-.
ond century Harmolies of the Four Gospels
were prepared, and that in Irenaeus --  ot to
lose sigllt of him - the four are unitedly subjected to comment, without the least hint of
there being superior or inferior value on the part
of the separate Gospels?  Is there the faintest
indication that, in the course of the second ceintury, the church, while discussing maniy issues
whicli are reported to us, took up and passed its
judgment upon the Gospel canon, -a fundamental matter; while, before the close of that
century, the same canon meets us everywhere
as having been long accepted?
But wlhen, then, are we to consider that the
camnon passed into general acceptance? Everytl1ing compels us to assign it to the close of tlhe
first century, or to tlle opeining years of the
second. That was the time wlicn, witlh the
death of the aged 141 John, all the revered menl




THE CANON, WHEN ACCEPTED.


167


who had stood in personal relations with Jesus,
aLd Paul too, the great apostle to the Gentiles,
had passed away, and could no longer give their
direct authority in all ecclesiastical matters to
the younll church; the time when the church
was outgrowing its old home, and stretching
wider and wider out, convulsed within by various movements, and pressed upon without by
hostile assaults, - then it was that men began
to consecrate and regard with liallowing veneration the writings which the founders of the
church had left behind them, gather them up
as imperishable bequests, as well-authenticated
evidences of the life and teachings of the Saviour, the most precious types of what men's
faith and practice should be. The fit time had
evidently come to put these writings on the
same basis as tlat of the old covenant. The
complete separation of the church from tlle
synagogue had taken place: subsequently to
the destruction of Jerusalem and of its temple
(about the year 70), the church had been
tllrown more decidedly upon itself, and lad
become more independent; and it was a signii



168     ORIGLN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


cant sign of this independence to ascribe to the
writings which recorded the life of the Saviour
and the deeds of his followers tlie same sanctity
which had long invested the sacred documents
of the synagogue, on which Christianity was
based.
Do we ask in what way this has taken place?
It certainly is not a question which needs much
time to enable us to answer it. If men like
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John left on record
statements respecting the life of our Lord, who
would not have recognized them at once as a
precious bequest to the church, and gratefully
accepted them? Did it require more than
their honored names to insure for their writings the greatest veneration by the whole
church? And had not tlese men all stood in
close enough personal relations with the clurcli
to insure the latter against receiving any works
which should be unauthentic, and palmed off
by trickery? And of no Gospel is this more
true than of John's. Suppose that it did proceed from the midst of his Asia Minor congregations, and pass into the possession of wider




JOHN'S GOSPEL.


169


circles; could the least suspicion o' a want of
glnuineness fasten to it? But in case it did not
proceed from his own congregations, would tlie
latter not have detected the imposition at once?
It was impossible to bring them to accept an
unauthentic word of their own bishop; certainly
not by deception. But we have the bishop
who followed John at Ephesus as one of the
witnesses to the authenticity of his Gospel.
For if Polycrates, bishop of Eplesus in tllh last
quarter of the second century, in a letter addressed to Victor of Ra>ne (Eus. Hist. Eccl. v.
24), alludes to the apostle buried in Ephesus,
and characterized him with the same expression which is used in John xiii. 23 and 25,
" who leaned on the Lord's bosom," - there is
beyond all doubt a confirmation of the Gospel.
As to the rest, that Jolhn was the last who
wrote is evidenced not only by the very ancient tradition that lie was the one wlose
name was always mentioned after the others,
as we have seen to be the case in the hints
drawn from Muratori, in Irelnaes, and in the
oldest Greek manuscripts,142 but Clemens Alex



170    ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


andrinus and Eusebius give distinct expression to it in whalt they have communicated
to us respecting the circumstances which gave
rise to that Gospel. II the first of these latter
writers (see Eus. vi. 14), the wish of friends is
represented as prompting the more spiritualminded disciple to add a fourth Gospel to the
other three, for the purpose of recording more
distinctly the workings of Jesus' spirit. According to the latter (iii. 24), while confessing
the truth and authentic value of the first three
Gospels, he is represented as omitting what
relates more exclusively to the public activity
of Jesus, and giving a needful compliment to
the evangelical narrative.
Since, then, the writings left behind by the
apostles stand at the very outset in the personal authority of the writers, this authority of
course only grew in magnitude after the decease of the persons who have personally been
the representatives of the spirit of the Gospel.
Out of the vital development of the church
grew the primitive canon of the New Testament,
and took its place side by side with the Old.




GROWTH OF THE CANOX.


171


It would be easy to admit that such a canon, in
accordance with its evangelical character (not
to speak here of its other features), would naturally fall within the time which las been assigned, viz., the close of the first century:
this, however, we should not be able to settle
definitely'43 unless the history and literature of
the whole second proved such a cogent argamenit in its favor.
There is yet one thing more to add to what
has already been said respecting the oldest
Christian literature. It is the evidence which
Papias gives, and which, more than any other,
has beet misused by the opponents of our Gospels. The want of positive knowledge which
rests upon tlis man, as well as upon his testimony, makes him not a fit subject to be taken
either independently or in antagonism  with
other witnesses.
From Eusebius (iii. 39) we learn, confirmed
as it is by Irenieus (v. 33: 4), that Papias
composed a work in five books, which he called
an Exposition of the sayings of our Lord.'44
Whil 11h3 w.is cllec ting the- materials for this




172     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


work lie believed that his task was not so
much to cull what was to be found in written
records as in unwritten tradition; and, according to his own assurance, he drew especially
from those oral accounts which could be traced
back to the apostles. These are his own words
regarding his book: " I shall arrange with assiduity whatever I may gather from the presbyters (elders), and retain il memory, while
aiming to ascertain the truth of the same by
means of personal investigation. For I did
not find my pleasure, as most do, in those who
have much to tell, but in those who teach the
truth; not in those who bring forward what is
strange, and out of the usual course (rz, ctaUorTQas; rroolc;), but in those who surrender themselves absolutely to the truth,'1' and claim lineage with what is true. Whenever, therefore, I
fell in with those who used to be on intimate
terms with the presbyters, I made special inquiries as to what Andrew, or Peter, or Philip,
or Thomas, or James, or John, orI Mattlew, or
any other disciple of the Lord, or as to what Aristion and John the presbyter, disciples also, have




PAPIAS'S TESTIMONY.


173


to say.46 For I believed that the books (z '-a
wv P:U3iov) would not be of so much service to
me in giving exhaustive information as the livilg word of men (quantum ex hominum adluc
superstitum voce)."
This passage of Papias is obscure in various
ways, and on this account I have endeavored
to translate it literally. The first and most
important point to settle is, who the elders or
"presbyters" were. Papias alludes to them
as his vouchers, whom he used in part directly,
in part indirectly. Are the apostles themselves
to be regarded as covered by the expression?
It is supposed by many that they are; but this
notion is absolutely denied and rendered untenable by Eusebius. For, after stating that Irenleus designates Papias as a " hearer of John
and companion of Polycarp," he qualifies his
words by saying, " But Papias has by no means
represented him in the preface of his book as
one who himself heard and saw the holy apostles: he teaches, on the contrary, that he had received the matters of faith (ra rzl t; Mt'leo) from
those who had had personal acquaintance with




174    ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


them (ztaoao rov XeldVOt;,'v0Yoiomr). In like mrnner, he says, a little farther on in the samn
chapter (iii. 39: 4), Papias insists that he received the words of the apostles from their own
followers, and says that he himself drew from
the lips147 of Aristion and the presbyter John;
adding this, that Papias often mentions these
by name when giving in his book the communications which they made. It is not only incredible that Eusebius erred in this, it was, indeed, scarcely possible for him to do so. For,
as he had the whole work of Papias before him,
and was making selections for his own purposes, it could scarcely escape him, if Papias,
in one case or another, appealed to the direct
communication of an apostle, clear as it was to
him that he had known Aristion and the presbyter John. And how wholly differently would
he have brought forward in his preface his
vouchers, had they been the apostles! he surely
would not have written, as he has, words which
are capable of a double interpretation, if he had
been reterring directly to them. In the whole
passage, however, the presbyters are set in con



TERM "P PRESB YTERS."


171


trast with the apostles; and yet the clause,
'' the disciples of the Lord," subjoined to the
names Aristion and John the presbyter, makes
the meaning of this expression obscure; at
least rendering a double interpretation of it
possible. And is it credible that Papias should
say that lie would confirm with his own declarations the statement of the apostles? R3specting the words of tile presbyters, he could say
this with the more justice, because, as his own
words and the declaration of Eusebius show,
he was able to use of these only Aristion and
John; but in the case of the others, he had to
rely on what was communicated indirectly.
Irenweus brings evidence confirmatory of this
way of interpreting the term  " presbyters;"
for he derives the tradition of the " wanton
luxury of the kingdom of a thousand years"
expressly from the mouth of " the presbyters
who had seen John, the disciple of the Lord,"
and confirms this by appealing directly to the
writings of Papias. Granting in this way that
he was a hearer of John and a friend of Polycarp, it is perfectly clear that the presbyters in




176     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


Irenaeus have the same signification as in Papias, and tlat they are not for an instant to be
confounded with the apostles.48  This inference respecting Papias which is found il Ireniaus rests in the greatest probability on no
other ground than the statement of Papias himself, carefully drawn up by Eusebius, but carelessly used by Irenaeus; but that he confounded
the apostle John, as his manner of speaking
would indicate, is consistent with the fact that,
as can be shown, the personality of the presbyter John, who likewise lived and died at Ephesus, was forgotten at a very early day.'49  We
ought not to overlook the chronological difficulty connected with the supposition that Papias, who, according to the oldest testimony,
suffered martyrdom  about the same time as
Polycarp, i. e. 165, was not able to collect the
materials for his work among surviving apostles (ta A TcoV tQE6v)wcov). JHow little the contents, so far as we know them, correspond to
what we should expect from a work written by
a disciple of the apostles, who is recording




THIE WORK OF PAPIAS.


177


what he learned from their own lips, may be
judged from what we will proceed to give.
Eusebius cites explicitly from the contents
of that work of Papias, that the daughters of
Philip informed him at Hierapolis of the resurrection of a dead man immediately subsequently
to their father's time, and tlat Justus Barsabhas had drunken a goblet of poison without ex-?periencing any injury. (Both of these accounts
might be brought into relation with expressions
of our Lord, as in fulfillment of them.)  In
addition, Papias asserted (we give the accounts
in Eusebius iii. 39: 5 literally) that he had
learned many things through oral tradition, as
well as some unknown (JTvca, strange) parables
and teachings of the Lord, and other things,
which were all too fabulous" (tvCohxceccQ). To
this class Eusebius assigns the doctrine of a
kingdom of a thousand years' duration, which
was to appear sensible on the earth after the
resurrection of the dead. The representation
of tlis kingdom was not given by Eusebius, but
Ly Irenslus. It runs as follows: " Then shall
come the days in which vinestocks shall appear,
12




178     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


each one putting forth ten thousand branches,
each branch ten thousand shoots, each shoot
ten thousand clusters of grapes, and each cluster twenty-five measures of wine; and if one
of the saints should try to take hold of one of
the clusters, another of the latter will cry, I
am better; lay hold of me, and praise the Lord
by me. In like manner, an ear of corn will
bring forth ten thousand ears, and each ear tenl
thousand grains," etc. This representation is
made by Papias, as Irenaeus testifies, to refer
to the "elders," and, through them, even to
John. Eusebius remarks, in reference to it,
that Papias, a man of very inconsiderable mental parts, as his whole book shows, gathered his
notions from misapprehended expressions of
the apostles. He then goes on to say that there
are other sayings of the Lord, dating from Aristion and John the presbyter, recorded in the
book of Papias; but he refers those who may be
interested in them to the work itself. To this
he adds that he will subjoin to what has been
already cited what he has learned respecting
Mark. This runs, " And this says the presby



PAPIAS'S WORK.


179


ter: " Mark, the interpreter of Peter, wrote carefully down all that he recollected, but not according to (zate) the order of Christ's speaki   og or working; for he neither heard Christ,
nor was a direct follower of him, but of Peter,
as already intimated, who always held his discourses as circumstances made it expedient,
but do not seek to arrange the sayings of the
Lord in any regular order. Mark accomplished
all that he purposed in writing what he had to
record just as he remembered it. There was
one thing, however, which he did keep in mind;
that was, not to omit anything that he had
heard, or to falsify anything which he undertook to set down." To this statement of Papias, which, judging by its tone, possibly only
refers in its first part to the presbyter, Eusebius subjoins a second statement respecting
Matthew, as follows: "This is what Papias
records respecting Mark; but of Matthew he
says, 'Matthew recorded in the Hebrew language the sayings of the Lord, but he translated every one of them as best he could." In
these words much is obscure: especially doubt



180     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


ful is it whether we have rightfully translated
"sayings of the Lord;" 50 at least the casual
words of Mark, " what Christ spoke and did,"
would seem to make it probable that both acts
and words were comprehended under the single
word " sayings."  But do these expressions of
the presbyter and of Papias - and this is the
main questionl- relate to the two Gospels in
our possession bearing the names of Matthew
and Mark?   And if the expression, " sayings
of the Lord," is to remain unmolested, it does
not follow that a historical clothing of these
sayings is to be excluded, since neither Eusebius nor any other theologian of Christian antiquity supposed that the words of Papias stood
in antagonism with the two Gospels. If in our
time the inference has been drawn from the
words of Papias, that our Gospel according to
Mark is to be regarded only in a secondary
sense as the work of Mark, and is to be regarded as a subsequent revision of a work once
written by Mark, but which was lost sight of
at a very early date, the idea would show itself
to be a manifest freak of fancy. It would have




PAPIAS'S TESTIMONY.


181


no other mission than to open to the freest play
of conjecture all our investigations respecting
the origin and the mutual relations of our three
synoptical Gospels.
True as this is of Mark, it is no less true of
Matthew. The statement of Papias has its
point in this, that it ascribes only a Hebrew
text to Matthew even. If this statement have
a satisfactory basis, even if we accept the other,
viz., that every one translated it as well as he
could, it leaves a broad margin between the
primitive Hebrew and our Greek Matthew.
That Hebrew text, like the primitive Mark,
must have been lost at a very early date, as not
a single one of the church Fathers saw or used
it. This gives rise to one of the most intricate
of questions, the discussion of which, however,
would not be in place here. We, on our side,
are fully satisfied in the matter, being convinced
that the acceptance by Papias of a primitive Hebrew text of Matthew (a view which may not
have been limited to him, and may have been
repeated by others) rested entirely upon a misunderstanding. I will briefly indicate of what




182     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


character it was, and whence it arose. The
Judo-Christian struggles which sprung into
being during the lifetime of the apostle Paul
come more and more markedly into the foreground.  There were two parties specially
prominent: that of the Nazareans was more
moderate than the one more closely allied to
philosophical speculation, the Ebionites. Both
made use of a Gospel which bore the name of
Matthew, the former in the Hebrew language,
the latter in the Greek, the same document to
which reference was made on a preceding page
as the Gospel of the Hebrews. That they did
not hesitate to make modifications according to
their own taste, in the text as they originally
received it, is clear from the standpoint which
they occupied, that of being the only sect characterized by strong self-will. And what we have
really learned of this Gospel shows, as already
stated, not only the great similarity to our Matthew, but also arbitrary deviations which have
been made from him in some instances. When
it was said later -I mean in the course of the
second century —that the Nazaraeans, a race




JEROME.


183


dating from the very emergence of Christianity,
possessed Matthew in the Hebrew, what was
more natural than for one and another to assume, wholly in accordance with the claims of
the Judo-Christian heretics, that Matthew himself wrote in Hebrew, and that the Greek text,
the one which was circulated not only in the
church, but among other Judo-Christians, was
a translation? No one knew, no one made inquiries how divergent the two versions were;
and not only were such investigations foreign
to the character of the times, but the exclusiveness of the Nazarseans especially drew them
away from such researches, making their home,
as they did, apart, in the neighborhood of the
Dead Sea.
Jerome gives us the benefit of his support
in this explanation of the statement of Papias.
Jerome, who was especially skilled in Hebrew,
gained the temporary use of a Hebrew Gospel
of the Nazaraans, and at once proclaimed that
that was the primitive text of Matthew. Going
deeper into the matter, however, he simply said
that many held this Hebrew text to be the




184     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


original from Mattlhew's own hand; lie translated it, moreover, into Greek and Latin, and
made some comments upon it. From these, as
well as from some fragments preserved by the
Fathers of the church, it may be shown that the
view represented by many scholars of late, and
in a certain sense shared with Papias, that the
so-called Hebrew Gospel is older than Matthew,
must be received in its' very opposite form;
that that Hebrew book is a perversion of our
Greek Matthew, whose record bears the marks
in the whole of its diction, and especially in the
form of its Old Testament quotations, of being
no translation, but an original. That same independence of our Matthew is to be marked in
the Greek version of the Hebrew Gospel current among the Ebionites, only with this distinction, that here the heretical character may,
in consequence of the various hands which executed it, have assumed a more decided character.
Being in Greek, it was better known in the
church than the Hebrew version; and in the very
earliest epoch it was held to be another text of
Matthew. This agrees with what Papias wrote




PAPIAS AND HIS WORK.


