Testament Difficulties ivinity Library vmin RIGHT REV, A. F. W. INGRAM, ^V4 9- ' 1 YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE LIBRARY OF THE DIVINITY SCHOOL New Testament Difficulties {FIRST SERIES), BY THE RIGHT REV. A. F. WINNINGTON INGRAM, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. {Being a Collection of Papers written for Working Mm.) PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE. SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. LONDON : Northumberland Avenue, W.C. Brighton: 129, North Street. New York: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. CONTENTS. Introductory Chapter: Revelation I. Are the Gospels genuine? . II. Are the Gospels genuine? {continued) III. Are the Gospels genuine? '{continued) IV. Are the Gospels genuine? {continued) V. Who wrote the Gospel of St. John ? VI. Particular Sayings VII. Particular Sayings {continued) VIII. Particular Sayings (continued) , IX. Particular Sayings {continued) Appendix I. Conscience Appendix II. ":The Sins ofthe Fathers " TACE s II16 22 29 34 4047 53 58 6368 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. REVELATION. jH Y are not things plainer ? If God wants me to believe, why does he not put a sign in the sky ? If the Bible is God's letter to men, why should there be any difficulties in it? If Christianity is God's highest revelation,^ why is not Christian England a better place ? "—so sighs the world, half complaining, half bewailing, sometimes, mocking. What is the answer ? Is there an answer at all ? Not a complete one ; man can hardly be expected to give a complete answer as to why God does this or that, or why in this way and not in another ; but still it is to believers in God a matter of intense interest to find out at any rate the facts of the case, and there is no irreverence in seeking also to comprehend, so far as may be, the reasons for the facts being as they are. 6 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. (i) Arid, first, Why does not God put a sigh in the sky to make us believe ? Now there is no doubt about the facts ; he cer tainly has not ; however fierce the controversy by day, the sun runs without haste its appointed course ; however dark the doubt at night, it is only the moon that smiles serenely down ; and even in the great age of miracles, when the Son of God was on the earth, He never worked a sign merely to make men believe ; He looked on it as a tempta tion to be resisted when pressed to throw Himself among the assembled crowds from a pinnacle of the temple ; he was absolutely silent before the merely curious Herod, and even after His resurrection it was not to Pilate or the Pharisees He showed Him self, but only to "witnesses chosen before of God." Can we see any reason for this ? Surely we can ; if belief was to depend upon a visible sign in the sky, a standing miracle would have to be worked in each generation to give that generation a fair chance with the others-^a supposition which is contrary to all we see of God's ways of working. It is, further, extremely doubtful whether such a sign would accomplish its object. "If they hear not Moses and the 'Prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead," said our Lord ; and the saying, which proved so true in that generation, would in all probability be equally true in ours : " If they hear not the Apostles and Evangelists, neither will they be persuaded, though they saw a sign in the sky." We can imagine without much effort the brilliant article in the next magazine, which would prove that it was a comet REVELATION. f and even if the explanation did not satisfy the intellect, such a mere " nine days' wonder " would have no effect upon the heart. After all is said and done for the intellect, it still remains true that " it is with the heart man be lieveth unto righteousness," mere intellectual assent to certain truths produced against a man's will is not considered in heaven worth the having, "the devils also believe and tremble ; " what God de sires, what Christ looked for on earth, is a move ment of the whole man, conscience, mind, will, and heart towards goodness. " Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?" that was His gentle reproach, not " Have I worked so many miracles, and yet hast thou not believed ? " And the test is still the same. The character of Christ, that is the standing miracle, is at once the touch stone of our character, and the test of our faith., Intellectual elements in faith are often discussed ; have we always remembered the moral, " If any man wills to do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God "? - (2) Why is not the Bible plainer ? And here again there is no doubt about the facts. It is not perfectly plain, the light is a graduated light ; we cannot take the morality of one age in its history and make it the standard of another ; divorce is allowed by Moses " because of the hard ness of your hearts ; " it is evident that " the age has to be ready for the truth as well as the truth for the age ; " little is told the Jews about a future life, little about the Trinity. 8 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. Even in our Lord's time His revelation is gradual : " I have many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now." The very record of what. He did say is entrusted to the " rough and tumble " of his tory, and the very documents which contain it have to be verified as genuine like the documents con taining any other history. v All this is quite evident, but is there any difficulty about it ? Surely only to those who have made up their minds that God must give His revelation in their way. Such a graduated revelation is in exact accordance with what we see in Nature — the day dawns very gradually ; the light' is adapted for the eye, as well as the eye for the light ; excess of light only dazzles us ; the human element in the Bible, the very fact that the truth is conveyed to us in stories about weak and erring mortals, only makes the whole message "speak in the tongue of the children of men ; " we have our treasure, but it is in earthen vessels, and earthen vessels, it is not ¦ difficult to believe, are most suitable for those who .are still on a sinful earth. Moreover, as has lately been well pointed out in a book entitled " Pastor Pastorum," this method of conveying revelation gives a scope to the faculties which no other method we can think of would have done, and gives special force to our Lord's mysteri ous words: " He that hath, to him shall be given;" we receive truth for truth, as well as grace for grace ; we dig for it as for hid treasure, and each vein of gold we strike leads on to another and a richer. (3) Why is not the Christian Revelation more effectual? Why has Christianity not done more? REVELATION. 