$ U^ w ;vi_. ",C^^ .-- 'ra'iW.-,'i«-;f.>S'fS^&v i for^Ae/ai^nAag ef a, Colltgi tn. thu Celotif Gift af \:'^i Dr..Wi!liam a.MiTior 1910 '^c^ ORIGIN AND HISTORY BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. WSDOS: PBINTED BY w. OIOWBS Am SONS, STAMTOKU STREET AND CHARING CROSS. ORIGIN AND HISTORY BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, DESIGNED TO SHOW WHAT THE BIBLE IS NOT, WHAT IT IS, AND HOW TO USE IT. BY PEOFESSOE C. E. STOWE. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND MAESTON, MILTON HOUSE, LUDGATE HILL. 1867. [ The right of Translation is resened.] TO THOSE WHO WITH MB BELIEVE AND LOVE AND TRUST THE BIBLE THE POLLOWIKQ PASES AKE AFFECTIONATELY INSOKIBED BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. The purpose of this volume can best be shown by a familiar illustration : I purchase several different parcels of real estate in the city ofHartford, and wish to ascertain the validity of my title to each one of the parcels. I take the deeds to the registrar's office and there trace each one by itself through all the preceding purchasers till I come to the -title derived from the original pro prietors. If there is no break in this chain of document ary evidence the title is perfect. So each one of the books of the New Testament must be traced up to the Apostles, who only had authority to deliver inspired books to- the churches. This is what the present volume professes to do. It is a book of authorities and testimonies ; it is the tracing and very- fying of title-deeds. But there are some deeds in which the chain is broken before we get to the original proprietors ; there are some which are forgeries and were not given by the men whose names they bear ; and there are others which were given by the persons whose names they bear, but IT PEEFACE. these persons had no authority to make the sales. AU such deeds are invalid and confer no title. These latter deeds represent the apocryphal books. It is proposed to show that every one of the apocryphal books belongs to one of these three classes, to wit : 1, They cannot be traced to the apostles ; 2, Some of them are proved to be forgeries ; 3, And others, though ¦ genuine, were written by persons who had not apostolic authority to give inspired books to the churches. In making our investigations we begin with the times of Jerome and Augustin ; because all admit that since that period there have been no changes in the canon, and no authority for any change. Thus each individual book of the New Testament is shown to stand on its own merits, its own evidence; and there is a full exposure of the groundlessness of the sUly story so often repeated, that certain men got together and voted what should be Bible and what should not, and that this is the authority on which we receive the books of the Bible as of Divine origin. This being a book of authorities and testimonies, as has already been said, it must necessarily he, to a considerable extent, made up of extracts from the original authors and witnesses. The works from which these extracts are made are not accessible to the people nor even to the ministers of the church, except in very few cases, and therefore there is an absolute necessity for giving the extracts quite fully, if we would afford to our readers a fair opportunity of making up their PKEFACE. V own judgment on sufficient grounds. To scholars by profession I recommend the voluminous works of the Church Fathers themselves, and the very copious and judicious selections from them made in the large and elaborate treatises by Lardner and Kirchhofer. I have faithfully endeavoured to give a fair specimen of the testimony. To give the whole of it and the arguments arising from it, would be to make ten volumes like Lardner iiistead of one, and place the work entirely beyond the reach of those for whom I intend it. I have not given the strongest testimonies only, but fair speci mens of both the strongest and the weakest ; that the reader may see exactly how the matter lies in the original authorities to which I appeal. The extracts from the apocryphal books are also full and copious ; for these books for the most part are wholly inaccessible to the public generally, and without full extracts I should entirely fail of my object, which is to put into the hands of the common reader ample means of judging between the canonical and the apo cryphal. Some of these books are exceedingly inte resting. They are the honest endeavours of good Christian men, near the apostolic times ;' arid the mani fest difference between the apostolic writings and theirs is just the difference between divine inspiration and the unassisted efforts of the human mind at that period and in that class of people. Others of these books are