185


respecting the various versions of Matthew,
among which he reckoned the Greek Matthew
then held by the church.
Thetre is still more to be said of Papias and
his work. In relation to his efforts to obtain
materials he wrote that he believed that less
was needed in consequence of what was already
written in books. To what books did he refer?
May it not have been our own Gospels? The
expression used would make this not impossible, but the whole character of the book would
render it in the higlhest degree improbable; for
lie made no secret of his object of preparing, on
the ground of what was then, about A. D. 130 or
140,151 related regarding the Saviour, a kind of
supplement to the Gospels, and he may or may
not have directed special reference to the prophetical allusions to the Lord.  The Gospels,
therefore, he could not have used as sources,
and as affording materials for his collections.
The books referred to by him must be understood as rather relating to unauthentic and
more or less apocryphal records of the Lord's
career, of which there were so many from the




186     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


earliest date. These he set over against the
oral communications which he had received,
whose authenticity, as it could  be traced
through the elders back to the apostles themselves, like the evangelical writings, seemed to
be unquestionable.
From that part of Papias's work which Eusebius thought was worth preserving, I have already cited the story of the resurrection from
the dead which the daughters of Philip asserted
tlat they had heard of their father, and also
the account of Justus Barsabbas and the poison.
In a third passage, where the Gospel of the
Hebrews gives its corroborative evidence, he repeats the story of a woman who had been accused before Jesus of sin. In like manner it
was stated in his book, as we learn of Catenen
and (Ekumenius, that Judas the betrayer was
of such monstrous corpulence that he was
crushed by a carriage in a narrow street, and
that his bowels gushed out in consequence.
Regarding the further contents of the book,
Eusebius informs us, as already remarked,
that, in addition to a few matters altogether




PAPIAS AND HIS WORK.


187


fabulous, it contained a few parables and saydigs of our Lord, hitherto unknown but utterly
anworthy of being recorded; and no ecclesiastical writer has done so, excepting in the case of
Ireneas's strange account of the kingdom which
should last a thousand years. In addition to
this, Anastasius Sinaita has called attention to
the fact that Papias has made the days of creation and paradise refer to Christ and the
church; and Andrew the Cappadocian, in his
Commentary on the Apocalypse, quoted a remark of Papias respecting the angels who had
been unfaithful to their trust in the governmeint of the world. The latter writer, as does
Arethas also, cites the authority of Papias in
support of the credibility (Arethas uses the word
"inspiration ") of the Apocalypse.152
In view of all that has been said above, is
Papias's book one which can be accepted as
throwing important light upon the history of
our Gospels?   The judgment of Eusebius re.
specting the man, that he was of limited understanding, is justified not only by the details
which are brought into view, but confirmed by




188     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


the fact that his alleged contributions to onu
evangelical literature have been utterly disre
garded by the cllurcl. What would not a single parable of the Lord be worth if its authenticity could be substantiated! But no one has
taken the slightest notice of all that has been
'recorded by Papias; the fabulous character
which Eusebius charges upon the book -a man
himself characterized by extreme critical acumen-has adhered to the whole work, and it is
very unfair to trace this charge to a prepossession in favor of the Chiliasts. The question
which has been raised we must answer in the
negative, in view not only of the character of
the man but also of the tendency of his book,
although the passage referring to Matthew and
Mark shows that that sort of matter was not
absolutely excluded.  However much to be
wished, however important it is to see light
thrown upon tlat very early Christian literature of which we find indications in the preface
to Luke, in order to enable us to see the origin
and the mutual relation of our synoptic Gospels cleared up, yet there is no use to be made




PAPIAS.


189


of Papias's statements so far as they stand alone
and in contradiction to the sufficiently authenticated facts of his time. If he has nevertheless
become a torch-bearer of critical theology in
our time, and a leader under whose guidance
we can be content to see the first two Gospels
divided up into what are called their authentic
Itd unauthentic constituent parts, there is little
sult gained thereby other than the rearing of
i undeserved memorial to the bishop of Hiera] olis.
Papias is the most acceptable and important:Jly of the opponents of John's Gospel. And
wlly y?  Papias is silent respecting this Gospel.
iStrauss and Renan, with their followers,153 make
great account of this silence as opposed to the
belief in the authenticity of John's Gospel, and
(evidently consider it something which can not
be surmounted. I fear that my readers would
iot find it so after what has been said above
respecting tlhe value of Papias's book. Does it
not betray - I ask the reader himself- complete ignorance of what Papias has said regarding his own undertaking, to quote him as




190     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


evidence against the Gospel of John?  His
remarks respecting Mark and Matthew make no
difference in the character of his whole book.
It is insisted, however, that Papias can not,i
from his silence, have known anything about
the Gospel of John, still less have acknowledged its authenticity.  Naturally here was
supposed to be nothing less than decisive ev;
dence against the genuineness of this Gospel
yet Papias, the bishop of Hierapolis, belonget
even to the neighborhood of Ephesus, whenc(
Joln's Gospel must have gone forth into the
world, and his work can scarcely have been
written prior to the middle of the second century. A more groundless and trivial demand
can hardly be made than to grant that the
silence of Papias respecting the Gospel of
John constitutes a strong argument against its
genuineness.  For, in the first place, to give
evidence respecting this Gospel formed no part
whatever of the plan of Papias; and in the second
place, from the fact that Eusebius has cited nothing from Papias's boolk respecting it, no inference can justly be drawn that there was noth



EUSEBIUS.


191


ing in that book which related to John's
Gospel.  The remarks respecting Mark and
Matthew are not cited by Eusebius in confirmation of the genuineness of their Gospels, but
simply in consequence of certain facts which
they touch upon. In the case of John - and
this is the only inference which can be rationally drawn from the silence of Eusebiusthere were no circumstances which made it
necessary to cite what related to him.
Since, however, the opponents of John's Gospel have made so much account of the silence
of Eusebius in this matter, I can not refrain
from laying before the reader the great error into
wvhich they have fallen. They completely overlook the purpose which Eusebius had in view
in writing. Respecting his object he expresses
himself plainly enough (iii. 3: 2), where he says
that he wanted to trace in tlhe ecclesiastical
writers what portion of the Antilegomena of
the New Testament they had made use of, and
what they have said about the Homologoumena,
as well as what does not fall under this head.154
Every one can see that this does not mean that




192     ORIGIN' OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


he meant to inquire which writings, both of the
Antileogomena as well as tlhe Homologoumena,
they had used. In the case of the Antilegomena, or New Testament writings of doubtful
authority, the object is to indicate the use of
passages cited, and in this way to make clear
that this or that document was recognized. A
similar effort is not made by him in the case
of the Homologoumena, or writings invariably
recognized as authentic, but lie seeks as earnestly as in the case of the other class, to collect
ancient references to them, and what was anciently known respecting them. That this construction of his purpose is the only correct one,
Eusebius shows not only in the case of Papias,
but of all other writers who happen to como
under his notice.  He never says respecting
any one of the Gospels, Tils one or that one has
made use of it: this is much oftener the case
in the allusion to the Catholic Epistles,'55 than
to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse. But when
he cites what he finds in tlle older writers relative to the Gospels, lie brings forward all that
refers to their origin, the time when they were




EUSEBIUS.


193


written, and the occasion which gave them
birth. This is the ease with Irenaeus, of whom
Eusebius writes (v. 8) the following: " Mattliew wrote his Gospel among tle Hebrews, ill
their own language, while Peter and Paul were
preaching in Rome and strengthening the
church. After their death, Mark, the disciple
aid interpreter of Peter, wrote, recording what
Peter had preached. Luke, the companion of
Paul, took down the Gospel as it was announced
by the latter, and subsequently John, the disciple who lay on the Lord's breast, wrote his
Gospel during his sojourn at Ephesus."  Very
instructive, moreover, are the extracts from
Clement. Eusebius says (vi. 14) that Clement
briefly treats in his Hypotyposa all the biblical
writings, not passing over the Antilegomena.
I mean," he goes on to say literally, " the
Epistle of Jude, the other Catholic Epistles, that
of Barnabas, and the Revelation ascribed to
Peter."  He allows the Epistle to the Hebrews
to have been written by Paul, but in the Hebrew
lanuguage.  After further remarks respecting
this Epistle, Eusebius goes on to say: "But in
13




194     ORIGIN OF THIE FOUR GOSPELS.


the same treatise Clement communicates a tradition of the following import respecting the
true order of the Gospels; those were first
written which contain a genealogical record.
Mark's Gospel, moreover, had the following origin: When Peter was publicly preaching in
Rome, and, filled with the Spirit, was announcing the Gospel, Mark was urged by many who
were present, to put on record the statements
of Peter, since he had long been Peter's companion and could remember the substance of
his discourses; and when in accordance witli
this request he wrote his Gospel, he communicated it to those who had asked for it. Peterl
on his part, when he learned wlat Mark was
doing, neither took ground against it, nor urged
him to continue in it. And John, when he saw
tlat that physical, active side of the Saviour
had been fully delineated in the first three
Gospels, gratified the wish of friends that he
should portray Jesus on the spiritual sides
This is what Clemens communicates." VW
add to this what Eusebius (vi. 35) has taken, of,
similar purport, from Origen: that from tradi



EUSEBIUS.


195


tion he had gathered that one of the four Gospols which had universal credence in God's
church on earth, the one bearing the name of
Matthew, at first a collector 'of customs and
then an apostle of Jesus, was the one first written; and that it was composed in the Hebrew
tongue' and dedicated to believers who had
come out from Judaism. The second in the
order of the writing was Mark's, who had followed Peter's lead, and whom Peter himself
recognizes in his catholic epistle as his son,"My son Mark greeteth you."   The third was
Luke's, defended by Paul, and prepared for the
tise of those who were converted from heathendom. All these were followed by the one which
tbears the name of John.
Now does not a glance show that all these
passages from Irenaeus, Clemens and Origen
were not quoted by Eusebius for the purpose of
proving tlhe genuineness of the Gospels, aznd
iust as little what Papias has to say about Mark
and Matthew, but that they were recorded
merely as interesting facts relative to the dis



196     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


tinctive history of each one of the evangelical
records?
But we have the most striking 'confirmation
of our view in extracts from writers still older,
whose clear and distinct testimony to our Gospels and other Homologoumena, such as the
Pauline Epistles, are passed over by Eusebius
in accordance with his general design, while he
records what seemed to him to support the
Antilegomena. Here Papias himself is at the
head; at any rate Eusebius remarks expressly
respecting him at the end of his treatise, that
he had used proof texts from the First Epistle
of John, and also from that Of Peter.15s Further1
he says (iv. 18: 3) of Justin, that he had borne
in mind the Apocalypse of John, and expressly
allowed that it was written by the apostle;
but of the quotations from the Gospels found
in him, lie does not have a syllable.  From
Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians he draws'
the statement (iv. 14) that lie was indebtedi
for many proof texts to the First Epistle of Peter; but of the far more numerous Pauline,
citations, taken from the majority of Paul's




EUSEBIUS.


197


Epistles, he says nothing.'57  Of Clemens Romanus he remarks that he had taken many
ideas from the Epistle to the Hebrews, and often
in the original words, while he passes in silence
over all quotations from the Pauline Epistles.
From the three books of Theophilus to Autolycus, and from the one directed against the
heresy of Hermogenes, he cites (iv. 14) nothing
further than that in the latter he makes use of
passages in the Apocalypse of John; and yet
Theophilus often and unmistakably uses the
Pauline Epistles (e. g. Rom. ii. 6, et seq. ad Autolyc. i. 14; Rom. xiii. 7, et sq. ad Autolyc. iii.
14); he even (and this is the most pertinent to
our needs) cites the Gospel of John under that
very appellation.
Witl all this, do we not apprehend the aim
of what Eusebius records? And may we not
steer clear of the long-continued perversionl58 of
his purpose? On our part, we are of the firm
conviction that it needs only an upright determination to discern the truth as it is in order
to see the complete worthlessness of this famous
Papias argument against the Gospel of John.




198     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


The absurdity of the argument that the unfortunate Bishop of Hierapolis, shortly before
the middle of the second century, knew nothing of the writings of Luke and the Epistles of
Paul, because, judging by Eusebius's silence,
he made no mention of them, has been long
perceived; but very recently it has been set
aside159 by those who are the rudest opponents
of ecclesiasticism, on the ground that the bishop
may have been silent about things which he
knew, but which seemed too trivial to mention. Still less trouble has it caused this party
that, according to Eusebius's express testimony,
Papias made use of the First Epistle of John.
In the place, some pages back, where we had.
occasion to refer to Polycarp's use of this same
Epistle, it was said that the evidence in favor
of this Epistle is equally applicable to the Gos)els; but we asserted that not only had the
identity of authorship in these two treatises
been called into question, but that there has been
a hasty impulse to cast the Epistle itself overboard. Thus Papias's silence was to bring the
Gospel into utter disrepute, while, with his dis



INDIRECT EVIDENCE.


199


tinct testimony, he could not shield the Epistle
from the attacks of overbearing critics.
In view of such proceedings, it is a genuine
satisfaction to know that there has recently
been brought to light a work printed long ago,
but quite forgotten, in which Papias and his
book give direct testimony in behalf of the Gospel, which is assaulted under the protection of
lhis name. It is a prologue to the Gospel of
John in a Latin manuscript of the Vatican
(leaf 244), which, by a note in an old hand, is
traced back to the possession of the Bohemian,
Duke Wenceslaus (iste liber creditur fuisse
Divi Venceslai Ducis Boemnie), and which,
according to the appearances of the writing,
dates from the ninth century. It is now designated Vat. Alex. No. 14.160 The prologue discloses that it was composed prior to the time
of Jerome, and begins with the words, " Evangelium  iohannis manifestatum  et datum  est
ecclesiis ab iolhane adhuc in corpore constituto, sicut papias nomine hierapolitanus discipulus iohannis carus in exotericis id est in extremis quinque libris retulit." There can be




200     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


no stronger testimony than this that Papias did
give evidence in behalf of John's Gospel. The
further purport of the prologue is, with all its
brevity, rich in surprising facts. That it sprang
from the work of Papias seems, however, on
more grounds than one, to be doubtful; and on
this account the credibility of the other matters
which it communicates can not be put on the
same footing with the first.'"'
Before leaving Papias, however, we must revert to one source of evidence in favor of John's
Gospel, which Irenveus (v. 36: 2) cites even from
the lips of the presbyters, those high authorities
of Papias: " And on this account they say that
the Lord used the expression,' In my Father's
house are many mansions'" (John xiv. 2). As
the presbyters put this expression'62 in connection with the degrees of elevation granted to
the just in the City of God, in Paradise, in
Heaven, according as they bring their thirty,
sixty, or a hundred-fold from the harvest, so
nothing is more probable than that Ireansus
borrowed this whole expression of the presbyter, together with the portraiture already re



PAPIAS'S IVDIRECT TESTIMONY.


201


ferred to of the kingdom of a thousand years,
from the work of Papias. Whether it comes
from that source, however, or not, on every
ground the authority of the presbyters stands
higher than that of Papias; it takes us back
unquestionably to the close of the apostolical
period. In what way, and with what machinery, the noted men with whom unbelief becomes an art, and whose very efforts to propagate it are labored at with artistic ingenuity,
will be able to set aside this evidence in support of John's Gospel, and, together with the
testimony of the presbyters, that of Papias in
the Latin prologue to John, is not apparent
to me; yet I do not doubt that the skill which
has defied all efforts to baffle it as yet, will be
able to meet and overcome even this obstacle.
And lastly, we have to trace the bearings
of New Testament textual criticism on the
question under discussion. This is the science
which has to do with the primitive documents
of the sacred text, the direct bearer of saving
truth. Investigation into these primitive documuents ought to throw light upon the history of




202     ORIGIN OF THIE FOUR GOSPELS.


the sacred text; i.e. we ought to learn from
them what in all times Christendom has united
in finding recorded in the books which contain
the New Testament; this, e.g., what Columba, the pious and learned Irish monk of the
sixth century; what Ambrose at Milan, and
Augustine in Africa, in the fourth century;
what Cyprian and Tertullian, in the third and
second centuries, found recorded in their Latin
copies of the New Testament: in like manner,
what Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople,
in the tenth; Cyril, the Bishop of Jerusalem, in
the fifth; Athanasius and Origen of Alexandria,
in the fourth and third centuries, found on record in the Greek copies of their time. The
final and highest object of these investigations
consists in this, however,- to trace with exactness those expressions and words which the
holy apostles either wrote with their own hand
or dictated to others. If the New Testament
is the most important and most hallowed book
in the world, we must certainly lay the greatest value on all efforts to possess the text in
which it was originally written in its most per



THE BIBLICAL TEXT.