9 " Look at the morality of London, and call this a Christian country, if you can ! " men say. '' But the real wonder is," as a member of a work ing men's audience said with truth the other day — " the real wonder is that Christianity has done so much ; " and then the speaker went on to explain that, with human nature so inherently selfish as it naturally is, to have got so much unselfishness out of the world as Christianity already had done, was to him a proof of its Divine origin. Surely sometimes we need to be pulled up like this, we need sometimes in our Utopian visions to be reminded of that awkward little detail — " human nature " — not for a moment to damp our hope or our resolute effort, but to prevent us talking such -sad folly about Christianity having done no good. We may perhaps be able at more length another time to look in the dispassionate light of history at some effects of Christianity on the world ; suffice it to say that no one claims for Christianity that it changes a man until it be individually accepted. A man living in Christian England may still have, as the revelations of the Children's Cruelty Society show us, " a wolfish heart ; " streets in Christian England may still remind us of the vices of Pagan- Rome ; but the simple explanation is that they are Pagan ; it is due to Christianity that the cruel are the exceptions ; it is due to Christianity that the vice is hidden ; it is not due to Christianity that it exists ; the day has not dawned on that heart, the day-star has not risen in that street ; the revelation has not come. IO NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. No ! the true conclusion is not to stand by criti cising, but to help ; light is diffused in waves, but it is through the medium of an atmosphere ; it is through Christians that Christianity spreads; has the light come to us ? then our business is to pass it on. CHAPTER I. ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? jjT is as well to say at once that important as this question is, and admitting, as it does, of a most satisfactory answer, ^the" truth of Christianity is not bound up with the answer to it. Even if the Gospels assigned by tradition to St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, St John, were proved to be written by someone else, yet there are other documents, older than any of these, which would still maintain the wonderful story which they teach. A FIFTH GOSPEL. If anyone would take the trouble to read through -the four Epistles of St. Paul, those, namely, to the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians, which are admitted to be genuine by nearly every critic in the world, whether a sceptic or norland were to write down the story of Jesus Christ as it lies embedded in those Epistles, he would find that they contained a fifth Gospel, exactly corresponding to the other four. Thus, to take only two instances, what more accurate description of the birth of -Christ could we have than GaL iv. 4, 5 — " God sent forth His Son, 12 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law," where we have allusion made to the Godhead of Christ, His birth and His circumcision ; or what better summary of the main facts recorded in the Gospels than i Cor. xv. 3, 4, " I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures," &c. Now it is as well to point this out, because how ever obvious, it is ignored by those who seem to think that Christianity stands or falls by the dis cussion with regard to the Gospel of St. John ; as a matter of fact, before you could touch the evidence of Christianity, you would have to get rid not of one Gospel, but of all the Gospels, and not only of all the Gospels, but also of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul. The state ments made in the -Gospel of St. John with regard to the Godhead of Christ are made quite as strongly, though in a shorter form, in the other three Gospels, and are strongest of all in the Epistles of St. Paul. " Declared to be the Son of God with power " (Romans i. 4). " Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor " {2 Cor. viii. 9). But let it not be supposed that there is any need of falling back upon this line of defence, impreg nable though it is. Anyone who has not had time to study the evidence for the Gospels can have no idea of its immense strength, and it is because there, are hundreds who do take an interest in these questions, and yet have no time to read even such ARE THE GOSPELS "GENUINE ? 13 books in English as Dr. Salmon's " Introduction of the New Testament," Dr. Lightfoot's " Essay on Supernatural Religion," or Dr. Westcott's " Canon of the New Testament," that we propose to state, as shortly as possible, what is called the external evidence to our Gospels. It is impossible to discuss points with regard to the exact date of this authority or that document, but what is written below is approximately agreed upon by all fair- minded students, and moreover it seems better actually to write down what each authority says than to make general statements which might not be believed. 180 A.D. WHAT' IRENAEUS SAYS. Irenaeus was Bishop of Lyons in Gaul, but had been brought up in Asia Minor, and thus his testimony implies the belief of both places ; he says as follows :— " I can recall the very place where Polycarp used to sit and teach, his manner of speech, his frequent references to St.fohn, and to others who had seen our Lord ; how he used to repeat from memory their discourses which he had heard from them concerning our Lord, His miracles, and His mode of teaching, and how, being instructed himself by those who were eye-witnesses of the life of the Word, there was in all that he said a strict agreement with the Scriptures!' What these Scriptures were he explains in another place — " The world has four quarters ; therefore it is fitting there should also be four Gospels, fohn, Luke, Matthew, Mark'' Now, as Dr. Salmon says, "test by the evidence of this one witness the theory that St. John's 14 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. Gospel made its first appearance about the year 150 or 160. Is it credible that, if so, Irenseus could have accepted a forgery, of which, according to the hypothesis, his master Polycarp had never told him a word ? For Polycarp, who used to repeat from memory the discourses which he had heard from John, could not have been silent about this work, which if genuine would have been St. John's most precious legacy to the Church ; and the