mere fictions, contrived by men more remote from the apos tolic period, who had withdrawn into caves and deserts, VI PKEFACE. and who thought that the way to servo God was to have nothing to do with men. Their dreams and sleepy imaginings are just what we might expect under such circumstances ; but how different from the practical common sense and energetic worldly activity of the New Testament ! The style of my book is plain, simple and colloquial, as the purpose in writing it required. I hope it is neither barbarous nor un grammatical ; for though I make no claims to elegance, I have endeavoured to be correct, concise, and intelligible. A similar volume, of about the same size, on the Old Testament, including discussions of some general topics, necessary to a complete view of the whole subject, such as Inspiration, Miracles, the Laws of Interpretation, etc., will be ready early next spring, if Providence permit. C. E. STOWE. May 1, 1867. PAGE CONTENTS. CHAPTEK L The common popular objections to the Bible at THE present day — WHAT THE BiBLE IS NOT, WHAT IT IS, AND HOW TO USE IT . . . . . 9 CHAPTER II. The KIND OF EVIDENCE ON WHICH WE RECEIVE THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE NeW TESTAMENT . . 38 CHAPTER in. Evidence on which we receive the present text OF THE New Testament as substantially cor rect. Description of the Ancient Manuscripts op the New Testament, with Fac-simile Illus trations . 66 CHAPTER IV. Brief Biographies of one hundred of the Ancient Witnesses to the New Testament BOOKS, whose testimony IS MOST IMPORTANT, AND much OP IT CITED IN THIS WORK .... 84 CHAPTER V. Testimony for the historical books of the New Testament 124 CHAPTER VI. The four Gospels separately examined, Mat thew, Mark, Luke, and John 144 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIL PAGE The Apocryphal Gospels and fragments of Gos pels SUPPOSED to be lost ... . 185 CHAPTER VIIL Modern substitutes foe the Gospel History — EXAMINATION OF THE BIOGRAPHIES OF JeSUS, BY Strauss, Weisse, Gfroerer, Bruno Bauer, F. C. Baur, Renan, and Schbnkel 235 CHAPTER IX. The Acts of the Apostles and the Apocryphal Acts . . 294 CHAPTER X. The Fourteen Epistles of Paul . . . 315 CHAPTEK XL The Catholic Epistles and the Apocryphal Epistles 369 CHAPTER XIL The Revelation of St. John and the Apocryphal Revelations ' . . 445 CHAPTER XIII. The Bible Prophets and the Classical Oracles contrasted 4,g5 CHAPTER XIV. The Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament AND THE REASONS FOR THEIR EXCLUSION FROM THE Canon gj^ THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. ot3*> CHAPTER I. THE COMMON POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO THE BIBLE AT THE PRESENT DAY. — WHAT THE BIBLE IS NOT, WHAT IT IS, AND HOW TO USE IT. " SearcL the Scriptures." " Thy Word is truth."— John v. 39 ; xvii. 17. The Lord Jesus, when talking with the unbelieving Jews, says to them, Search the Scriptures, and when praying to his Heavenly Father, in behalf of his dis ciples, he says. Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. According to these two statements, the Lord Jesus must have considered the Scriptures to be the very best book in the world, both for believers and unbelievers, both for the regenerate and the unregenerate ; he must have regarded them as true ; he must have looked upon the Bible as it then existed, and was afterwards to be enlarged, as the best means of making men good and noble and true ; and he must have thought, that in order to derive benefit from it, men must search, examine, and .study it. Manj' persons in our day seem to have quite a dif ferent opinion of the Bible from that which the Lord 10 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. Jesus here expresses. A respectable old book enough (they think) considering the times in which its different parts were written, but far behind the civilization of the present day, and it has, on the whole, about as many bad things in it as good ones. Without showing any disrespect to these men we may be permitted to say, so far as personal character is concerned, intellectual or moral, or so far as opportunity of knowledge on this subject is concerned, their mere opinion in regard to the Bibl^ cannot be considered, to say the very least, any more worthy of our regard than that of the Lord Jesus. Let us bring this matter to the test of fact and common sense. These men say, that the Bible is no more inspired than the writings of Homer and Shakespeare and other great men, whom God has fitted to be the instructors of mankind. Well, then^ let us try and see. Let us for a while use Homer and Shakespeare instead of the Bible, say night and morning, in our family prayers — when we meet in the house of God for his worship — in