203


feet state, without omissions, without additions,
and without changes. Should it be impossible
to attain this result, still the task would at any
rate be ours to approximate as closely as possible to the primitive form of the text.
The question will at once recur to many
readers, Do our ordinary editions of the Bible
not contain the genuine and true text? The
German Protestant, with his Lnther's Bible in
his hand, would ask this question; so would
the Catholic, with his Latin Vulgate, or his
German or French translation of it; so would
the Englishman, with his Authorized Version;
so too would the Russian, with his Sclavonic
text. -The answer to' this question, viewed
from what side we will, is not light. Every
one of these translations has again its own more
or less rich text-history, and there is no one
which has not enough of the original to insure
the degree of faith necessary to salvation. But
if the effort be made to see how closely each
follows the original, how truly each has preserved the text as it was given by the apostles,
it must be compared with the original text,




204     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


from  which, directly or indirectly, all have
flowed. We know that the Greek is the original text of the New Testament. And how is it
with the genuineness of this text?
When the discovery of printing, in the first
quarter of the sixteenth century, was applied to
the publication of the Greek New Testament,
Erasmus, at Bale, and Cardinal Ximenes, at
Alcala, took as the basis of the work such -manuscripts as were at their command. Their editions were repeated elsewhere, often with slight
modification of the original text, according to
other manuscripts. The learned Parisian printer, Robert Stephens, introduced some such
modifications; the Elzevir followed, the work
of a Leyden printer; and soon the force of
usage became so powerful that the theologians
accepted the text as it was established by the
Erasmus, Elzevir, and Robert Etienne editions
as a kind of authorized general edition. In the
mean time, scholars had begun to trace new
sources, -Greek manuscripts written in the
first century, as well as manuscripts prepared
for the translations effected in the first five cen*




THE BIBLICAL TEXT.


205


turies into Latin, Gothic, Coptic, Ethiopian,
Armenian; to these may be added the textual
readings which are found recorded in the works
of the church Fathers of the second century.
From this there issued at last the result that,
under the hand of the various transcribers,
learned as well as unlearned, the New Testament text has assumed extraordinary diversity
in its readings. And, although this diversity
is, in thousands of passages, limited to merely
grammatical forms, having no relation to the
sense, there is no lack of places which involve
more important matters, and which are of historical and dogmatic value. After this had
gone on so far that the whole of Christendom
was interested in the highest degree in the
matter, earnest men, with whom it was a sacred
duty to ascertain what is truth rather than to
conform with established usage, conceived that
it was their especial task to reform the ordinary text by incorporating upon it the results
of examining the ancient but later discovered
manuscripts. Still, it is only in the most recent
period that men have dared to lay aside the




206     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


ordinary text, which had no scientific guaranty
of authenticity, and to bring into exclusive use
the text of the earliest documents. For it
needs no proof that the oldest documents, those
which run back to within a few centuries of the
first composition, must be truer to the original
than those which were written a thousand years
or more subsequently to the first composition.
In giving the preference to the most ancient
documents, however, there is the rigid duty of
examining them most carefully in respect to
their intrinsic character and their mutual relations. With this is to be coupled the fact that
our various most ancient manuscripts give the
text with a great diversity of readings, through
which cause their use is made much more difficult in establishing the original text given by
the apostles. All tle more necessary was it,
therefore, to seek the oldest and most trustworthy of them all. In order to do this, Richard
B1entley considered it important to give tlie
preference to that text which shows the closest
accordance with the oldest Greek documents
and the Latin text of the fourth century. In




THE BIBLICAL TEXT.


207


accordance with Bentley's judgment, Carl Lachmann undertook, with very fevo  aids, tlh re'storation of the text which was generally diffused
in the fourth century; for there seems to be no
possibility of reaching any documentary evidence which goes back of that age. There is
no doubt that the earliest Latin translation of
the Gospels - to limit ourselves to this - was
written soon after the middle of the second
century; for, as I have had occasion to remark
above, the Latin translator of Ireneus, before
tie close of tle second century, and Tertullian
in the last decade of the same century, appear
to have been in undisputed dependence upon
it. This oldest translation we possess163 at the
present time, - certainly in its main body; for,I)r oldest documents, reaching back to the filth
century, and whllich bear relation to tlhe text
whicl was prepared in Nortlh Africa, the home
of Tertullian, find a frequent confirmation of
their readings in the two witnesses already
mentioned, tile translators of Irenaeus and Tertullian.  And on this accounlt, in behalf of
those texts which men have not recorded in




208     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


their writings, it must be admitted that they
correspond to the very earliest edition, or are
very nearly allied to it. By the discovery of
the Sinaitic manuscript we have advanced yet'
farther; for this text, which, on palseographical
grounds, has been assigned by competent scholars to the middle of the fourth century, stands
in such surprising alliance with the oldest Latin
translation that it is really to be regarded as
coincident with the text which, soon after the
middle of the second century, served the firskt
Latin translator, the preserver of the so-callel
Itala, as a foundation.  And that this text was
not an isolated one is manifest from the fact
that the oldest Syrian text, contained in a manuscript of the fifth century, lately discovered in
the Nitrian desert, as well as Origen and others
of the earliest Fathers, stands in specially close
connection with it. The Syrian text just menri
tioned possesses on its side a power of carrying
conviction quite analogous to the Itala, and
manifesting it in that double way which I have
endeavored to set forth; for the latest investi:
gations leave no doubt that the Peshito, which




THE BIBLICAL TEXT.


209


is universally ascribed to the close of the second
century, presupposes the existence of the Nitrian text, so that the latter must have arisen
about the middle of the second century.
What now follows from all these considerations in the way of answering the question
vwhich has been raised? Two things we have
to make use of and apply in the most emphatic
manner.   At the very outset of this work I
have indicated it as a noteworthy fact, that soon
after the middle, and even about the middle, of,lile second century, the four Gospels underwent
an undoubted common translation, and appeared in a Latin as well as in a Syriac version.
These translations not only prove the same
thing which the harmonistic treatment of the
Gospels by Tatian of Syria and by Theophilus
at almost the same epoch proves; they prove at
the same time much more, namely, that as the
Gospels of Luke and John were in existence at
that time in the same form in which we have
them now, so were those of Matthew and Mark.
If isolated citations from the oldest epoch allow
the suspicion that instead of our Matthew, the
14




210     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


nearly related and only subsequently discriminated Gospel of the Hebrews was perhaps
used, or that even our Mark had tlen taken
that primitive form which is indicated in the
recent investigations of Papias's account, yet
the oldest Latin texts of these Gospels completely exclude this suspicion, at least so far as.
the middle of the second century is concerned.
They give thoughtful investigators as little
ground for believing that these texts might
shortly before have been developed by unknown
hands from a previous form, and now in an
unskillful fashion, after the change which hasj
been wrought upon them by the Latin Church,
are held to be the original draft. Even here
the Nitrian text stands by the side of the
Itala in confirmation of it, omitting, however,
the Gospel of Mark, with the exception of
the last four verses.  It is well known that
the discoverer and editor of this text uttered his conviction, and strengthened it with
plausible proofs, that in the case of the Gospel
of Matthew this text may have sprung from
the original Hebrew form. In opposition to




AN EARLY TEXT-HIISTORY.


211


this decidedly erroneous impression, the agreement of the same Syrian text with our oldest
Greek and Latin documents confirms in the
most striking manner our conclusion in relation to the Greek text of Matthew, as well as
the conclusion that in the middle of the second
century there was no other text of Matthew
illha  the one which we possess. And so far as
Mark is concerned, this Syrian translator bears
witness in support of the closing verses already
employed by Irenvaus, which, according to decisive critical authority, are not genuine, but
which were appended to the accepted text of
Mark's Gospel.'64
But I have yet another matter of textual
criticism to take note of, which in my judgment affords evidence that our collective Gospels are to be traced back at least to the beginining of the second or the end of the first century. As on the one side the text of the Sinaitic manuscript, together with the oldest Itala
thxt, is to be assigned specifically to the use of
the second century, so on the other side it is easy
to establish that that same text, in spite of all




212     ORIGIN QF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


its superiority over other documents, had assumed even their differences in many respects
from the primitive purity of the reading, and
that it even then presupposed a complete texthistory.  We are not directed in this exclusively to the Codex Sinaiticus and one or another
of the Itala manuscripts, together with Irenaeus
and Tertullian: but we can accept all these
documents, which we must assign, partly from
necessity and partly with the greatest probability, to the second century; the fact is undeniable that there was even then a rich text-history. We mean by this that even prior to the
second half of the second century, while copy
after copy of our Gospels was made, not only
are there many errors of transcribers to b6
found, but the phraseology and the sense in
particular places are changed, and larger or
smaller additions are made from apocryphal
and oral sources. With all this, such changes
are not excluded which were the result of putting together separate parallel passages, and
these testify in a striking manner to the early
union of our Gospels in a single canon. If this




AN EARL Y TEXT-HISTORY.


213


is really the case, there is an important stadium of the textual history of our four Gospels
prior to the middle of the second century, prior
to the time whlen canonical authority, together
with the more settled ecclesiastical order, made
arbitrary changes in the sacred text more and
more difficult,-this I shall take occasion to
show fully at another time, - and for the lapse
of this history we must assume at least a half century. According to this, must not-I dare not.say the origin of the Gospels, but- the establishment of the evangelical canon be set at the
*close of the first century? And is not this result all the more certain from the coincidence
wi-th it of all the historical factors of the second
century, which we have reviewed without any
X'eserve?
There will be those, it is not to be doubted,
jlho will accuse us of one-sidedness and want
pf thoroughness. And in truth we have passed
over some things whose examination would
hlave been in accordance with my purpose to
pass in review all the oldest documentswlhich
Coutld throw light upon the Gospels or illumi



214     ORIGI OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


nate their primitive recognition. If we have
omitted anything, it is only because the inferences to be drawn from them touch too closely,
as it has seemed to us,-perhaps wrongly, ---
upon the domain of hypothesis to give really
solid results to our investigation. But in what
we have passed over there is nothing which is
antagonistic to what has been already advanced.
We allude, e. g., to the earliest traces of a canonic indication and collection of apostolic writings, including the earliest appendices to the
New Testament, and contained in a portion of
the New Testament itself as the church established it in the fourth century. This is certainly
the most recent portion, viz., the Second Epistle
of Peter; where, (iii. 16), reference is made
not only to the collection of the Pauline Epistles, but of other New Testament writings;165
also the closing verses of John's Gospel, of
which verse twenty-fourth is held with the most
correctness as the oldest testimony from the
hand of a presbyter of Ephesus in favor of
John'P authorship.'66  The Testaments of tlhi
twelve patriarchs,'67 too, contain undeniable




MISCONCEP TIONS.


215


traces of an acquaintance with the books of the
New Testament, the Gospels as well as the
Pauline Epistles and the Apocalypse; they confirm, therefore, the existence of a collection of
the books of the New Testament at the time
when they were written, and this time can
scarcely be set later than the close of the first
or the opening of the second century.'68 But
so far as definite details are concerned, such as
can be drawn into active service by those who
are most determined in their opposition to
John's Gospel, we can discover nothing but
mnisunderstanding and unjustified conclusions.
It is a misunderstanding, for example, to bring
the celebration in Asia Minor of the feast of
the Passover into antagonism with the Gospel
of John; for the festival as it is celebrated
there, which builds simply upon the example of
John, is erroneously understood as if it related
to the Last Supper, while it really commemorates the death of Jesus the true paschal Lamb
(1 Cor. v. 7), the historic basis being given for
it in John's Gospel. But when men bring the
relation of John's to the synoptic Gospels as




216     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


the ground for suspicion respecting tle apostolic origin of the former, and cite the peculiarity of John's diction, as well as that of the
Apocalypse, the universal character of his Gospel compared with Gal. ii. 9, and its dogmatic
character, especially in relation to the person
of Christ, as brought into contrast with the history of the Christian doctrine, they profess to
know  more than it is granted to man to
know, and use what is naturally hypothetical
and uncertain to throw doubts over what is
clear and fixed.  Against tactics which rely
upon the appearance of knowledge and cunningly shaped  hypotheses, and  which are
shrewdly devised to entrap the simple, there
is need of summoning the aid of definite and
ascertained facts.
We can only call it a welcome occurrence
that through the radical character of the two
most distinguished modern biographers of Jesus, the Tubingen fantasy-builder and the Parisian caricaturist, the contrasts between belief
and disbelief in the Gospels and the Lord
have been made thoroughly apparent.   It is




PRE VALENT ERRORS.


217


only clear vision which leads to the gift of sure
decision. Never before have theologians joined
in with the Christian church and the whole
world of culture in demanding so appositely as
now, How is it down at the foundations, respecting our evangelical belief in the Lord? Nothing
is easier than to deceive those who are not in a
position which enables them to answer in a
scientific manner this greatest question of
Christendom; nothing easier than to mislead
them  under a pretense of learned and honest
investigation.  Yet the character of this age
grants all license to thorough and honorable
inquiry in matters where, in former ages less
intelligent than ours, faith, and a faith too
that often enough was blind, had unquestioned
sway. It is just from this that many who have
not been able to enter deepry into this class of
studies have come to believe that if we look
at the matter thoroughly and scientifically
there is a great deal of doubt about the facts of
Jesus' life.  And scarcely anything has had
more factitious influence in inducing this incredulity than the often-repeated statement that




218     OR)Gl~T OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


the ancient history of the Christian church
gives the most conclusive testimony against the
genuineness of our Gospels, especially that of
John, in which the divine-human character of
the Saviour of the world stands forth to the
offense and confusion of an unchristian age
more manifestly than in the synoptic Gospels.
In the course of this investigation we have
been brought to exactly the opposite view. To
awaken doubts respecting the genuineness of
our Gospels, and John's especially, in thy minds
of the lettered as well as the unlettered, to
cause many to deny them even, is the work of,
that skeptical spirit which has attained to almost undisputed pre:eminence during the past
hundred years. And yet there are few instances
in the collective literature of antiquity of so
general and commanding assent being given to
works of a historical character as to our four
Gospels.
Against that kind of unbelief which has
taken root in the modern frivolous school of
religious literature, in that earth-born emancipation of the human spirit which will allow of




CONCL USI ON.


219


no subjugation by the Spirit of God, science has
no weapons. It is their unbelief which has incorporated itself into Renan's book: therein lies
its power, its secret of success; there is no
need of learned inquiry respecting it: the parti-colored rags which it has borrowed of science
only partially conceal the naked limbs. It is
quite otherwise with the learned arguments
which have been brought against the life of
Jesus, and tlhe historic attacks which have beenmade upon the authenticity of the evangelical
sources. Here we have to protest with the utmost decisiveness, but on the ground of rigid
scientific investigation.  The victory of God
in behalf of right belongs to truth    alone.
It is only a petty littleness of belief that can
believe thlat the sacred interests of truth are
imperiled by the use of those dishonored weapons which are so much in vogue in the present
age. But whoever stands in the interest of
that truth which is to enter into victory must
display his faith in the result by no timid counting of costs, but by the constant exercise of
his best knowledge and most conscientious endeavors.








NOTES.
NOTE 1, p. 12.- Hilgenfeld's friends are more
outspoken in this matter than even he is, while
they completely echo his words. Thus Volkmar,
p. 110: " The Sinaitic Bible is asserted to have no
greater value or significance than to make certain
the fact that the canon of our four Gospels, as
well as the whole Old Catholic New Testament,
was in existence at the commencement of the
the second century."  P. 120: "This which has
been added is, therefore, a ne plus ultra; in this
phrase, scriptum est, are involved not only the
canonicity of Matthew, but the fourfoldness of
our Gospels,,and the authenticity of the whole
New Testament." In like tone A. Ritschl, in the
Jahrb. far deutsch. Theol. 1866, 2d pt. p. 355: "But
it is arbitrarily foisted upon the words of the heresiarch, as it is also an arbitrary supposition, that
the church from the apostolic time down was furnished with the canon of the New Testament, and
with bishops who were the successors of the apostles. And whoever trusts Tertullian so far as the
former statement is concerned, has no right to re,
221




222     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


fuse to recognize with him the apostolical succession of bishops. As all the studies of Tischendorf
into the history of the canon lead him to believe
that no one of the New Testament Scriptures can
be looked at by itself and as destitute of canonical
authority" [these words are intended to convey
the meaning that the canonization of Matthew, testified to by Barnabas, is to be confined to Matthew
alone. That they signify no less than that the beginning of a canon of the New Testament can not
be limited to a single document, can be clearly
seen in the passage cited, and is there fully dwelt
upon; the ascribing of another meaning is a perversion of my words], "and as he finds himself
obliged to assign the establishment of the canon to
the close of the first century.... If, now, it is
a result to be almost envied that one should convince himself so easily of the correctness of his
judgment respecting the history of the New Testament canon, they seem to be much more to be
envied who want to confirm this result by holding
firmly to the doctrine of an apostolical appointment of bishops who had authority commensurate
with that of the apostles." These last words are
a mere stupid joke, and are to be accounted as
such; they are, therefore, of the same character,
and are animated by the same spirit, as that which
has caused other men to heap calumny upon me.