fact that it had not been mentioned by Polycarp would con vince Irenseus that it was an audacious imposture. And again, it is impossible that Polycarp could have accepted as genuine a work of which he had never heard his master, John, speak. There are, in short, three links in the chain-^St. John, Polycarp, Irenaeus — and it is impossible to dissever any one of them from the other two." But the testimony of Irenaeus is merely the lower end of a chain of evidence which will reach back to the first century. Before, however, we begin to ascend, it is as well to see whether in other parts of the Church the Gospels were as firmly established as they were in Gaul and Asia Minor at the end of the second century. WHAT CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA SAYS. Clement was born in the middle of the second century, and became head of the Catechetical School at Alexandria ; he had also travelled a great deal. Out of the mass of his allusions to the four Gospels, it is only necessary to extract one statement, in which he distinguishes them from an apocryphal Gospel—* ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? Ij "We have not this saying in the four Gospels which have been handed down to us; it is found in the Gospels according to the Egyptians.'' . But there is one very noticeable point which will appeal very strongly to scholars as a mark of the antiquity of the Gospel even by that time, namely, that when we compare the quotations of Clement and Irenaeus, we become aware of the existence of various readings, which means this — that by the end of the second century the Gospels had been. copied and recopied so often that errors from tran scription and otherwise had time to creep in, and different families of texts to establish themselves. Once again, we have to make one more expedi tion to test another part of the ground from which we are to make our ascent ; and this time we have to go to Carthage in Africa and ask WHAT TERTULLIAN SAYS. His evidence has this peculiarity, that he used a' Latin version of the Scriptures, and not only' constantly alludes to the four Gospels, but, what is, still more interesting, criticises the translations of them, especially the translation of the beginning of St. John's Gospel, " the Word was with God." But what is the peculiar value of this testimony to us? Nothing short of this, that considerable; time is necessary for a translation to gain popular currency, and therefore the existence of a popular translation at the end of the second century throws the date of the original very far back indeed. At a time when it is doubted if our Gospels were born, we find their children full grown. CHAPTER II. ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? IT is proved therefore that in the year 180 A.D. the Gospels were as firmly established as they are to-day ; they were as freely quoted as they are now, and as confidently ascribed to St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John. Now, with regard to any other ancient book, this by itself would be considered enough ; no one disputes the authenticity of the plays of Terence, and yet the only evidence of their authenticity consists in quota tions from them in Cicero and Horace a hundred years afterwards. The works of Tacitus and Catullus stand on much the same footing. As therefore there is no opposing external evidence whatever to bring against the evidence given last time, we might, if we liked, cheerfully feel that our case was proved. But still, as the story contained in the Gospels is more important, and at first sight more startling than anything told as history. by Terence, Tacitus, or Catullus, it is perhaps as well that our faith should be reinforced by the evidence of earlier writers. We proceed therefore to ascend step by step. ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? 1 7 170 A.D. WHAT THE MURATORIAN FRAGMENT SAYS. This document is called Muratorian because it was first published in 1740 by the Italian scholar Muratori, from a manuscript in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. This manuscript contained a collection of extracts from various authors, and among others a copy of a mutilated manuscript of great age. This is the famous " Fragment," and is part of a list of books accepted as genuine at the time it was written. That time is fixed by scholars from internal evidence at 170 A.D. It begins abruptly— ". . . At which he was present, and so he set them down. The third book of the Gospel is designated according to Luke. This Luke was a physician who after the ascension of Christ wrote in his own name, having become a follower of St. Paul. Yet neither did he see the Lord in the flesh, and he too set down incidents as he was able to. ascertain them. So he began his narrative from the birth of John. " The fourth Gospel is the work of John, one of the (per sonal) disciples (of Christ)," &c, &c. Here follows a long account of how John came to compose the Gospel which bears his name ; and then the writer goes on to speak of the Acts and the Epistles, but enough has been said to show the character of the evidence. Very few will doubt that if we had the whole of what is now a fragment, we should find the first book of the Gospel ascribed to St. Matthew, and the second to St. Mark. The broken sentence with which the fragment begins is evidently the last thing said about St. Marks B 1 8 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. 150 A.D. WHAT JUSTIN MARTYR SAYS. Justin was a student of philosophy, who was con verted to Christianity late in life. He wrote what is called an "Apology" or "Defence of Chris tianity," and addressed it to the reigning Emperor ; he tells us (Apol. i. 46) that it was written in the year A.D. 150. He informs us that Christians met in his day for worship on " the Lord's day," which is also called " the day of the sun," and that at these services " Memoirs of the Apostles " were read along with the writings of the prophets ; these memoirs were called " Gospels," and were composed by Apostles, and by those who followed them. As he is writing to heathen, he does not mention the names of the evangelists, which would not have interested his readers, but there is not much doubt where quotations such as these come from — " Give to him that asketh, and from him that would borrow turn not away ; for if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what new thing do ye ? Even the publicans do this. Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where robbers break through, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt," &c, &c. And so on, page after page. There is scarcely a prominent fact recorded in the four Gospels which is not recorded in Justin Martyr's quotations, and he records no facts which are not recorded in them. To take one instance alone : in his' description of the Saviour's childhood, he tells us ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? 19 "That Christ was descended from Abraham, through David — that the angel Gabriel was sent to announce his birth to the Virgin Mary — that this was a fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah (vii. 14) — that Joseph was forbidden in a vision to put away his espoused wife — that our Saviour's birth was at Bethlehem, as foretold by Micah — that His parents went thither from Nazareth, where they dwelt- iu consequence of the enrolment of Cyrenius," &c, &c. The manger bed, the visit of the wise men, the name " Jesus," the flight into Egypt, the massacre at Bethlehem, the work as a carpenter, all find their place in his narrative; and on the other hand we find there none of the fictions about the childhood of our Lord of which the apocryphal Gospels are full. All we can say is this : either — and this is the most obvious conclusion — Justin Martyr had the four Gospels before him, and wove them into a harmonious narrative, or he is quoting from a fifth Gospel which tells an identical story with the other four ; opponents of Christianity are, welcome tq whichever alternative they prefer. HIS USE OF ST. JOHN. Some however who are convinced by the above considerations that Justin Martyr used the first three Gospels still maintain that he did not use St. John ; but whence did he get his oft-repeated "Logos" doctrine, except from the beginning of the fourth Gospel? or where, except in St. John, are we to find the origin of the following statement with regard to the baptism of new converts ? " They are brought by us where there is water, and ares B 2 20 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. regenerated in the same manner that we ourselves were re generated. For they then receive the washing of water in the name of God the Father and Lord of the Universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ and of the_ Holy Spirit. For Christ also said, ' Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven' Now that it is impossible for those who have once been born to enter into their mothers womb, is manifest to all." Most of us will agree with Dr. Salmon's comment on this quotation: "I am sure it is equally manifest to all that there is here a striking coincidence with the discourse with Nicodemus recorded in John iii. 3-5" In addition to this, there are numbers of verbal coincidences between Justin Martyr's teaching and St. John's, and substantial identity in his teaching about the Eucharist ; and all of these have to be explained away if we are to resist the force of this cumulative evidence, which points to only one con clusion, viz. that so far from not knowing it, Justin formed his whole theology on the Gospel of St. John. We have only space this time to add one more testimony ; it is that of JUSTIN MARTYR'S PUPIL, TATIAN. In connection with this has occurred one of the most exciting literary discoveries of recent years. It was asserted by a writer of the twelfth century, who rejoices in the name of Dionysius Bar Salibi, that "Tatian, the disciple of Justin, the philosopher and martyr, selected and patched together from the four Gospels,- and ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? 21 constructed what he called a ' Harmony of the Four Gospels.' Otf this work Ephraem wrote an exposition, and its com mencement was ' In the beginning was the Word.'" , Now observe the exciting nature of the problem : if Justin's pupil wrote a " Harmony of the Four,,: there must have been four Gospels, quite distinct from any other writings, in his and his tutor's days; moreover, if it began with " In the beginning was the Word," St. John's Gospel, of which that is the first verse, must have been one of them, " If that commentary of Ephraem (a father of the fourth century) could only be found, it would settle the question, for in the commentary we should doubtless find the ' Harmony ' embedded," — so Bishop Lightfoot doubtless sighed, as he waged war in 1877 with the author of "Supernatural Religion." But all the time, hidden on his shelves in the disguise of an Armenian translation, as he tells us in 1889, was this very commentary — a fact which he speedily discovered when a Latin transla tion reached England from Venice in 1880. The commentary is opened, is translated, and lo ! it is written by Ephraem, it is on a " Harmony of the Four," it does begin with " In the beginning was .the Word," and it settles for ever the question that the four Gospels, including the Gospel of St. John, were as much known and reverenced as they are to-day, in the middle of the second century ; and to make assurance doubly sure, the work of Ephraem itself in an Arabic translation has been unearthed from the Vatican Library, and published in it CHAPTER III. ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? j]E have now carried the evidence, up to the middle of the second century, and we saw that Justin Martyr and his pupil Tatian used the same Gospels in the year 150 A.D. that we use in the year 1893. We have now to ascend still higher up the stream of time, and leaving out the evidence to be derived from the Gospel put forth by Marcion about 140 A.D., which is clearly a mutilated Gospel of St. Luke, and which is especially valuable as coming from a heretic, we must proceed to consider A.D. 135. WHAT PAPIAS SAYS. Now the surprises of history are many ; it would considerably have astonished Pontius Pilate to have been told that his name would be a household name in the mouth of every child in " barbarous Britain," and that he would be one of the most famous men ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? 