NOTE 2, p. 14.-I might perhaps repel the charge




NOTES.


223


that an over-heated zealous activity, akin to that
of the Spanish knight-errant, lies dormant in my
words, by citing the expression of the "Wiener
Allgem. Literatur Zeitung zunachst fur das katholische Deutschland, No. 25: " So far as real learning
and familiarity with the subject are concerned,
Strauss compared with Tischendorf is a pigmy by
a giant."...  One word of his weighs more than
the whole book of another, however carefully prepared."
NOTE 3, p. 17.- Zur Quellenkritik des Epiphanios, 1865, p. 68: " Herakleon does not specifically
mention Irena3us." P. 168: "Epiphanios did not
find the name of Herakleon mentioned in Irenaeus,
but he unquestionably learned of Hippolytus what
he knew about him." "Even the order is given
by Ireneus. And just because he does not mention Herakleon, Epiphanios thinks that he must
put him behind Mark."
NOTE 4, p. 17.-This may do something toward
clearing away the charge which has often been
brought against me, that I have not read Justin
and others, and merely copy what I find in "Introductions."
NOTE 5, p. 19.- The small, popular edition of this
work has already been published in France by the
Toulouse Societe des livres religieux, in England




224     ORIGIN' OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


by the Religious Tract Society, and in America.
-In the latter country a German edition has also
been issued. The French translator is Prof. Sardinoux of Montauban, the English translator Mr.
J. B. Heard, and the American, Prof. H. B. Smith.
NOTE 6, p. 25.- Tacit. Annal. xv. 44.
NOTE 7, p. 25.-Pliny's Epist. x. 97.
NOTE 8, p. 25. - The statement of Suetonius
(Claud. 25), that Claudius (about 52 after Christ)
banished the Jews from Rome because, incited by
Christ, they made a perpetual uproar, ought hardly
to be cited here.
NOTE 9, p. 28.- Renan, p. xxvii. On est tente
de croire que Jean... fut froisse de voir qu'on
ne lui accordait pas dans l'histoire du Christ ine
assez grande place; qu'alors il commen9a a dicter
une foule de choses qu'il savait mieux que les autres,
avec l'intention de montrer que, dans beaucoup de
cas oh on ne parlait que de Pierre, il avait figur6
avec et avant lui.
NOTE 10, p. 28.-Page xxvii. N'excluant pas
une certaine rivalit6 de l'auteur avec Pierre.
NOTE 11, p. 28.- Page xxvii. Sa haine contre
Judas, haine anterieure peut-etre a la trahison.




NOTES.


225


NOTE 12, p. 28.- Page 403. Selon une tradition
Jesus auralit trouve un appui dans la propre femme
du procurateur.   Celle-ci avait pu entrevoir le
doux Galileen de quelque fenetre du palais, donnant sur les cours du temple. Peut-etre le revitelle en songe, et le sang de ce beau jeune horme,
qui allait etre verse, lui donna-t-il le cauchemar.
NOTE 13, p. 29.-Page 361. Peut-etre Lazare,
paile encore de sa maladie, se fit-il entourer de
bandelettes comme un mort et enfermer dans son
trmbeau de famille.... L'emotion qu'eprouva Jesus pres du tombeau de son ami, qu'il croyait mort,
put etre prise par les assistants pour ce trouble, ce
fremissement qui accompagnaient les miracles;
l'opinion populaire voulant que la vertu divine fut
dans l'homme comme un principe epileptique et
convulsif. Jesus... desira voir encore une fois
celui qu'il avait aime, et, la pierre ayant 6te ecartee,
Lazare sortit avec ses bandelettes et la tete entouree d'un suaire... Intimement persuades que
Jesus 6tait thaumaturge, Lazare et ses deux soeurs
purent aider un de ses miracles a s'ex6cuter...
L'etat de leur conscience etait celui des stigmatis6es, des convulsionnaires, des possedees de couvent.... Quant a Jesus, il n'etait pas plus maitre
que Saint Bernard, que saint Fran9ois d'Assise de
rmoderer l'avidite de la foule et de ses propres disciples pour le merveilleux. La mort, d'ailleurs,
allait dans quelques jours lui rendre sa libert6 di15




226     ORIGIN OF THE FO UR G OSPELS.


vine, et l'arracher aux fatales necessite's d'un ro'le
qui chaque jour devenait plus exigeant, plus diffi
cile 'a soute-nir.
NOTE 14, p. 29.- Matt. xxvi. 36, et sq.; Mark xiv.
32, et sq.; Luke xxii. 40, et sq.
NOTE 15, p. 30. -Page 378, et sq.
NOTE 16, p. 30.- Page 209.        La profondo
secheresse de la nature aux environs de Jerusalem
devait ajouter an d6plaisir de Jesus.
NOTE 17, p. 30. -Page 28. Si jamais le monde
reste' chre'tien, raais arriv6 'a une notion meilleure
de ce qui constitue le respect des origrines, veut
remplacer par d'authentiques lieux saints les sane..
tuaires apocryphes et mesquins oii s'attachait la p1'efte des a~ges grossiers, c'est sur cette hauteur de Nazareth qu.'il ba'tira son temple. La', an point d'ap.parition du christianisrae et an centre d'action de
son fondateur, devrait s'e'lever la grande 6glise oh~
tons les chre'tiens pourraient prier. La" aussi, srr
cette terre oii dorment le charpentier Joseph et
des milliers de Nazare'ens oublie's.
NOTE 18, p. 31.-Page 426.      Sa tafte s'inclin~,
sur sa poitrine, et ii expira. Repose maintenan't
dans ta gloire, noble initiateur.  Ton oeuvre est
acheve'e; ta divinit6 est fonde'e. Ne cramns plus do




NOTES.


227


voir crouler par une faute l'difice de tes efforts.
Page 67.   Toute l'historie du christianisme naissant est devenue de la sorte une delicieuse pastorale. Un Messie aux repas de noces, la courtisane et
le bon Zachle appeles a ses festins, les fondateurs
du royaume du ciel comme un cortege de paranymphes. Page 219. Le charmant docteur, qui
pardonnait a tous pourvu qu'on l'aimat, ne pouvait
trouver beaucoup d'echo dans ce sanctuaire des
vaines disputes et des sacrifices vieillis. Page 222.
L'orgueil du sang lui parait l'ennemi capital qu'il
faut combattre. Jesus, en d'autres termes, n'est
plus juif. I1 est r6volutionnaire au plus haut degre; il appelle tous les hommes i un culte fonde
sur leur seule qualite d'enfants de Dieu. Page 316.
Parfois on est tente de croire que, voyant dans sa
propre mort un moyen de fonder son royaume, il
con9ut de propos delibere le dessein de se faire
tuer. D'autres fois la mort se pr6sente a lui comme
un sacrifice, destine a apaiser son Pere et a sauver
les hommes. Un gofit singulier de persecution et
de supplices le penetrait. Son sang lui paraissait
comme l'eau d'un second bapteme dont il devait
6tre baign6, et il semblait possede d'une hate
etrange d'aller au-devant de ce bapteme qui seul
pouvait etancher sa soif.
NOTE 19, p. 36.-That this was the true date
when this catalogue was proposed, is rendered
more certain by the circumstance that the author




228     ORIGIN OF TIIE FOUR GOSPELS.


indicates the episcopate of Pius, which is generally
computed to have extended from 142 to 157, by
the words temporibus nostris and nuperrime, i. e.
"in our time," and "very recently."  And even
when he follows his own conjectures, or those which
were then general, respecting any matter, as,
for example, his ascribing the "Shepherds," an
apocalyptic book of edification, to Hermas the
brother of Pius the Roman bishop, his chronological statements must still be conceded not to have
lost any validity.
NOTE 20, p. 38.- See Iren. adv. hberes. iii. 11: 8.
NOTE 21, p. 39.-See Iren. adv. haer. iii. 3: 4;
and particularly his letter to Florinus in Euseb.
Hist. Eccl. v. 20 (Iren. opp. ed. Stieren i. 822).
NOTE 22. p. 40. —In the Latin translation the
passage runs: "Vidi enim te, quum adhuc puer
(mtaT) essem, in inferiore Asia apud Polycarpum
quum in imperatoria aula splendide ageres et illi
(nrtct av'c) te probare conareris. Nam ea que
tune gesta sunt melius memoria teneo, quam quat
nuper acciderunt (quippe quae pueri discimus,
simul cum animo ipso coalescunt eique penitus
inhaerent) adeo ut et locum dicere possim in quo
sedens beatus Polycarpus disserebat, processus quoque eius et ingressus vitaeque modum et corporis
speciem, sermones denique quos ad multitudinem




NOTES.22


229


habebat; et familiarem consuetudinem quT RHl
cum Johianne ac reliquis qui dominum, viderant intercessit, ut narrabat, et qualiter dicta eorum cornmemorabdit: quvaque de domino ex ipsis audiverat
de miraculis illins etiam. ac de doctrina, qne Ab uis
qui verburn vitae ipsi conspexerant acceperat Polycarpus, qualiter referebat, cuncta Scripturis consona." The attempt to make these closing words
apply to the Qid Testament, and not to the Gospels, is a most impotent attempt to take away all
point whatever from what Irenvous is saying.
NOTE 23, p. 43. -See adv. Marcion, Wv. 2. Constituimus inprimis evangelicum. instrunientum. apostolos auctores habere, quibus hoc munus evangelii promuigandi Ab ipso domino sit conmpositum;
si et apostolicos, non tamen. solos sed. cum apostolis
et post apostolos. Denique nobis fldem, cx apostolis Johannes et Matthweus insinuant, cx apostolicis Lucas et Marcus instaurant.
NOTE 24, p. 43. - See adv. Marcion, iv. 5. In
summa si constat id vernus quod prius, id. prius
quod. et Ab initio, Ab initio quod Ab apostolis, pariter
utique constabit id esse ab apostolis traditum quodl
apud ececlesias apostolorum. fucrit sacrosanctum.
NOTE 25, p. 45.- See the docum ent already referred to: Eadein auctoritas ececlesiarum ccteris
qiioque patrocinabitur evangeli~is, quee proinde per




230     ORIGIN OF TIE FOUR GOSPELS.


illas et secundum  illas habemus, Johannis dico
[before this he says, habemus ct Johanni alumnas
ecclesias] et Matthaei; licet et Marcus quod edidit
Petri affirmetur, cuius interpres Marcus. Nam
et Lucre digestum Paulo adscribere solent; capit
inagistrorum videri qua discipuli promulgarint.
NOTE 26, p. 46.-Theophilus was appointed
bishop of Antioch, according to the statement ot
Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. iv. 19 and 20), about the
eighth year of Marcus Aurelius's reign, i. e., about
168, at the same time that Soter was bishop of
Rome. The third book of his able Apology to
Autolycus he wrote, according to his own statement, in the year 181; the first two books in the
year 180. It is extremely probable that the compilation from the Gospels was intended to serve in
helping him discharge his official duties, - at the
outset, at least, of his term of service.
Tatian himself tells us (Orat. ad Grsec. 19) that
when in Rome together with Justin he shared the
persecution experienced by the cynic philosopher
Crescens. After Justin had fallen as a martyr, Tatian left Rome; in Syria, where he lived subsequently, he embraced the Gnostic heresies; at the
time when Irenoeus was preparing his work aimed
agalinst this school, i. e. about 177, Tatian does not
appear to have been living. Comp. Iren. adv. hoer.
1: 28. Tatian can not have written his celebrated
atpologetic work, Addresses to the Heathen, before




NOTES.


231


his teacher's death (166), but he may have done so
soon after. In all probability, however, he had
prepared the Diatessaron still earlier.
NOTE 27, p. 46. —See epist. 151 ad Algasiam
qusest. 5. Theophilus... qui quatuor evangelistarum in unum opus dicta compingens ingenii sui
nobis monimenta reliquit, hvec super hac parabola
[the one respecting the Unjust Steward] in suis
commentariis locutus est.
NOTE 28, p. 47.- See Euseb. Histor. Eccles. iv.
29.
NOTE 29, p. 47.- See Theodoret. hberet. fab. i.
20.
NOTE 30, p. 47. - Jerome, in the passage already
cited, as well as elsewhere (in his Catalogus de Viris Illustribus), alludes to Theophilus as the author
of a commentary on the Gospel (a term applied,
according to the usage of that time, to the four
Gospels co-ordinated into a single narrative), and
even makes use of it in explaining the parable of
the Unjust Steward; it is very probable, therefore,
that this commentary was bound up with the Gospels.
NOTE 31, p. 52.-Hegesippus wrote a history
of the church, coming down to Eleutheros, bishop
of Rome, who is generally thought to have been




232    ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


in office from 177 to 193.  Eusebius has made
extensive use of this work (iv. 8 and 22) in preparing his own history, and gives its author great
credit for the reliability of all his statements, and
for his doctrinal soundness (iv. 21). In addition
to the fragments which Eusebius has preserved, we
possess another statement respecting Hegesippus,
taken by Photius from Stephanus Gobarus, a monophysite living at the close of the sixth century, and
incorporated in his Bibliotheca, No. 232, Bekker's
edition, p. 288. In the fragments of Stephanus
Gobarus, we read, in connection with the quotation, "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man the things
which God hath prepared for them that love him,"
that Hegesippus declared that this was a vain and
meaningless saying, and that all such passages are
in contradiction to the sacred scripture and to the
words of the Lord, "Blessed are the eyes which
see the things that ye see, and the ears that hear the
things that ye hear." From this passage in Stephanus Gobarus it is not clear against whom or
against what false doctrine Hegesippus's animadversion was directed. It is most probable that he
aimed chiefly at a docetic error respecting the per
son of Christ. As Paul quoted the words cited
above, from 1 Cor. ii. 9, either from Isaiah lxiv. 3
and 4, or, as Origen supposed, from an apocryphal
book known by the name of Elias, it became the
belief of certain theologians that IHegesippus in



NOTES.


233


tended to reject the Epistles of Paul, and to condemn the validity of his doctrine. Nor did they
hesitate to go further, and grant that, admitting
that the passage in Corinthians was a fiee quotation from Isaiah, they should have to reject that as
well. They even went so far as to bring Eusebius
under suspicion, and to hint that he had willfully
perverted ecclesiastical history.
NOTE 32, p. 52.- The apocalyptic, ethical work,
known as the " Shepherd," had quotations neither
from the Old nor from the New Testament; there
is no lack of references in it, however.
NOTE 33, p. 53.-See, for example, chap. 35:
"While we put away from us all injustice and
wickedness, avarice, contention, cunning and deceit, slander and calumny, blasphemy, pride and
self-seeking, ambition and vanity: for they who
do such things are displeasing to God, and not
alone they who do them, but they that have pleasure in them who do them."  Comp. Rom. i. 29, et
seq.
NOTE 34, p 53. —In chap. 46: "Woe to that
man: it were better for him if he had not been
born, than that he should offend one of my chosen
ones: it were better that a millstone were hanged
about his neck and he were cast into the sea, than
that he should offend one of my little ones." These




234     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


words are cited expressly on the "saying of our
Lord;" they disclose, however, much more clearly
the very phrase taken from his lips and repeated
in the apostle's tradition, than the use of the similar passages in Matt. xxvi. 24; xviii. 6; and Luke
xvii. 2.
NOTE 35, p. 56.-" That which is born of the
flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit.... The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not
tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. So is
every one that is born of the Spirit."
NOTE 36, p. 56.- "For every one that doeth
evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved."
NOTE 37, p. 62. —So, for example, Niedner's
History of the Christian Church, p. 206: "The
first, the greater, at the time of Antoninus Pius, in
138 or 139; the second, the smaller, under Marcus
Aurelius, soon after 161." The same statement is
made by Neander (Gen. Hist. of the Christ. Rel.
and Chur., 3d ed. i. 1, p. 364, et sq.): " Since in the
superscription he does not speak of M. Aurelius as
Casar, it is probable that it was written before his
promotion to the imperial dignity, which took
place in 139." Thereupon he alludes to the "greater
difficulty" which the determination of the time




NOTES.