3$ in history, not at all because he was a grand Roman governor, but because he had judicially murdered a "Jewish enthusiast." So it would certainly have astonished Papias, the modest Bishop of Hierapolis at the beginning of the second century, to be told that he would be one of the most famous men in literature in the nineteenth ; and he would have been all the more astonished if he had known that his fame depended on halfa dozen sentences of his, which he could have written in a few minutes, preserved by the historian Eusebius. How does this come about ? According to Irenaeus " Papias was a hearer of John, and a companion of Polycarp." For some time this statement was a puzzle, because some one else says that he was martyred in 165 A.D., but Bishop Lightfoot, who tracks down his facts with the relentless pertinacity and the un swerving accuracy of a bloodhound, has shown that it was a man named " Papylus " who was martyred then, and that there is no reason to doubt the statement of Irenaeus, who, as being Polycarp's own pupil, was likely to know what he was talking about. This Papias then wrote a book called " An Ex position of Oracles of the Lord," and his manner of composing it he describes as follows : — " On any occasion when a person came in my, way who had been a follower of the elders, I would enquire about the, discourses of the elders—what was said by Andrew or by Peter or by Philip, or by Thomas or by James or by John or by Matthew, or any of the Lord's disciples; and what Aristion and the elder John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I did not think that I could get so much profit from 24 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. the contents of books as from the utterances of a living and abiding voice." An attempt has been made to apply his disparaging remark about "the books" to the Gospels, and even if it could be so applied it would at least prove their existence ; but it has been shown conclusively that the reference is to the productions of false interpreters of them, whom he describes elsewhere as "those who have so very much to say," and whom he rightly despises in comparison with the words of the disciples themselves. That he was not ignorant of the Gospels may be gathered from HIS REFERENCE TO ST. MARK'S GOSPEL. "Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately everything that he remembered, without however recording in order what was either said or done by Christ. For neither did he hear the Lord nor did he follow Him, but afterwards, as I have said, attended Peter, who adapted his instructions to the needs of his hearers arid had no design of giving a connected account of the Lord's oracles. So then Mark made no mistake, while he thus wrote down some things as he remembered them, for- he made it his one care not to omit anything that he heard or to set down any false statements therein." What an accurate description of our present Gospel of St. Mark this is will be obvious to those who know the Gospel. The statements of Papias are all borne out by its internal signs of being the substance of St. Peter's preaching, its fragmentary character, and its want of any attempt at chrono logical order. ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? S5 From St. Mark we pass to HIS REFERENCE TO ST. MATTHEW'S GOSPEL. " So then Matthew composed the oracles in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as he could." We have italicised the word " interpreted " because it is the key to the difficulty of the Gospel of St. Matthew now being in Greek. If Papias had said that " each one interprets them as he can" viz. at the time Papias himself was writing, we should be at a loss to know why Papias did not know of our Greek translation, but as a matter of fact his very words imply that the necessity for this casual interpreta tion had passed away; they imply the existence of a recognized Greek translation when Papias wrote. A further attempt to undermine the evidence of this reference to our Gospel of St. Matthew has been made by translating the word meaning " oracles " as "discourses," and then arguing that such a description does not fit the Gospel as we know it ; but there is no reason whatever why it should be so translated. It is the same word, translated " Oracles of God " (Rom. iii. 2, and again Heb. v. ia), which includes the whole Old Testament Scriptures, history and all, and there is no reasonable doubt that in calling his book " The Exposition of the Oracles of God " Papias meant it to be an inter pretation of the now well-known Scriptures of thy New Testament. But we must now face the more difficult question relating to the evidence of Papias. 2<5 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. WHY DOES HE NOT MENTION THE GOSPELS OF ST. LUKE AND ST. JOHN ? This question has often been asked in tones of triumph. We are told that Papias — to use the current phrase — " knew nothing " of the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John. But wait a moment : how are we to be so sure he " knew nothing" ? The sentences above which we have quoted have been preserved by Eusebius the historian. But what kind of sentences does Eusebius tell us that he is going to set himself to discover in old writers and to record ? Sentences which bear on disputed points. This principle he not only tells us in his preface is going to be his guiding one in selection, but he acts upon it time after time in dealing with books we know from other sources all about; thus he collects numerous references to disputed books like the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Book of Revelation, but not one to the undisputed Epistles of St. Paul. What follows then ? Clearly this : that there is no more monstrous literary fraud than the argument from " the silence of Eusebius," and that you might just as well argue that the author of a book of " Oxford Reminis cences " knows nothing of the University of Cam bridge because he does not mention it, as that Papias knows nothing of the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John because he does not quote them. In fact, the argument is all the other way ; the dangerous "argument from silence" returns, like a boomerang, upon those who first used it. ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? 27 If only books are quoted in Eusebius about which there was some question or dispute, as there seems to have been about the translation of St. Matthew's Gospel or the chronological accuracy of St. Mark's, what conclusion do we draw about those which are not mentioned ? Clearly that there was no dispute or question about them. The very reference in Papias' account of St. Mark to its defect in chrono logical order shows that he had in his mind some other Gospel whose order he preferred. Dr. Light- foot thinks this was St. John's. Dr. Salmon thinks it was St. Luke. " Who shall decide when doctors disagree?" But this much is certain — Papias, "a hearer of John, and a companion of Polycarp," would be as likely to think it necessary to say "John published his Gospel, while living at Ephesus in Asia," as for a writer in a modern Review to announce as a startling piece of news: " Napoleon the First was a great general who made war against England ; " and if he had done so, it would have been such a commonplace that Eusebius would have been sure not to have quoted it. CHAPTER IV. ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? ST E have now carried the evidence for the Gospels up to 125 A.D., and it is obvious iftatlfilll that, even supposing we could go no fur ther, we have really settled the point in question. If history proves anything, it proves "the existence of a Christian Society from the Apostolic age, strong in discipline, clear in faith, and jealous of innovation ; " this is the verdict of Bishop Westcott. Would such a society, fresh from the teaching of the Apostles themselves, allow forgeries to be palmed off on them in the brief period of fifty years ? When, later on, a presbyter sought to re commend the story of Thecla by ascribing to it the name of St. Paul, he was degraded from his office ; would the early Church have been less severe on those who tried to palm off on them forgeries in the name of two Apostles such as St. Matthew and St. John ? On the other hand, we must not expect too many direct references in the first age to the written Gospels, for the following reasons : — ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? 29 .. EARLIEST REFERENCES FRAGMENTARY, AND WHY. The first generation of Christians, which contained few learned men, and which was in constant ex pectation of their Master's return, did not give birth to many books. Christianity was still a " life," and not a history. Just as from the point of view of doctrine they were content to live " in the fellowship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost " without defining the doctrine of the Trinity, so the last thing which occurred to them was the necessity of affording to future ages written evidence as to the existence of Gospels. The Gospels to them were their own evidence, and merely reflected in a longer or a shorter form the oral tradition and teaching in which they had all been brought up and into which they had been all baptized. With such early days are we dealing now that it is some times uncertain whether the quotations about to be given are from the written records, or from the. unwritten teaching which they embody and reflect. With that caution, let us open our earliest records and see 90 — 110 WHAT THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS SAY. Clement of Rome is generally reckoned as the earliest writer after the authors of the New Testament writings. When his history is disentangled from the romances which go NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. have clustered round his name, all we know of him is that he was an immediate disciple of the Apostles, and overseer of the Church of Rome. He says in his Epistle to the Romans : — "Remember the words of our Lord Jesus, for He said, 'Woe to that man; it were better for him that he had not been born than that he should offend one of my elect. It were better for him that a millstone should be tied about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the sea, than that he should offend one of my little ones ' " (section 46). For this compare Matt. xxvi. 24 ; Mark xiv. 21. Again, he says :— "Especially remembering the words of our Lord Jesus which He spake, teaching gentleness and longsuffering. For thus He said, ' Be ye merciful, that ye may obtain mercy ; forgive, that it may be forgiven to you. As ye do, so shall it be done to you ; as ye give, so shall it be given to you ; as ye judge, so shall ye be judged ; as ye show kindness, so shall kindness be shown to you ; with what measure ye mete, with the same shall it be measured unto you ' " (chap. xiii). For this compare Matt. v. 7 ; vL 14 ; vii. 2-12. Ignatius, who was martyred at Rome in the reign of Trajan about 1 10, on his way from Antioch to Rome, wrote letters to the Churches of Asia, among others to Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, in which he says : — " Be ye as wise as a serpent, and harmless as the dove" (chap. ii). Compare Matt. x. 16. Again, in his letters to the Romans he speaks of " The bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ ' (chap. vii). Compare John vi. 51. /are the gospels genuine? 31 He speaks of " the prince of this world/' " living Water," and " the plant of My Father," all of which expressions those who know St. John's and St. Matthew's Gospels will recognize. Polycarp himself, Bishop of Smyrna, at the end of the first and beginning of the second century, and a pupil of St. John, in the one short Epistle of his which has been preserved, says : — " Remember what the Lord said in JHis teaching, ' Judge not, that ye may not be judged,' &c. " ' Blessed are the poor, and those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.' " Compare Matt. vii. I ; vi. 14 ; Luke vi. 37, &c. Again, he says : — "Begging the Omniscient God not to lead us into tempta tion, as the Lord said, ' The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak'" (chap, vii). Compare Matt. xxvi. 41 ; Mark xiv. 38. These direct quotations very inadequately repre sent the witness of this Epistle, which breathes the Gospel and New Testament Epistles in every line. Where, for instance, except from St. John, could Polycarp have caught the expression " Whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ is come, in the flesh is Antichrist"? Once again, there is the famous LETTER OF BARNABAS. This was not written by Barnabas the Apostle, Who probably died in 62 A.D., before the destruction of Jerusalem, whereas this letter alludes to that event. It was written, however, by someone who 32 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. knew the Apostles, and is quoted with great respect by all early writers, being placed by the great critics in the year A.D. 97. Now this Epistle (chap, iv) contains the following remarkable quotation : — " Let us take heed lest, as it is written, we be found. ... Many called, but few chosen." — Matt. xxii. 14. This " as it is written " has been a great stumbling- block to those who want to make out nothing was written at that time, and so long as the quotation was only known -from a Latin translation it was possible to assert that if we only had the Greek there would be found no such statement. Unfor tunately for this theory, the Greek text did come to light, as part of the newly-discovered Sinaitic Manuscript, and there stood "as it is written," as large as life. It is now asserted that the quotation is from the book of Esdras, where the words are, however, " many are created and few shall be saved ; " or from some lost apocryphal book, or, more ingenious still, was used by Barnabas through a lapse of memory (Scholten). Less ingenious, and perhaps, we may add, more open-minded critics will turn from these futile guesses to the obvious conclusion that the words are quoted from the place where they are written, which is St. Matthew's Gospel. After all, however, the really important thing for us to know, is not whether these quotations are from written Gospels or from oral traditions, so long as both are telling the same story, but whether our Gospels truly represent the original Christian ARE THE GOSPELS GENUINE? 