235


when the shorter Apology was written cost him,
and states that he could come to no decision respecting it.
NOTE 38, p. 62.- The passage (i. 46) runs, "In
order that it may not be said in senseless perversion of what I have stated respecting Christ's being born under Quirinus 150 years ago, his teaching what may be called his system under Pontius
Pilate, and the inference which might be drawn
that all men born before his time were free fiom
guilt, I will meet this matter at the very outset."
Every one can see in these round numbers, and in
this mode of expression, how little the Mriter
meant to assign a definite date to the composition
of the Apology.  Still, the year 147 is the one
which, according to our ordinary computation, is
assigned as the date when it was written. That
in the Apology of Marcion the subject is alluded
to as one occupying the public mind, has no vital
relation to the time which we have specified, although to the statement of Irenaeus that Marcion
was in Rome with Cerdo at the time of Hyginus
(generally set between 137 and 141), must be
added that of the Arabic biographers of Mani, according to which Marcion came into notice in the
first year of Antoninus Pius, 138: for the year
139 can not be coupled with this event. That
Justin cites in the Apology his work against Marcion ("and the Marcionites" does not appear in




236    ORIGIN OF TIHE FOUR GOSPELS.


in the title), is said without truth. For in i. 26
he alludes to his work "Against all Heresies," not
to that "Against Marcion;" the latter is cited by
Ii enceus, iv. 6: 2, after a citation of the first-named
work of Jerome in the catalogue.  One circumstance opposed to this is not to be overlooked. If,
with the pushing back of the first Apology to the
year 147, the connection of the second and the
first be insisted on, and the latter is regarded as a
mere appendix to the former, the assigning of so
early a date to the former becomes the more improbable from the fact that Justin alludes in the
same to the persecutions of Crescens following him
even to his death. This seems to me to give more
decisive evidence against the connection of the
two, than the existing reference in the second to
what is said in the first doesfor that connection.
NOTE 39, p. 62.-If the freedom be taken to
come from this date down to 150, there is an equal
right to go back several years before 147.
NOTE 40, p. 63. —By way of illustration, we
may cite the passage which is given three times
in the Dialogue (chaps. 76, 120 and 140), "They
shall come from the east and from the west, and
shall sit down in the kingdom  of heaven with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; but the children
of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer dark.
ness." This coincides literally with Matt. viii. 11




NOTES.


237


and 12, excepting that in the latter we have the
reading "many shall come."  In like manner in
the Dialogue (chap. 107) we have, "It is written
in the Memorabilia, that your country folk asked
him and said,' Show us a sign.' And he answered
them, 'An evil and an adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given
them but the sign of the prophet Jonas."' This
reply of the Lord coincides literally with Matt.
xii. 40, with the mere use of "them" for "it."
NOTE 41, p. 63.- Respecting Luke xxii. 44,
it runs, for instance, that Justin alludes in the Dialogue (chap. 103) to the sweat which ran down in
great drops while Jesus was on the mount of
Olives, and, indeed, it is stated with express reference to the "Memorabilia composed by his apostles and their companions." Twice (chaps. 76 and
100) he cites as a saying of the Lord: "The Son
of man must suffer many things, and be rejected
by the scribes and Pharisees (chap. 100, 'by the
Pharisees and scribes'), and be crucified, and on
the third day rise again." This agrees more closely
with Mark viii. 31 and Luke ix. 21, than with Matthew xvi. 21; only in Justin the reafding is the
"Pharisees" instead of the "elders and high priest"
(as in Matt., Mark, and Luke), and in like manner
"be crucified" instead of" be slain."


NOTE 42, p. 63. —Among these is Theodoret's




238     ORlIGIV OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


Hieret. Fab. ii. 2, according to which that which is
said everywhere else respecting the Gospel of the
Hebrews is asserted to have been in use among
the Nazaraeans. Eusebius reports (Hist. Eccl. vi.
12) the judgment of Serapion, bishop of Antioch,
regarding this matter.  The latter found the
most of it conformable to the true faith, but detected here and there something superadded even
in the sense of the Docetes, which he ascribed to
the influence of that community in Rhossus in Cilicia, where he found the book in use. Origen, in
his comment on Matt. xiii. 54, et sq., states that,
like the work of James, this reports the " brethren
of Jesus" to be children of Joseph by a former
marriage.
NOTE 43, p. 64.- A few examples may illustrate
the character of the argument between Justin and
the Clementine Homilies. Both Justin and the
psuedo-Clement concur in this: "Let your yea be
yea and your nay nay;. whatever is more than this
cometh of evil." In Matthew, however, it stands
thus: "But let your communication be yea, yea,
and nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than this
cometh of evil." The first of these forms coincides,
however, almost literally with that which is found
in James v. 12, "But let [Cjo', Justin and the
pseudo-Clement czero] your yea be yea, and your
nay, nay." Further, we have in Justin, i. Apol.
chap. 16, "Not all who say unto me, Lord, Lord,




NOTES.


239


shall come into the kingdom of heaven, but they
that do the will of my Father who is in heaven.
For he who heareth me and doeth what I say, lihe
hcareth him that sent me.' In the Homilies (8: 7)
it runs, "Jesus said to one who often called him
Lord but did none of his commandments, ' Why
callest thou me Lord, Lord, and doest not what I
say?"' Herewith compare Matt. vii. 21, " Not every
one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the
will of my Father which is in heaven." In like
manner, Luke x. 16, "He that heareth you heareth
me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and
he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me."
For the last clause the Cambridge Codex, with
three old Latin manuscripts, offers the reading,
"But he who heareth me, heareth him who sent
me."   Another well accredited reading of the
greatest antiquity adds to the standard version the
words, "And he that heareth me, heareth him that
sent me." They take out, however, from Justin
(and the Homilies) the phrase, " and doeth what I
say," in order to show a reference to some other
source. Two other examples which illustrate this
matter will be found in the following note.
NOTE 44, p. 65. -It is very doubtful whether
from the way in which Justin cites Matt. xi. 27,
and especially in view of the transposition, we are
right in forming -conclusions as to a source differ



240     ORIGIN OF TIE FOUR GOSPELS.


ent fiom the Gospel of the church, in spite of the
close resemblance between the Homilies and Justin's citation.  The passage runs in Matthew,
"No one knoweth (Et(m'/vWex, several very ancient
authorities  tvwaxel.t, but Clemens of Alexandria
often, Origen often, Irensens often, and Didymus,
'ryco, 'knew') the Son but the Father; neither
knoweth (as before) any man the Father save the
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal
him" (but Clemens of Alex. often, Origen often,
Ireneus twice, and Tertullian, " and to whom "Ireneus " and to them to whom " the Son may reveal him). In Justin (Dial. 100, 1st Apol. 63) we
have " No one knoweth (twice ' knew') the Father
save the Son, nor the Son save the Father, and
those to whom the Son shall reveal him." In the
Homilies xvii. 4, xviii. 4 and 13, "No one knows
the Father save the Son, as also no one knoweth
the Son (Ost&, xviii. 3, 'nor knoweth any one the
Son) save the Father and they to whom the Son
will reveal him.' Epiphanius has this transposition (in the fourth century) seven times in eleven
citations, and twice does it occur even in Irenaeus,
who in a third place still has a reading which is
peculiar to the Gnostics. We may notice the
other details of this verse, in which very early
changes of the text are unmistakable, without having to say, This is the canonical, this the heretical text. Compare in this passage my Greek Testanlent, eighth edition, first part.*




NOTES.


241


So in Matt. xxv. 41: "Depart (tOQeve6ea) from
me, ye accursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for
the devil and his angels." Justin (Dial. 76) and
the pseudo-Clemens have, "Depart (vfrsieZe) into
outer darkness which the Father has prepared for
the devil (pseudo-Clemens 'Satan') and his angels."
HIere not only has the Sinaitic Codex the same
expression vtdnr;,ee, but the Cambridge, which is
allied to it, together with the oldest Latin witnesses, and Irenaeus and Tertullian as well, have
also, "which my Father has prepared for the devil
andr his angels."
So, too, from the passage in the Homilies xviii.
17, "Enter through the strait and narrow way,
through which you will pass into life," there has
been an attempt to draw an inference in favor of
an extra-canonical source; but several of the oldest witnesses to the text, among them the Sinaitic
Codex, lead to the supposition that Matt. vii. T3
and 14 was read at the most remote period as follows: "for broad and wide is the way," " for strait
and narrow is the way," instead of "for wide is
the gate and broad is the way," "for strait is the
gate and narrow is the way."
NOTE 45, p. 66. - Throughout the whole Gospel of John this exclusively Johannean designation
does not appear again; it is found only in the
Apocalypse xix. 13, and as the "Word of life" at
the beginning of the Epistle of John. Is it to be
16




242     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


expected that Justin, if he did indeed draw from
John, would use this term exclusively or with
marked signs of preference?
NOTE 46, p. 68.- Comp. Volkmnar, Ursprung
unserer Evangelien, p. 95: "Justin contains the
root of that which is. cited in the Gospel of John,
the beholder of the Lamb (Rev. v. 12; i. 5), or
rather, Justin himself appears as one of the sources
in favor of the later transformations of this latest
Gospel." " Much more clearly does the most exact
trial reveal this: that the one who tells of the Logos
follows him who teaches regarding the Logos, the
post-John follows the martyr substantially in all
things; and it is beyond all doubt that Justin at
least never saw this new Gospel. So far as the
formula is concerned, it is not only wholly possible,
but even probable, yes, the one thing probable, that
the one who tells of the Logos was not only really
but was also recorded to have been in the school
of Justin, the teacher of the Logos."
NOTE 47, p. 69.-The word m7tog0 has definitively and preferably the signification "blind," as the
explanations in Hesychius and Suidas shdw; so too
the whole passage, belonging here, Constitut. v. 7:
17, where the blind man of John's Gospel as well
as of Justin is called o ix seve rj 7oog.


NOTE 48, p, 69,-In both passages Justin has




NOTES.


243


the literal expression of John ix. 1, Ix ~,evezsg, which
is almost never elsewhere used in reference to
miraculous accounts of the Gospels. Justin, too, in
his Apology, puts it in immediate connection with
the blind, after naming the lame and the palsied.
The same seems to be true, too, of the passage in
the Dialogue, although the expression is capable
of being connected with the deaf and the lame.
NOTE 49, p. 69.- The emphatic expression of
John and Justin, ix yevez1sr, does not appear here,
but eyevvljilv.
NOTE 50, p. 70.- That the translation of John
found a place in some of our manuscripts of the
Septuagint, is no less than an evidence in favor
of a primitive translation followed by Justin and
John, and at variance with the text of the Seventy.
Naturally Tertullian (de resurr. earn. 26) as well as
Theodotus (excerpt. 62) follow John's Gospel;
whereas another passage of Tertullian (de earn.
Christ. 24, also adv. Marc. 3, 7, and adv. Iud. 14,
both as far as " tribus ad tribum") attaches itself
rather to the Apocalypse i. 7. The seventh chapter of the Epistle of Barnabas must also be brought
iilto connection with the same passages of John.
NOTE 51, p. 70. —The form retained in our
translation, "be born again," which is in accordance
with the Vulgate, is literally justified by, and is




244     OlIlvIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


significantly recommended in the answer of Nico.
demus. So, too, the explanation of the new birth
made by Jesus, in the fifth verse, to Nicodemus, is
much more closely allied with being "born again"
than with being born "from above." Many commentators, however, ancient as well as modern,
prefer the expression "from above." If, however,
this reading is to be taken in the sense as if the
expression of Justin did not conform to-that of
John, and therefore discloses another origin than
John's Gospel, it is singularly thought possible to
decide how  Justin was obliged to understand
John's expression. But see the next note.
NOTE 52, p. 71.-In order to deny the connection of the Justinian quotation with the passage
from John, it has been asserted that the expression
used in the first, the " kingdom of heaven" (a(tt)eta r5v ov)avcJv), is not Johannean. But the same
expression is so strongly authenticated in the following fifth verse, by the Sinaitic Codex, by the
Docetes in Hippolytus, by a newly discovered fragment of Irenaeus (in Harvey, p. 498), by the apostolical constitutions, and by Origen (in the Interpres), that it must be regarded as in the original.
(Accepted in 1864 in my synopsis.) I must remark
in addition, that the fragment of Ireneus has avay7rv'wTi (born again) instead of John's;wevvr1j: it
shows how much it lay at heart with Justin and oth.




NO TE S.


245


ers to give the idea of John's;'Evvri  a5'vwo2'ev (born
anew) by cvayevvipze (born again).
NOTE 53, p. 71. - For this view is claimed the
similarity, also, which the quotation in the pseudoClementines, xi. 26, has with that of Justin: "for
thus says the prophet, 'Verily I say unto you, except ye be born again with living water in the
name of the Father, ye can not come into the kingdom of heaven."' The significance of this similarity is to be inferred from what has been expressed in the previous notes. That the earlier
expressly denied dependence on John's Gospel is
to be discerned in the newly discovered close of his
Homilies, may be seen further on. Compare what
is said under the head "Naasenians."
NOTE 54, p. 72. —John uses the expression
"kingdom of God" only in iii. 3; it is often met, on
the contrary, in Luke, both in the Gospel and the
Acts; often, too, in Mark, and several times in
Matthew.
NOTE 55, p. 73.-See Dialogue, chap. 103. In
the Latin version the passage runs, "in commentariis quos ab eius apostolis et eorum sectatoribus
scriptos dico."
NOTE 56, p. 76.-In the same sense the passage
in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Philadel



246     ORIGI OF TIE FOUR GOSPELS.


phians appears to have authoritative weight: "while
I curse myself before the Gospel, as the body of
Jesus, and before the apostles as the elders of the
church. But the prophets we will love because
they have prophesied of the Gospel and have hoped
and waited for the Lord." By the expression the
"Gospel as the body of Jesus," in itd connection
with the apostles and prophets, is probably to be
meant the written Gospel in the hands of the
church.
NOTE 57,p.79.-See myNotitia editionis cod. Sin.
cum catalogo codicum, etc., p. 58 et sq. The MS. of
the Gospels indicated under No. 2, in my collection
of Greek MSS. dating probably from the ninth century, contains in three passages of Matthew the
parallels of the Hebrews' Gospel (called To lov&aioxv).
At Matt. iv. 5, we have " to Jerusalem," not " into
the holy city." At xvi. 17 is the reading v'e tI'cWvov
(son of John), not ~aeciwor (son of Jona). At xviii.
22, in the Hebrews' Gospel, after the words "seventy
times seven," the addition, "for in the prophets,
too, after that they were anointed with the Holy
Ghost, was sin found" (literally the "word of
sin,",o6os' tFUzcTiosa). This remarkable passage was
given by Jerome in the Latin form. At xxvi. 74,
it is asserted that instead of the words " then he
began to curse and to swear," the Hebrews' Gospel reads, " and he denied and swore and cursed."
Such a parallelizing of special passages as we find




NO TES.


247


here would be irrational, yes, impossible, had the
Hebrews' Gospel not the same character, the same
tone, and in the main the same language, with that
of Matthew. And if some of the patristic quotations
from it do not seem to give special support to this
view, it is not to be forgotten that these citations
must be made where there are deviations from
Matthew's reading, and that they are represented
to us as such.
NOTE 58, p. 81. - See adv. hcer. iii. 11: 7.
"Tanta est autem circa evangelia hec firmitas, ut
et ipsi haeretici testimonium reddant eis, et ex ipsis
egrediens unusquisque eorum conetur suam confirmare doctrinam."
NOTE 59, p. 83.-Ireneus iii. 4:.3 (and following him Eusebius iv. 11) makes him come to
Rome at the time of Hippolytus, between 137 and
141.
NOTE 60, p. 84. —See adv. her. iii. 11: 7. Hi
autem qui a Valentino sunt, eo (sc. evangelio) quod
est secundum Johannem plenissime utentes ad ostensionem conjugationum suarum, ex ipso detegentur nihil recte dicentes, quemadmodum ostendimus
in primo libro.
NOTE 61, p. 84.- See adv. her. i. 8: 5. Adhuc
autem Johannem discipulum domini docent pri



248     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


mam Ogdoadem et omnium generationem signifi
casse ipsis dictionibus, etc.
NOTE 62, p. 85.-See Philosophum. vi. 35. Liter
ally the passage runs: Therefore all the prophets,
and the law spoken of as Demiurgos, a foolish god,
sunk in folly and ignorance (iA'qcaav itoz rov ori aovyo....ttoiol ovhTv El86re). On this account, according to Valentine, the Saviour says, " All that
before me," etc.
NOTE 63, p. 85. —Appeal is made especially to
i. 8: 1-4, and 8: 5; yet in the former of these only
the three first Gospels are referred to, in the latter
only the last; moreover, they are alluded to only
by Ptolemy, whose name is given in the Latin
text (" Et Ptolemaeus quidem ita;" in the Greek
text these words are lacking) at the end of the account. At 8: 1-4, however, Irenaeus refers to the
Valentinians, not to Valentine. Can it be said,
however, that 1-4 is the master with his pupils,
and that in the fifth section only the pupil is
meant?
NOTE 64, p. 91.-Compare, with reference to
this, the Preface.
NOTE 65, p. 91. —" Si autem non prolatum est
sed a se generaturn est, et simile est et fraternum et
eiusdem honoris id quod est vacuum ei patri, qui




NO TES.29


249


pra~dietus est a Valentino; antiqulus autem et
multo ante exsistens et honorifleentius reliquis veonibus ipsius Ptolemei4 et Hleracleonis, et reliquis omnibus qui eadem opinantur."
NOTE 66, P. 92. - O r~j O1X'alntivov Gqo)3' 8oxtpfra~ro; is the expression of Clemens.
NOTE 67, p.92. -T~V    O~XVra)'n"ov Xs7 ' vav e7vcu
cTQ~o'  'I  Elxp~a.
No~rE 68, p. 92.- Comp. Orig. contr. Cels. 5.
of Ma~xion'o; ~Pwf~to; '_4U; ar'E&w;' rtvo; 'vls
voi; nr'co, and the Tert. de earn. Chr. 1. "Apelles diseipulus et postea desertor ipsius " (id est,
Narcionis); Psuedo-Tertull. de prxescr. hawret. LI.
"1Apelles discipulus iMarcionis qui... postea..
a Marcione segregatus est."   Comp. also ilippol.
Philosoph. vii. 12.
NOTE 69, P. 92. -But is the real meaning of
K4& 6cv ci&0'y nt aHoax~ovcc, Cerdo follows ilerakleon? Is it not rather, Cerdo follows in my work on
Herakleon? If any one should happen to bepleased
with this burlesque style of exposition, he will
scarcely be able to persuade others of its excellence.
Another discovery on the same side dreserves equal
credit.  ilippolytus alludes to a contention between the two wingys of the Valentinian school in
these words: "4The adherents of the Italiotic fac



250     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


tion, to which Herakleon and Ptolemy belong, say
thus; the adherents of the oriental faction, to
which Axionikus and Bardesanes belong, thus."
"Over this," he goes on to say, "they, and any
body else who likes to, may quarrel." From this
the inference is to be drawn not only that this
" they" relates specifically to the above-mentioned
heads of factions, but the word jrdEltzroaav, "may
quarrel," indicates that these persons were still
living and contending at the time of Hippolytus.
Who could doubt after applying this test that Marcion and Tertullian were contemporaries, since the
latter writes, de carne Chr.: "On such grounds
hast thou probably ventured to put out of the way
so many original writings respecting Christ, Marcion, in order to disprove his existence in the flesh.
On what authority hast thou done this? I ask. If
thou art a prophet, then prophesy; if an apostle,
preach openly; if a follower of the apostles, hold
fast to them; and if thou art a Christian, believe
what is transmitted to us. But if thou art none
of these, I might rightly say, then die, for thou art
already dead; for thou canst not be a Christian if
thou hast not the faith which makes one such."
NOTE 70, p. 93. - See Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 7:
qrlav (Agrippa Castor) avCtrov es tev ro EVaL;'2,ov tga6aCQa t tqo Tots sELoal GV6Vrdcat(3. tia. Even if nothing.
more definite is to be determined respecting the
book of Basilides, it is a fact of weight that Agrip



NOTES.


251


pa Castor had already made use of the same expression, from which we learn with certainty that
some centuries later he indicated the collective
character of our Gospels.
NOTE 71, p. 96. - When the apostles were asking whether it is better not to marry, the story is
that the Lord answered: "Not all can understand
this, for there are eunuchs who are so from their
birth, others are compelled to be so, and others
still have made themselves eunuchs for the everlasting kingdom's sake." The last words are supplemented by what is found in Clemens. In like
manner the same expression is cited by the Nikolaites in Epiphanius 25:6. Another extract found
in Clemens "from the 23d book of the Exegetica
of Basilides," contains no passage to be compared
with this, nor does that in the Archelaus-disputation.
NOTE 72, p. 96. -On this account he says, "Do
not throw your pearls before swine, nor give that
which is holy to the dogs."
NOTE 73, p. 96. - That Jerome (in the pref. to
Matt. and likewise in his translation of the first
Homily of Origen on Luke, according to Jerome,
also, Ambrosius on Luke) mentions an original Gospel of Basilides, probably rests only upon the acceptance of the 24 books of the Gospel as of a Gospel




252     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


in a certain sense apocryphal; we must therefore
consider the secret communications of Matthcew,
which according to Hippolytus were extolled by
Basilides and his followers, as that Gospel of Basilides.
NOTE 73, p. 96.- See vii. 25. "As it is written,
'And the creation itself groaneth and travaileth
together, waiting for the manifestation of the children of God."' (Rom. viii. 22 and 19.) "That is
the... wisdom of which he says the Scripture
asserts, 'Not with words which human wisdom
teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth."' 1 Cor.
ii. 13. Reference is made to the same in Eph. iii.
3 and 5, and 2 Cor. xii. 4.
NOTE 74, p. 96.- See vii. 26. "That is it, he
says, which is written: 'T.he Holy Ghost shall
come upon thee,... and the power of the Highest
shall overshadow thee."' The allusion to Matthew
is'in vii. 22, and relates to the account of the star
seen by the wise men.
NOTE 75, p. 96. - See vii. 20. "Basilides, therefore, and Isodorus, Basilides' own son and disciple,
assert that Matthias transmitted to them  certain secret communications which he had received
fiom the Saviour as a special charge. We shall
see how openly Basilides as well as Isodorus and
their whole crowd of followers calumniate not only




NOTES.23


253


Matthias but the Saviour also." This is at the
commencement of his representation of Basilides,
and his school. And just so often as he has occasion, in what follows, to mention Basilides, he is to
be understood as alluded to in the same strain as
at the outset.
NOTE 76, p. 98.- See Theodoret. Qiuwst. xlix.
in libr. iv. Regum: "1On this account I believe that
the Ophites are called Naassenians."  The only
mention of the Ophites in Hippolytus is viii. 20:Et'
aL, Xcti) 71rrj~cu' -rirr atowe 3vo~xc4,OVzca Ka~ii'ov, 'Ocpuriv
A~ocaici5v (A~octvp(-cV?) xat"J1cowv otoOVZco2 ov'xaP;xT
Mrr~t~r'wr XV      6ric I0~ tr   19GqOat, etc.
From this there can scarcely any inference be
drawn, except that to Hippolytus the name of
Ophites seemed quite secondary compared with
that of Naassemians.
NOTE 77, p. 99. -The same division of the sentence is followed by many of our oldest textual
documents, namely, the oldest patristic extracts.
NOTE 78, p. 100. -We do not add to the above.all the peculiar Gnostic explanations appended to
the passages in the original.
NOTE 79, p. 100. -In connection with these
extracts we must call particular attention to the
fact that they quite often unite a free transposition




254     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


of the text with a strictly close repetition of the
words. They reveal in this a striking similarity to
the citations of Justin. The same kind of quotations from Matthew and the other synoptic Gospels
compel us to draw an immediate inference as to an
extra-canonical source. Does not the analogy with
these Gnostic and almost contemporaneous extr:acts from John show how little such a hasty conclusion as to the Justinian citation is justified?
Or are we, in the case of the quotation given above
from John vi. 53, to draw a conclusion as to that
extra-canonical source, because, in entire analogy
with Justin's quotation from John vi. 51, the concluding words, "ye shall not enter the kingdom of
heaven," are given instead of John's "you have
no life in you "?
-9
NOTE 80, p. 102.-With reference to this, see
a previous note.  Tertullian adv. Marcion, i. 19,
writes: Cum igitur sub Antonino primus Marcion
hunc deum induxerit.... The determination of
dates in Marcion's works is a matter presenting
the gravest difficulties.  Although the "invaluit
sub Aniceto" of Irenaeus iii. 4: 3 is not to be applied to his appearance at Rome, yet there is a
contradiction still remaining involving a statement
of Clemens (Strom. vii. 17), who places Marcion
before Basilides and Valentine.  As the latter
position appears to be sustained by the recent
striking discovery of a memorandum of Philastrius




NO TE S.25


255


(hawr. 45, qul, i. e. Maroion, devictus atque fuga.
tus a beato Johanne evangelista),...so the same
appears to be corroborated by the recent exhuming
of the unquestionably ante-Jerome prologue to
John, of which I shall have occasion to speak when
I come to the Papias problem. Manifestly we
have to deal with a primitive tradition running
hack to a time antedating IMarcion's earliest activity and his removal to Rome.
NOTE 81, p. 103. - Sec Iren. iii. 2 and 12, where
the assertion is made by the heresiarchs with
specific reference to Marcion: Dicentes se... sinceram invenisse veritatem. Apostolos enim adnmisenisse ea quae sunt legalia Salvat oris verbis. (iii.
2: 2.) Et apostolos quidem adhuc quve sunt Judoeorum sentientes annuntiasse evangyelium, se anltem siaceriores et pruden-tiores apostolis esse.
Unde et Marcion et qui ab eo sunt ad intercidendas conversi sunt scripturas, qnasdam quidem in
totum non cognoscent Cs, secundum Lucarn Ianteni
evangreliumn et eipistolas Pauli decurtantes, hmc
sola legfitima esse dicuntA quTe ipsi minoraveruint.
(iii. 12: 12.) Similar words in Tert. adv. Marc. iv. 3.
Sed enim Marcion nactus epistolamn Pauli ad Galatas,
etiam ipsos apostolos sugogilantis ut non recto pede
incedentes ad veritatem evangelii, sitnul et acens~antis pseudapostolos quosdam pervertentes evatigeliumi Christi, connititur adl destruenduin statuni
ecomm evwngelioru-ma, quaw propria- et sub tapostolo



256    ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


rum nomine edantur vel etiam apostolicorum, ut
scilicet fidem quam illis adimit suo conferat.
NOTE 82, p. 104. - See Iren. iii. 1:1 (also Euseb. Hist. Eccl. v. 8): Et Lucas autem, sectator Pauli, quod ab illo predicabatur evangelium in libro
condidit. Tert. adv. Marc. iv. 5. Nam ct Luce
digestum Paulo adscribere solent. In like manner Orig. in Euseb. Hist. Eccl. vi. 25; Eus. iii. 4 and
Hier. de viris illustrib. cap. 7: in all these three
passages the assertion is distinctly made that it
was then understood that Paul indicated Luke's
Gospel when he spoke of his Gospel. Rom. ii. 16.
Here belongs also Ps.-Orig. Dial. contr. Marcionit.,
sect. i. (Or. opp. ed. Delarue, vol. i. p. 808), where, to
the question of the Orthodox man who asks, "Who
wrote the Gospel of which thou sayest that it is the
only one?" the Marcionite replies, "Christ," and
to the second question, "Did the Lord himself
write 'I was crucified and rose again on the third
day'?" the answer is, "T/hat was added by the
apostle Paul."
NOTE 83, p. 105.- See A. Ritschl (Prof. at
Gottingen) in the Jahrb. f. deutsch. Theol. 1866, 2.
p. 355: so is he (i. e. Prof. Tischendorf) unable
naturally to convince himself that in a remote
province like Pontus there could not be without a
degree of personal fault a more limited acquaint



NOTES.


257'


ance with Christian books than in other provinces
of the church.
NOTE 84, p. 105.- Had the Gospel of John appeared in Gottingen or in some other celebrated
University-city of Germany, I should have been
more able to take this charge home to myself.
NOTE 85, p. 106.- See Iren. i. 27:2: Et super
hsec id, quod est secundum Lucam evangelium circumcidens etc. III. 12:12: Unde et Marcion et
qui ab eo sunt... secundum Lucam autem evangelium  et epistolas Pauli decurtantes.  Tertull.
adv. Marcion, iv. 2: Ex iis quos habemus Lucam
videtur Marcion elegisse quem  caederet. Porro
Lucas non apostolus sed apostolicus... Ibid, iv.
4: Quod ergo pertinet ad evangelium interim Lucae, quatenus communio eius inter nos et Marcionem de veritate disceptat, adeo antiquius est quod
est secundum nos... Si enim id evangelium quod
Lucce refertur, penes nos (viderimus an et penes
Marcionem) ipsum est quod MIarcion per antitheses
suas arguit, ut interpolatum a protectoribus Judais
mi... utique non potuisset arguere nisi quod invenerat. Epiph. haer. xlii. 11.
NOTE 86, p. 108. - See Tertull. adv. Marc. iv.
2: Marcion evangelio scilicet suo nullum adscribit
auctorem...
17




258    ORIGIN OF' THE FOUR GOSPELS.


NOTE 87, p. 108. -See a previous note.
NOTE 88, p. 112.- See adv. Marc. iv. 5: Cur non
haec quoque (cmetera evangelia) Marcion attigit, aut
emendanda si adulterata, aut agnoscenda si integra? Nam et competit ut, si qui evangelium pervertebant, eorum magis curarent perversionem
quorum sciebant auctoritatem receptiorem. Likewise, De carne Chr. 2: Rescindendo quod retro
credidisti, sicut et ipse confiteris in quadam epistola. Directly before this we have, however, Tot
originalia instrumenta Christi, Marcion, delere ausus es.
NOTE 89, p. 113.- See De carne Chr. 2, in the
previous note; see also adv. Marc. iv. 4.
NOTE 90, p. 113. - See adv. Marc. iv. 4. Quid
si nee epistolam agnoverint?
NOTE 91, p. 113.- See Ritschl in Jahrb. fur
deutshe Theol. i. a. 1. "The African was, however,
great in his malicious perversion of the assertions of
his heretical opponents, and whoever has followed
the course of his onslaught upon Marcion must
know how much he had to draw from Tertullian's
expression, in order to establish the historical fact
which he wanted to make good. If Marcion complained of the depravatio evangelii and gave himself out as the emuendator evangelii, he meant by




NOTES.29


259


evangelium the regula fidei, Christianity,,s a comMon. belief; which he wanted to purify from the
Juclaic additions made by the anti-Pauline school.
An-d since Marcion. did not defend the Gospel canon which was known to Tertullian, the latter drew
the inference that hie was opposing the value of
this collection on the ground of being a reformer
of it.
NOTE 92, p. 114. - See adv. Marc. iv. 4: Emendator sane evangelii (this is consequently Tertullian's own statement, from which there is an effort
to prove his misunderstanding of the matter) a
Tiberianis usque ad Anto-niana tempora everti
Marcion solus et primus obvenit, ex'spectatus tamn
din a Christo, pzenitente iam. quod apostolos pryemisisse properasset sine proesidio Marcionis; misi
quod humanoo terneritatis, non divin.T auctoritatis
negotiurn est liveresis, quam sic semper emendat
evangelia, dum. vitiat.
NOTE 93, P. 114. - TVP ttEv 7tecexX~rop M1oivravo
av~ovrTeq.
NOTE 94, p. 118.- Alii vero ut donum spiritus
frustrentur, quod in novissimis teinporibus secundum placitum patris, effusum. est in humanum. genus, illam. speciem (the account of the "1quadrifornie evangelium." went before, to whose four
"1species " there is a subsequent reference) non ad



260    ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


mittunt quae est secundum Johannis evangelium,
in qua paracletum se missurum dominus promisit;
sed simul et evangelium et propheticum repellunt
spiritum.  Infelices vere qui pseudoprophetas (a
better reading assuredly than pseudoprophetem)
quidem esse volunt, propheticam  vero gratiam
repellunt ab ecclesia; similia patientes his, qui
propter eos qui in hypocrisi veniunt etiam a fratrum communicatione se abstinent.
NOTE 95, p. 118.- Otherwise the Montanists
and their most decided followers must have met in
their rejection of the Gospel of John. There is
not only no support for this view, involving as it
does the grossest contradictions, but it contradicts
as well what Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Eusebius
have recorded respecting the connection of the
Paraclete with the MIontanist prophetic spirit.
And had the Montanists thrown away the Gospel
of John at the outset, how would it be clear that
in Tertullian, the reformer of Montanism, we find
(without the least trace of a contrast to the earlier
Montanism) the Gospel of John standing in the
closest connection with Montanism? Besides, all
which is expressed in the passage of Irenaeus applies just as appositely to the opponents of Montanism, as it is inapposite and incomprehensible
when it is made to refer to the Montanists.