33 story. " Is the Christian story true ? " that is the main point, and therefore it is to be observed that ":no quotation contains any element which is not substantially preserved in our Gospels." Whatever others might or might not have done, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and the writer of the Epistle of Barnabas would have felt at home at our services, when they had once mastered the tongue of " barbarous Britain," for as they listened to the lessons, the same story could be repeated to them which they had heard from the lips of St. John and even read in his writings, and the writings of St. Matthew and others, and as they joined in the great Eucharist they would have rejoiced to find echoing on down the ages the old refrain, "Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God of Hosts! Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. Glory be to Thee, O Lord most High." CHAPTER V. WHO WROTE THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN? UCH has been written about what is called the external evidence, but let us look at the book itself. The first thing which is clear is that it must have been written by A JEW. The writer knows the Old Testament thoroughly ; he notes with great care the attendance at Jewish feasts ; he is quite at home with Jewish customs, such as those with regard to purification, and allow ing bodies to remain on the cross over the Sabbath. The state of feeling between the Jews and the Samaritans, the ideas current at that time among the Jews of a connection between blindness and sin, all come out in the narrative in the most natural way possible; and it may safely be said that no Gnostic or Gentile of the second century would ever have invented the statement, " Salvation is of the Jews." But we may go further: it must have been written by A JEW OF PALESTINE. The writer knows intimately the geography of WHO WROTE THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN? 35 Palestine ; he can tell you about the obscure Cana in Galilee ; he knows the exact distance between Bethany and Jerusalem ; and the precise situation of the deep well near Sychar, now almost certainly identified with the modern mud village of " Askar." Jerusalem, reduced as it was to a mere ruin by the siege in A.D. 70, stands perfectly clear with all its nooks and corners to the writers mind. Bethesda, with its five porches ; the Pool Siloam, "which by interpretation is 'Sent';" Solomon's porch; "the place called the pavement;" the place of a skull, nigh to the city; the temple with its animals for sacrifice, its sheep, oxen, doves, and money-changers— who but a Jew of Palestine would know all this ? Again, local jealousies, known from other sources to be existing, all appear with unconscious artless- ness in the narrative, " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" "Out of Galilee ariseth no prophet ; " " This people who knoweth not the law are cursed;" and his assertion — terribly rash if he was a forger of the second century — " that forty and six, years was this temple in building," coincides with the chronology of Josephus. These same considerations lead on to the third point ; he was A JEW OF THE FIRST CENTURY. The forged Decretals were exposed by the fact that they treated of controversies and topics, not current at the time they Were supposed to be written, but it is just otherwise with, this Gospel, c a 36 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. The expectation of the Messiah as a King, the attempt to make Christ " King," the fear of the rulers that "the Romans would take away our place and nation," the fear of Pilate, lest he should be accused to the emperor, are all instantaneously photographed in a way in which it would have been impossible to have reproduced them in the second century. The destruction of Jerusalem put an end to all this. What. Gnostic of the second century would have cared for the discussions on the breach of the Sabbath, or whether Christ should come from Bethlehem or Galilee ? But further; the writer claims four times (John i. 14, xix. 35, xxi. 24, 1 John i. 1) to be AN EYE-WITNESS. Quite apart from his claim, the narratives themselves would have led us to a similar conclusion. There" are touches in almost every narrative which show this : the effect of the turning of the water into wine was that " His disciples believed on Him," of the cleansing of the temple that " His disciples remembered, ' the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up ' ; " a forger would have been more likely to have pourtrayed the effect on the guests or strangers present. Again, who but an eye-witness could have given such minute particulars as we find in this Gospel ? Such a discourse took place " in the treasury," another (f at the tenth hour," this miracle was per formed at the seventh hour, this remark was made by Philip, that by Andrew, Thomas, or Judas (not Iscariot). It was Malchus whose ear was cut off. WHO WROTE THE GOSFEL OF ST. JOHN? 37 But of all the narratives, the account of the early morning of the first Easter Day bears the most unmistakeable marks of being written by an eye witness ; the running of Peter and the unnamed disciple to the sepulchre ; the greater speed of the younger, and his characteristic boldness shown in going in at once ; the subtle and inimitable touch in the words, " the other disciple went in and saw and believed ; " the truthful refraining from any account of an appearance to them, and the ascrip tion of the first appearance to Mary Magdalene, bear to any unprejudiced mind the conviction of literal truth, and are wonderfully confirmed by the shape and size of the tomb lately unearthed outside Jerusalem, which explains " the stooping down and looking in." But if the writer was an eye-witness, who could it have been but THE APOSTLE JOHN? He knows what only the " inner circle " could know, he tells us what they thought, he is identified in the epilogue as " the disciple whom Jesus loved " (John xxi. 24). He must therefore have been one of the select three — Peter, James, and' John — who were admitted, according to the other Gospels, to terms of greater intimacy; he could not have been James, for he was put* to death long before the Gospel was written (Acts