NOTE 96, p. 119. - Neander (Hist. of the Chris



NOTES.


261


tian Church, 1856, 3d ed.) remarks in allusion to
the Irenaeus passage, which he understands just as
I do: "Irenveus, from whom we receive our first
knowledge respecting this party [the Alogians], assuredly says too much when he states that they
rejected the Gospel of John in consequence of the
passage relating to the Paraclete. That passage
alone certainly could not have led to this, for they
only made use of it, as was the case with others,
to limit it to the apostles, in order to take away
the support from beneath the Montanists.  But
since they, if those words of Christ were brought
against them with a Montanist interpretation, stigmatized the whole document which contained them
as not genuine, the inference was a quick one that,
in consequence of a kind of legerdemain only too
common in theological discussion, they had in
consequence of this passage rejected the whole
Gospel."
NOTE 97, p. 119. - Adv. Prax. 13, he says Nos
paracleti, non hominum discipuli. Comp. further
De resurrect. earn. 63 (pernovam prophetiam de
paracleto inundantem), and many other passages.
NOTE 98, p. 120. - Irenseus states (iii. 3: 4)
that the story was repeated after Polycarp that
John once encountered Cerinth while bathing, but
instantly left the bath with these words, "Let us
get out; the bath might come to pieces with such




262     ORIGIV OF TIlE FOUR GOSPELS.


an enemy to truth in it as Cerinth is." That two
hundred years later Epiphanius attributed this
anecdote to " Ebion " has no weight when set over
against the authority of Irenaeus. For the statement of Epiphanius (hOer. 28: 2) that Cerinth once
had communication with Peter, and that he was
one of those who criticised his relations with the
Gentile centurion Cornelius, there is no earlier
voucher.
NOTE 99, p. 123. - According to 2: 27, Celsus
suffers his Jews to be told that Christians changed
and corrupted the "Gospel" for polemic ends.
*   NOTE 100, p. 127.-Mary, poor, living by the
work of her own hands, is said to have been driven
away by her husband, a carpenter, in consequence
of an adulterous connection with a soldier named
Panthera; and the story is that Jesus hired himself in Egypt in consequence of his poverty, and
learned secret arts there.
NOTE 101, p. 127. —See Origen 2: 13, where
the Jew of Celsus sat, "I might bring forward
many things which were written of Jesus, and
which are strictly true, though differing from the
writings of the disciples; yet I will leave this on
one side."
NOTE 102, p. 128. - See Der Ursprung unserer
Evangelien, p. 80.




NOTES.


263


NOTE 103, p. 126. -El ELv, o vv oE e'CaEV.
NOTE 104, p. 129. -El Es  zeCelVov daepEEvoo
NOTE 105, p. 130.-That there is an allusion
to the Marcionites does not do violence to this determination of the date; still, mention is made of
the heresy of Marcion as early as the first Apology
of Justin.
NOTE 106, p. 132. —In- 1851 appeared in the
Hague a prize essay written by me in 1849: De
evangelior. apocryph. origine et usu. I hope to
publish a revised edition of it for the use of learned
readers.
NOTE 107, p. 134.- Those who care to go further into this matter I must beg to see in the original Greek how the passage runs in Justin, in Luke
(i. 30 et sq.), and in the Protevangel (see my elaborately annotated Evang. Apocr. 1853, p. 21 et sq.
Protevang. chap. xi.).
NOTE 108, p. 134. —Justin has it: The Spirit
of the Lord shall come upon thee and the power
of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore
that which shall be born of thee is holy, the Son
of God. Luke says: The Holy Ghost shall come
upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall




264     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son
of God. The pseudo-James has it thus: For the
power of the Lord shall overshadow thee; therefore shall the holy thing which is born of thee
be called the Son of the Highest.
NOTE 109, p. 135. -In Justin it runs: Hlsrzv 68
xac XcaQ'v Xa(ovcac...  teztvcxaro. In the pseudoJames: XaoQv c   e Xcagocaa MaCQtsc  rdt Tl Qo;g 'Eusud&s.
NOTE 110, p. 135.- See IIilgenfeld: Kritische
Untersuchungen iiber die Evangelien Justins, p.
159 et sq.
NOTE 111, p. 136. - See Epiph. haeres. xxvi. 12.
NOTE 112, p. 137.-Would one accept a closer
relation between the Protevangelium and the
Gnostic book of Mary, there would be a certain
probability in giving the heretical Gnostic produc
tion such a dependence upon the half-Catholic book
of James as is manifested in the many instances of
extra-ecclesiastical literature depending upon that
of the church. The hints given by Augustine in
the twenty-third book against Faustus would also
have weight in this regard, while those too of the
Gnostic work called De generatione Marire have
similar value. Mary was represented in this as




NOTES.


265


a daughter of a priest Joachim of the tribe of
Levi.
NOTE 113, p. 137.- See Orig. opp. ed. Delarue,
iii. 463 (comm. in Matt. tom. x. 17).
NOTE 114, p. 138.- For a full characterization
of this matter, the passage from Hilgenfeld may
have so much appositeness as to admit of its being
quoted. "It is certainly true that the present
form of the Protevangel, while alluding to John
and his parents without describing his birth more
closely, is incomplete, and indicates more than it
tells; but since the Gnostics in their rFava MaCIt'a
gave an account of the dumbness which came upon
Zacharias, the suspicion is not risked that the
primitive draft of the Gospel contained an account
of those antecedent events. The suspicion may
not be ventured; it is entirely without support.
For the story of Zacharias's dumbness stands in the
Gnostic production completely isolated; it has not
the slightest analogy either with Luke or with the
Protevangel. If the latter points to something beyond itself, it is at any rate clear that our canonical Gospels, including that of Luke, stand in the
background. On the other hand, there is a close
connection established with the Gnostic primitive
form of the Protogospel: "the same is manifestly
received only in a revision, worked over after the
canonical Gospels mainly, causing it thereby to




a


266     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.
lose, as it would seem, many of its peculiarities."
But may not then the Book of James have a like
close connection with the canonical Gospels, taking
into account the agreement with them of its whole
nature and purport? Further on, we read: " The
admission that Justin made use of such an ancient
Protevangel may be allowed if it be held as probable that such aproduction, bearing among the Gnostics the title F'vva MaOQtcas, contained a genealogy of
Mary." After further remarks there follows: "All
the more attractive therefore is another trace to
which Origen leads us. In the passage where he
alludes to the Gospel of Peter and the Protogospel
of James, he speaks of them both as bearing the same
testimony. But how would this be if both Gospels
should prove to be closely related?  How if in
the Protogospel of James the preliminary history
of Peter's Gospel —for there can scarcely be a
'doubt that there was such a preliminary historywere accepted? Is not this more than building on
the sand?"
NOTE 115, p. 139.- The first reference to Justin appears, as Hilgenfeld was the first to remark,
in the document addressed to the congregations at
Lyons and Vienna about the year 177. Allusion
is made there (Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 1: 3, et sq.) to the
martyrdom of Zacharias. Tertullian in the Scorpiacum contr. Gnosticos, chap. 8, refers to the same
thing, only with more definite and positive lan



NOTES.


267


guage. Clemens Alexandr. alludes to the circumstances connected with the midwives. Strom. vii.
page 889 in Potter. Origen is the first who mentions the work as the book of James.
NOTE 116, p. 141.-We pass over the story of
the death of Zacharias in the Protevangel to Matt.
xxiii. 36. If this can be so understood as if affording an historical basis for the passage in Matthew, it would strengthen the proof of the antiquity of the Gospels which we derive from the document of James.
NOTE 117, p. 143. —A third reference must be
accepted in the thirty-eighth chapter, where he
in like manner cites Is. lxv. 2, and 1. 6: "I gave
my back to the smiters and exposed my cheeks to
blows:" see also the words already cited of the
xxii. Psalm, "They cast lots," etc., in conjunction with Psalm iii. 5, "I laid me down and slept;
I awaked," etc., and Ps. xxii. 8. He makes this close
to the prophecies: "and this was all done by the
Jews to Christ, as you can learn" (here we have
this express declaration) "fiom the Acts compiled
under Pontius Pilate."
NOTE 118, p. 144.- Instead of cx'at we have
the specific word vitomuvFara. The same title, prepared too for the official report of Pilate, appears
in the Presidial Acts relative to the martyrs Tara



268    OlRIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


chus, Probus and Andronikus.     See my Evv.
apocr. p. lxii. In the same sense it is used in a
homily inscribed to Chrysostom (Chrys. opp. tom.
v. p. 942) and in the Martyrium 'Ignatii, chap. iii.
But with this we must reconcile the expression
rtotmitavtxcc a;cpwEQ&ES, which Philo uses (de legat.
ad Cajum 25) in reference to the reports which were
sent by Alexander to the emperor of Rome. The
oldest Latin title, found in Gregory of Tours, is the
Gesta Pilati.
NOTE 119, p. 145. —The thirty-eight years and
the healing on the Sabbath are taken from John's
narrative, v. 2; that about the man who was
carried by, from Matthew ix.
NOTE 120, p. 146.- See Weitzel: Die christliche Passahfeier der drei ersten Jahrhunderte, p.
248 et sq.
NOTE 121, p. 147. - On scientific grounds it is
not to be excused if one in learned investigations
follows in the old rut and speaks of the Gospel of
Nicodemus. Compare my re-establishing of the
old title and the investigation respecting it in the
Prolegormenon of the Evangelia apocrypha, p. liv.
et sq. It corresponds best with what was said
above respecting the use of the word V~oppivaza,
if we say the "Acts of Pilate."  The Latin designation, Gesta Pilati, also answers well to this.




NOTES.


269


NOTE 122, p. 148.- See Euseb. Hist. Eccl. ix.
5 and 7.
NOTE 123, p. 149.- Comp. with reference to
this my paper: Pilati circa Christurn indicio quid
lucis afferatur ex actis Pilati. Lipsire, 1855.
NOTE 124, p. 149.- Of later writers Epiphanius
admits (heres. L. Quartodec. i.) that appeal was
made to the Acts of Pilate in order to establish
the time of Jesus' death, it being given there as
the twenty-fifth of March. He adds, however, that
he had found copies where the eighteenth was assigned as the date. The first date is found also in
our texts.
NOTE 125, p. 150.- See the two dvaFcoQaoa Iitcdzov in our Evv. apocr. pp. 413-425.
NOTE 126, p. 150. -It will gratify the wish of
the reader if I insert here a portion of the text of
the work itself. We select for this purpose the
whole of the third chapter, tinged as it is with the
coloring of John: "And full of rage Pilate came
forth from the hall of judgment (the Praetorium)
and said to them, 'I take the sun to witness that
I find no fault in this man.' But the Jews answered and said to the governor, 'If this man
had not been a malefactor, we should not have delivered him over to you.' Pilate answered, 'Take




270     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


him away and judge him after your law.' The
Jews answered, It is not permitted to us to put
ally one to death.' Pilate said, 'Did God order
you not to put any one to death and not me as
well?' Pilate went again into the judgment hall
and called Jesus to him privately, and asked him,
'Art thou the king of the Jews?' Jesus answered
him, Speakest thou that of thyself, or have others
told it thee?' Pilate answered Jesus, 'Am I a
Jew? Thy people and the high priest have delivered thee over to me: what hast thou done?'
Jesus answered, 'My kingdom    is not of this
world; for if my kingdom were of this world, then
would my servants have fought that I should not
be delivered over to the Jews: but now is my
kingdom not thence.' Then spoke Pilate unto
unto him, 'Thou art a king, then.' Jesus answered him, 'Thou sayest that I am a king. For
this cause was I born and am come into the world,
that every one who is out of the truth may hear
my voice.' Pilate asked, ' What is truth?' Jesus
answered, The truth is from heaven.' Pilate asked
again, 'Is there no truth on the earth?' Jesus
answered, 'Thou seest how those who speak the
truth are brought to judgment of those who have
power on the earth."' At the close of the fourth
chapter we have: "But when Pilate saw the
throng of Jews around him hle perceived that
many of the Jews were weeping, and said, 'Not
all the people wish himn to die.' Then answered




rNOTES.


271


the elders, 'We, the whole people, have come,
that he might be sentenced to death.' Pilate answers them, ' Wherefore should he die?'- The
Jews reply,' Because he said he was God's son and
a king.'"
NOTE 127, p. 151.-Compare respecting this
my Evangelia Apocrypha in the Prolegg. i. p. xxxix.
et sq.
NOTE 128, p. 152.- See the same work.
NOTE 129, p. 153.- Comp. Hilgenfeld: Kritische
~Untersuchungen fiber die Evv. Justins, der Clementinischen Homilien und Marcions, 1850 (therefore
before 1853), p. 387 et sq. IIere an effort is ascribed
to the fourth Evangelist to subordinate Peter to the
beloved disciple, and on this account the fourth
Evangelist's independence of Peter's Gospel is admitted, but afterwards every proof favoring the use
of the Gospel of John is denied to the connection
of the homilies with him. (Page 346 had thus decided with respect to the expression, Horn. 3: 52,
"My sheep hear my voice": "It is a question
whether the Gospel of John or one still older contained this passage.") "Against such a use," it goes
on literally to say, "stands the glaring difference in
the tendency of both writers, so that in presupposing an acquaintance with this Gospel one must a(lmit a polemic objective view. Let one imagine




272     ORIGIN OF TIIE FOUR GOSPELS.


an attack made upon the divinity of Christ, and
satisfy himself how such an author could dispose of
John i. 1; x. 33, et sq.; xx. 28. While, in John
x. 36, Jesus declares himself substantially as the
Son of God, so that his own assertion is an expression of his divinity, the author of the Homilies
takes the same expression, 16:15, to be a decisive
statement of the difference between Jesus and the
Deity.  The Lord never declared himself to be
God, but the Son of God.     How was it possible, after using the fourth Gospel, to expressly
limit the time of the intercourse of Jesus and the
disciples to a single year, and not, as later teachers
have accepted, the time of his public career? How
could he besides, while declaring Peter to be the
first fiuits and cherished disciple of Christ, so
markedly leave out the Johannean portraiture,
and among the expressions used by Jesus regarding the devil (xix. 2), which he doubtless collects as
completely as was possible, how could he omit such
an expression as John viii. 44? The result of our
investigation is in a word this, that even in Clementine's Homilies the Gospel of Peter, in contradistinction to Justin and some farther continuations,
is used; with him Matthew, perhaps Luke also,
but certainly not the Gospel of John."
NOTE 130, p. 154. —With the utmost probability Celsus made use (about 150) of the epistle
of Barnabas. That he specifically speaks of the




NOTES.


273


apostles as g7ovozrzrot, Origen infers (contr. Cels.
i. 63) from the use of the epistle.
NOTE 131, p. 156. -The text however is not
to be judged from what is published, nor is that of
Dr. Hilgenfeld, who has contented himself with unscientifically repeating it just as it was left in the
edition of two hundred years ago.
NOTE 132, p. 160.- See Beitrage i. a. 1.: "These
words do not suit if they be made with Orelli (Selecta pp. eccl. capita, etc.) to refer to the apocryphal fourth book of Ezra which Barnabas elsewhere cites."  One would draw the inference from
this which Volkmar insists should be deduced
fiom Credner's words, quite in antagonism to what
Credner himself asserts.
NOTE 133, p. 160.- See Volkmar: Index lectt.
in liter. univ. Turic. 1864, page 16. Scriptum est
apud Esdram Prophetam iv. Esd. viii. 3:" multi creati, pauci autem salvati."  Hoc auctor confudit cum
dicto Christi apud Matth. xix. 30, (?) Christiano
illo interpretamento dicti Esdrani. Quod ed. mea
Esdrse Prophetse, 1863, p. 290, post J. C. de Orelli
et C. A. Crednerum (how do the words of Credner
himself, cited in the previous note, agree with this?)
quorum meritum plerisque in memoriam revocandum erat, demonstravit, omnibus qui hucusque de
ea re ex ed. nea iudicarunt, persuasit....




274 4   ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


NOTE 134, p. 160. —See D. F. Strauss, Das Le
ben Jesu, p. 55.
NOTE 135, p. 160. - Volkmar (Der Ursprung
unserer Evv. p. 161) assigns the date of this work
to "97, harvest time."
NOTE 136, p. 161.- The statement given above
of the heathen scoffer Celsus merits unquestionable
pre-eminence over this discovery; for according
to him the expression, "It is easier for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man
to enter into the kingdom of God," is but another
form of Plato's "It is impossible that he who is
extraordinarily rich should be extraordinarily
good."  See Origen contr. Cels. 6: 16.  As for
other matters, however, the crafty trickery of Volkmar does not derive any reflected credit from Renan, as it was said to do in the earlier editions of
this work; it should have the claim allowed it of
having anticipated Renan, since the latter work
appeared in 1863, whereas Volkmar's preface to
"Esdra Propheta" is dated October, 1862. Honor
to whom honor is due.
NOTE 137, p. 161. - So Volkmar i. a. 1. p. 161.
"118-119 Alexandrine epistle named after Barna.
bas, with a knowledge of the Gospel of Matt. as a
new work with the most ample use of Matthew, but




NOTES.


275


with the sayings of Christ taken only from the hallowed Old Testament."
NOTE 138, p. 162.-A    later affix with Matt.
than with Barnabas is "to repentance."
NOTE 139, p. 162. — By this I seek to render
literally 7e~t6 oVv {2~'T ovatv sEtyv.
NOTE 140, p. 163.- Not less than in Barnabas
does it become clear in Justin that he makes the
brazen serpent of John's Gospel the type of the
cross. Even Justin's expression, Dial. 91, appeared
to have flowed from a recollection of John: Heoa(fe;V'ov(t TzC p  cVQGj~vov Vlop avtov Y 2~taV els
Toz Xz6xoV, for John iii. 17, ov y7a, aTtE'6reIev O ' '0
zrov vv tavov s' rov zxoatov, is closely connected
with iii. 14. Naturally, with Barnabas there is the
same process of divination applied that we find
earlier among the Clementines. So Volkmar i. a.
1. p. 67: The author "seems not to depend at all
upon the Sap. Sal. 16: 5, which had already prefigured the typical character of the serpent. But
least of all upon the Logos Gospel (John iii. 14),
for his special comparison of the lifting up of the
serpent in the wilderness with the lifting up of
Christ (on the cross and thus to the heaven) is
wanting here: and how could one who in this connection read 'in order that every one who should,
believe in him should not perish, but have ever



276     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


lasting life' discard such a saying as the above?
No one of us (!) could do it." In the same fashion
Volkmar shows in his Append. to Credner's Gesch.
des Neutest. Kanons (1860, p. 372) that Tertullian
had not been acquainted with the first Epistle of
Peter, or, if he could not deny to Tertullian acquaintance with the work Adv. Gnosticos, asserts that it
was only subsequently to 207 that he was familiar
with it. He writes, " What apt proofs it (the epistle) offers to the opponent of the Gnosis de resurr.
earn.... the Montanist moralist even, de pudicit.... or de habitu mulier.... How was he able
to pass over Peter in the letter, when going
through the entire list of prophets and apostles?
An Epistola Petri -has no place in his Instrumentum Apostolorum, as he draws it up in both
its chief forms." Pity that that whole course of
acute reasoning finds its answer in the fact (as Dr.
Aberle has already shown in the Theol. Quartalschrift, 1864, 1) that its first propounder has overlooked. Tertullian's complete work, De oratione,
where.(Semler, p. 15, chap. xiv.) express reference
is made to the " praescriptio Petri," in 1 Pet. iii.
NOTE 141, p. 166. -Irenweus says (haer. iii. 3: 4
and ii. 22: 5) that he lived in Trajan's day, 98 to
117. Eusebius (in the Chronicon) sets his death
at the year 100, and Jerome (de viris illustrib. and
elsewhere) 68 years after the death of Christ,




NOTES.


277


The Chronic. Pasch. has 72 years after the ascension of Christ.
NOTE 142, p. 169. —The change of arrangement in several of our oldest Itala manuscripts
(Matthew, John, Luke, Mark) does not rest on a
chronological basis, but, according to Tertullian,
upon the connection, first of the two men who
were apostles, then of those who were helpers of
the apostles.
NOTE 143, p. 171. -This is in accord with the
statement of Eusebius iii. 37: 2, that already at
Trajan's time (98 to 117) a part of the missionary activity inspired by Christianity consisted in the diffusion of the written gospel narratives (xaol zv rwv
'etlwv &a7V'.lwv 7taaIS16oval 'Q0aTV).
NOTE 144, p. 171. —    o;,t'lV xvQtaxo  irj;ig.
Rufin, following the ancient usage, translates '6yioy
by oraculao It is extremely probable that the book
of Papias, true to the chiliastic standpoint of the man,
was largely devoted to the prophecies of the Lord.
Christian usage, however, gave the word a larger
significance, so that the sayings of the Lord and of
the apostles, although not having the precise character of prophecy, are yet called by that name,
and the Holy Writ was designated as Oesa o0yia.
Papias makes use of the same expression in conveying a notion of the contents of the Gospels of




278     ORIGIN OF TIlE FOUR GOSPELS.


Matthew and Mark, where the narrower conception conveyed in the word "prophecy" does not
do justice to the meaning.
NOTE 145, p. 172. — TgS irao. rov XvQlov Tr!6Trel
Eootvce Xas  xCUal ct' ajvr4 taQaOylvoYcZt'Vagrs tielYcs.
NOTE 146, p. 173.- Tov, rtv toee avro, v dv 4xvov
1oyovs, nz 'AV0Q.Os Ij xl HlEzQo; e7utev... a' Te 'ACl6t'cov
XCCd O trESV'r. 'Jwc0VV. ol 6Ov XVQ. Uatci #   t'A yovatv.
NOTE 147, p. 174. —Tots cv zrov att. Xo;'ovg
ta(XQa Zrv avro7t; ttaQOc oov9xzorcov 6olooyelr.taeQe(,.I'v
at, 'Antrlovog; xat reov tQe5vzr.. 'o. avzroov savor
9(p1t YevE6aCt.
NOTE 148, p. 176. - To understand who these
presbyters were, it is not necessary to understand
that they were personally connected with the immediate companions of the apostles, as Irenaeus
(iv. 27: 1) shows: Quemadmodum audivi a quodam presbytero (later it runs: inquit ille senior)
qui audierat ab his qui apostolos viderant et ab his
qui didicerant. But Irenaeus (v. 36: 2) refers to
the "presbyters " without any additional designation.
NOTE 149, p. 176.- As witness to his existence,
Dionysius of Alexandria (232, superintendent of
the Alexandrine School of Catechumens) quotes




NOTES.


279


in Euseb. vii. 25: 6 the mere fact that there were
two monuments at Ephesus inscribed with the
name of John, and Eusebius busies himself (iii. 29)
more closely with attempting to give'more weight
to the testimony of Papias to the existence of the
second John; in support of which he brings forward, evidently following the lead of Dionysius,
the existence of the two Johannean monuments at
Ephesus.
NOTE 150, p. 180.-In the last passage we
have z.6;tlca without any further designation; he
refers however to what goes before, where we
have zrv xvQtaxcv tXo;'ivw.
NOTE 151, p. 185. -Eusebius speaks of Papias
even at the time of Trajan.
NOTE 152, p. 187. —The memorandum in a
Latin Oxford codex of the fourteenth century, respecting the four Marys, on whose margin is written the word Papias, is unquestionably to be referred to a Papias of the middle ages, if there is
any meaning to be ascribed to marginal words.
In such excerpts, particularly as they are given in
the Catenas and similar works, the addition of the
author's name is a matter of the greatest untrustworthiness.


NOTE 153, p. 189. -So e. g. Zeller: "The si



280     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


lence of Papias will always afford conclusive evi.
dence against the authenticity of the Gospel of
John." Theol. Jahrb. 1847, p. 199. Hilgenfeld:
"Had Papias said the least thing respecting a Gospel of John, Eusebius could not possibly have overlooked it, and as he examined into the works transmitted by John, he could not have kept silence had
there existed a written Gospel from his hand. Die
Evangelien, p. 344. Strauss: "The silence of Papias respecting John as the author of this Gospel is the more weighty in that he not only expressly assures us that he has carefully looked into
what was left behind by John, but that, as the
bishop of Asia Minor and an acquaintance of Polycarp, the disciple of John, he would consequently
know  something more definitely respecting the
apostle, who spent his later years in Ephesus."
Leben Jesu, p. 62. Renan: "Papias, qui avait recueilli avec passion les recits oraux de cet Aristion
et de ce Presbyteros Joannes, ne dit pas un mot
d'une Vie de Jesus ecrite par Jean. Si une telle
mention se fAt trouvee dans son ouvrage, Eusebe,
qui releve chez lui tout ce qui sert a l'histoire litteraire du siZcle apostolique, en eft sans aucun
doute fait la remarque." Vie de Jesus, 3d ed. 1863,
p. xxiv. Volkmar: "We may therefore certainly
presuppose that had Eusebius found a trace of the
use of the anti-chiliastic Gospel of Papias he would
all the more eagerly have brought it out;" and this
opinion is preceded by the remark that "Papias




NOTES.


281


edited his collection and interpretation of the
Lord's prophecies about the year 167 of our era."
Ursprung uns. Evv. p. 59.
NOTE 154, p. 191. -'0tolGai xJEZivrat rzcv dvrtX87yoLevov, TIVC Te 7tQe TCViv v(aVtoXv Xalt ootoXovWUvov yQaq7C0v xa l o6a 7 TeOQt rv f rotovrwTov a rmot eQTjrat.
NOTE 155, p. 192.- That 1 John and 1 Peter can
not be taken out of this category Eusebius himself
declares, vi. 14, when he speaks of Clement. (See
text immediately following.) From the representation of Cosmas Indicopleustes in the seventh
book of his Topographia Christiana we learn in
like manner that the authenticity of all the catholic epistles was contended against.
NOTE 156, p. 196.- The statement of Andrew
in the sixth book that Papias bore witness to the
trustworthiness (To daiotmaTrov) of the Apocalypse
neither coincides with the assertion that Eusebius
overlooked the testimony borne to the Johannean
Apocalypse by Papias, nor, still less, with the suspicion uttered by Volkmar (p. 59) that Eusebius
passed over this evidence " on account of his partisan feeling against the Apocalypse." It is decisive against this suspicion that Eusebius has mentioned Justin and Theophilus as credible witnesses
for the Apocalypse.




*     282     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


NOTE 157, p. 197.-Hilgenfeld sought to take
away the force of this proof, and wrote in his journal, 1865, pt. 3, p. 335: "Manifestly it is quite a
different thing if Eusebius does not hold, in regard
to the epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, the
testimony in behalf of the epistle of Paul to this
community, an epistle which is unquestionably
Pauline in its origin; and merely remarks, though
expressly, the use of the first epistle of Peter, which,
although a subject of dispute, unquestionably belonged to the much contested catholic epistles."
In more prudent fashion, however, Hilgenfeld mentions to his readers the epistle to the Philippians
merely, to whom Polycarp himself writes, and does
not mention that the extracts are taken from many
other Pauline letters.
NOTE 158, p. 195.-As lately as 1865, Hilgenfeld wrote: "How can the inference be drawn
otherwise than that Eusebius searched carefully in
Papias also for all evidences of New Testament
writings, and failed to communicate anything respecting the canonical fourfoldness of the Gospels,
and especially respecting the Gospel of John, only
because he found no evidence? " " Who does not
see that the fourfoldness of the canonical gospels
had no existence at the time of Papias?"
NOTE 159, p. 198.- See Volkmar i. a. 1. p. 61:
"It is an entire distortion of the case for Tischen



NOTES.


283


dorf to try to trouble me with the ' absurdity' of the
notion that Papias knew nothing of Luke as well: he
may just as well have been acquainted with Luke's
Gospel as with John's, but may have looked down
upon both as too free, Paul-like, anti-Judaic-Christian and anti-chiliastic." " Although he does not defend himself exactly so in respect to the Gospel of
Luke, the reason is that it was not enough held in
common regard as Luco-Pauline, and he did not need
his millenary traditions to defend himself against
such a non-authority. What follows, therefore, from
this nearer examination of the Papias contexts in relation to the Gospel of the Spirit's Parusia? Either
he really did not become acquainted with it in
his own Hierapolis, or he did not discover it with
the superscription 'according to John,' and certainly not having canonical authority to be disowned by his silence. His testimony remains therefore unchanged; it must be taken without evasion.
Papias's silence respecting Luke and John does not
bear direct witness indeed for the non-existence of
their Gospels, but for their non-apostolical authority; or rather that both Gospels were without apostolical authority with the larger number of contemporaries for whom Papias gathered and expounded
Fis chiliastic traditions."
NOTE 160, p. 199. -During my recent visit to
Rome (March, 1866), Cardinal Pitra, the learned
Benedictine, called my attention to this manu



284    ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


script; yet Cardinal Jos. Mar. Thomasius had already given place to the prologue accompanying
it in his collections (Opp. omnia, tom. i. Rome,
1747, p. 344), where Dr. Aberle of Tubingen had
noticed it, and learnedly discussed it in the first
number of his Quarterly, 1864, pp. 1-47.
NOTE 161, p. 200.- It is further stated: Disscripsit vero evangelium dictante lohanne recte.
That the writer of this prologue wanted that this
should be understood of John, the prologue prefixed to the Greek Catena text to John, and edited
by Corderius, proves, which runs thus: vyta',OceV8
(sic)Zro Ea;,y. 'rl &cvrov ftwtr]iq  1ucLa eVtaoo;T Tcp '7lQto).lir. It is clear that this traditional statement is
not to be reconciled with Eusebius. Directly subsequently in the prologue it runs: Verum Marcion
hereticus cum ab eo (codex abe) fuisset improbatus,
eo quod contraria sentiebat, abiectus est a Iohanne.
Is vero scripta aut epistolas ad eum pertulerat a
fratribus qui in ponto fuerunt. It has already
been stated that this tradition respecting Marcion
is not an isolated one.
NOTE 162, p. 200.- III. 36: 1 is Presbyteri; directly after: Dicunt presbyteri apostolorum discipuli; and shortly before, in connection with the account of the reign of a thousand years: Presbyteri
qui Johannem discipulum domini viderunt.




NOTES.


285


NOTE 163, p. 207. -It has had a great many
stadia to run through from its ancient use down to
the present use by the Romish Church. After
going through several hands in the third and fourth
centuries, and after repeatedly undergoing revisions in accord with the Greek text, Jerome formed
his text from it, not without reference moreover to
Greek authorities which were allied to it. The use
of the Romish Church gradually made this the Vulgate. It had, however, experienced many modifications, when the Roman Curia, towards the end
of the sixteenth century, took advantage of the
general diffusion of manuscripts to execute an official revision of the Vulgate, and it is this which
now is authorized in the Roman Catholic Church.
NOTE 164, p. 211.- It is an interesting memorial of the negative school of criticism at the present day, that its representatives, in part at least,
take particular pleasure in basing their defense upon just those weighty scripture passages respecting
whose want of authenticity the criticism which adheres closely to documentary evidence, as gained
from the most recent discoveries, leaves no doubt
at all. Among such passages may be reckoned
the close of Mark's Gospel, the narrative respecting the adulteress in John, and the story of the
descent of the angel into the pool of Bethesda in
the fourth verse of the fifth chapter of the same
Gospel. Certainly there can be no doubt that it




286     ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.


far better subserves the ends opposed to apologet.
ics to leave such apocryphal passages as these in
both the Gospels mentioned, than by their omission to seem to give advantage to those who claim
the apostolical origin of those Gospels. That that
alliance between legitimism and its most determined opponents repeats itself on a political field,
argues a wicked misunderstanding on the part of
scholars of reputed orthodoxy.
NOTE 165, p. 214.-Teas Xotta yqccmpgS in this
connection must be referred to other New Testament Scriptures. If those of the Old Testament
were meant, the Pauline epistles would here be
clearly placed upon the same footing with the Old
Testament.
NOTE 166, p. 214. —Verse 25, against whose
genuineness most serious objections have long been
expressed, has now in the primitive Codex Sinaiticus the most weighty authority against itself.
(It has been an error that down to this time Cod.
63 has been cited in the same sense.)
NOTE 167, p. 214.-For the purpose of superseding Grabe's extremely imperfect edition of
this important work, I have long been making the
requisite preparations in the English and French
libraries. It was my good fortune to discover in




NOTES.                287
1844 an entirely unknown manuscript bearing on
this matter, in the island of Patmos.
NOTE 168, p. 215. —We can understand the remark of I. Nitzsch in 1810 (de Testam. xii. Patriarch. etc. Comm. critica, p. 17), that the author
of this Testament could not have lived in the first
century, since he alluded to almost all the books
of the New Testament. " Si ante casum Hierosolymorum floruisset, hune non tam diserte indicasset; sin omnino saeculo primo, non cognovisset ad
quos fere omnes allusit Novi Testamenti libros."