xii. 2), and the disciple whom Jesus loved is repeatedly in the Gospel distinguished from St. Peter ; it can only therefore have been St. John. That it was written by him has been the unbroken tradition of the Christian 38 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. Church from the time it was written to the present century. But someone may feel inclined to ask, WHY THEN SHOULD THE AUTHORSHIP BE QUESTIONED? Chiefly because of the startling nature of the con tents of the Gospel. If the Gospel was written by St. John the beloved disciple — and there is no real evidence of any other John ever having existed (for John the elder referred to by Papias is probably the Apostle himself) — then Christ claimed un doubtedly to be the Son of God. He makes this claim in the other Gospels as well ; but in St. John's Gospel He says distinctly, " I and my Father are one (thing) ; " " He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father ; " " Before Abraham was, I am." Another reason is, that the discourses He utters are longer and more detailed, and more "dogmatic" on the subject of the Sacraments than anything in the other Gospels. But when we come to think of it these facts really tell the other way. We are informed by Irenaeus (Eusebius, v. 20), in the year 180, when the Gospel was accepted everywhere as St. John's, that He (Irenaeus) can remember the very place where Poly carp used to sit and tell him the Christian story, as he (Polycarp) had heard it from the lips of St. John, and Irenaeus adds, that what he said was " alto gether in accordance with the Scriptures." Both Polycarp and Irenaeus were famous and leading Bishops in the Church. WHO WROTE THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN? 39 Among these Scriptures, Irenaeus, everyone admits, reckoned St. John's Gospel. Is it conceiv able that Polycarp in his lifetime would, have allowed a Gospel to be circulated in the Church, purporting to be St. John's, and yet different to St. John's teaching, when the most treasured days of his life were those spent at St. John's feet ? Why, the whole of Asia would have rung with his denunciation of the fraud ! Is it possible, again, that Irenaeus, who had heard St. John's version of the Christian story through Polycarp, could have stated that it was " altogether in accordance with Scriptures," if one of the Scriptures contradicted the story so flagrantly? The startling character of the Gospel is one of the strongest guarantees of its genuineness. A new Gospel, founded on the other three, and practically similar to them, might conceivably have crept into existence, though even in that case, when the Scriptures were being read out loud every Sunday in the Church, it could scarcely have crept into recognition ; but there is only one explanation of such a Gospel as the fourth being accepted so quietly by Polycarp and Irenaeus, and it is this — they knew St. John had written it. CHAPTER VI. PARTICULAR SAYINGS. • |K»l£p|lAVING now in the first five chapters dealt HmH w^ difficulties raised with regard to the |ft*BWl| authorship of the Gospel, it is time for us to turn now to their contents, and to consider the meaning of passages in them, which are not plain at first sight, or which are daily held up to ridicule by those who make it their business to pick holes in the Bible. "TAKE NO THOUGHT FOR THE MORROW" (Matt. vi. 34). This exhortation of our Lord's is held up to scorn as discrediting His teaching, and showing what an unpractical religion Christianity is. " What would you think of a man," is the current scoff, " who went out on a stormy day without an umT brella or coat, and expected to be kept from getting wet, or of a man who carried on his business in a haphazard kind of way without thinking of the morrow at all ? " A very little knowledge of Greek, or even a glance at the revised version, would save one from PARTICULAR SAYINGS. 41' these mistakes, if one wished to be saved. "Be not therefore anxious for the morrow, for the morrow will be anxious for itself" is the translation of the revised version, and puts a very different complexion at once upon the advice given : " over- anxiety," or what we call " worry," is admitted by all to be a bad thing, even from the point of view of this life, which as a matter of fact it constantly shortens ; how inconsistent it is with a firm belief in the Providence of God is also obvious even to those who have not the blessing of that belief. There are plenty of passages in the New Testa ment, urging as a Christian duty the care of wife and children, such as "If any man care not for them of his own household, he has denied the faith " (1 Tim. v. 8); and the strenuous use of all our " talents," such as intellect, forethought, strength, and survey, is urged by our Lord Himself in the Parable of the Talents: "Be good bankers till I come" (Luke xix. 13) is a short saying which may fairly be placed as supplementary teaching beside "Take no thought for the morrow." The industrious provident man who at the same time is kept from " worry " by his belief in God's Provi dence is the ideal set before us, and is an ideal which to a large extent is within the reach of all. We may say in passing that distrust of the revised version is a great mistake ; even those who would not like to -hear it read in church will find it very useful as an explanatory commentary, and " seekers after truth " who really want to find truth will discover that many of their difficulties vanish in the light of a more accurate translation into 42 NEW TESTAMENT DIFFICULTIES. modern English. All do not see this ; a gentle man who quoted an assertion from the Bible that " Cain killed Abel, with the jawbone of an ass," on being handed a revised version to verify his quo tation, refused it as a tainted thing, and on being informed that the passage hardly stood in that form even in the authorised translation, said it was so in the " Roman Catholic Bible." There was, unfortunately, no copy of the " Douay " version available for reference at the moment. A far more serious difficulty is to be found in "RESIST NOT HIM THAT IS EVIL" (Matt. v. 38, 4a), with its definite illustrations of "turning the other cheek," and "giving thy cloak to whoever takes away thy coat." There are two things to be said about this ; first, what Mr. Gore has said in his essay on " The Social Doctrine of the Sermon on the Mount." " Our Lord aims at a social end by laying a severe claim on the individual character." "Surely," people say, " society would be undone if I gave simply to him that asked me, or rewarded the thief by bestowing on him more than he had taken." The answer is :