the hour of sickness and calamity and distress — at funerals, when all our earthly hopes are blighted, and we lay our dearest friends in the grave — let us then, instead of reading the Bible, take a few passages from Homer and Shakespeare. How long do you think this would last, before we should be glad to get back to our Bible again ? The old gross assaults on the Bible, of the Voltaire and Paine school, have' now generally passed by ; the book is treated rather respectfully than otherwise by its opponents, and the objections to it are founded mainly oh what it is not and what it does not profess WHAT THE BIBLE IS NOT. 11 to be, rather than on what it is and what it does profess to be. And these objections for the most part are entirely inappropriatej wholly aside from all the facts of the Bible, and from all the claims which it makes for itsslf. They are just like objecting to a ship because it is not adapted to mo\'ing on a railway, or to a locomotive because it cannot sail on the sea ; like objecting to an iron foundry because it will not make cloth, or to a cotton factory because it cannot manufacture iron. To meet such objections we must consider what the Bible is not as well as what it is ; what it does not claim to be, as well as what it does claim to be. i I. The Bible is not an amulet, a charm, a fetish, a thing which, by its iriere. presence without any voluntary agency exerted in connection with it, accomplishes its purpose ; it is not to be used as the believers in witch craft use a horse-shoe, or the American Indian his medicine-bag, or the superstitious Christian his relic or crucifix. The Bible is not, neither does it claim to be, any thing of this kind. It is the principles of the Bible which must be brought into contact with the soul, which must be interwoven with the very texture of our minds, which must be made a part of our moral nature. This is the way and the only way in which it promises to benefit us, in which it has done any good ; and it does not operate by its mere presence like a charm or relic. The thirsty man in the desert, when he comes to a spring, must drink of it as well as find it, or he perishes with thirst. 12 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Yet men sometimes say, The Bible does no good; here it has been in the world thousands of years, and the world is still full of sin and misery, just as it always has been. In the midst of Christian churches where the Bible is read every day, there are the dishonest, the . licen tious, the bloodthirsty, and the villanous. True, but- are these dishonest, licentious, bloodthirsty, villanous people, in Christian communities, the men who love and read the Bible — or the reverse ? Which are the families generally that rear the industrious, fnigal, intelligent, useful citizens ; the families that despise and neglect the Bible, or the families that revere and study it? Are the men generally who neither believe nor love the Bible, who neither regard nor study it, better men than their neighbours, who believe, love, and obey the Bible ? Is the Bible generally a favourite book in grog-shops and gambling houses and brothels? Is it a book which cheats and swindlers and rogues especially love to study ? Let us look at this matter in the light of common honesty and common sense. A plague is raging in a city, and a benevolent physician discovers a remedy, which, if taken according to the prescription, infallibly cures. All who take it, and follow the prescriptions, es cape death from the plague. But some refuse to take the medicine ; others take it and do not follow the prescriptions, and these sicken and die. Now, says the objector ; see, that medicine does no good — people die- of the plague just as they did before ! True, but who die ? they who take the remedy, or they who refuse or neglect it ? There is the test as you well know. Now WHAT THE BIBLE IS NOT. 13 try the Bible by that test and your objection is answered. Contrast any nation, any people, any community, that has and reverences and uses the Bible, with any nation, people, or community that has it not, or refuses to put it to its proper use, and see the difference. However pre judiced you may be, you cannot shut your eyes to the plainest of facts. II. The Bible is not one unbroken chain of books, chapters, and verses, representing one unbroken series of divine utterances from beginning to end. Look for no such thing as this when reading the Bible, but rather the contrary. The Scriptures were given to men piecemeal, throughout many ages, as God saw the right opportunities — at sundry times and in divers manners. This is what the Bible says of itself ; and not all at once, as if you must have bud, blossom, and fruit, all in the same hour. The analogy here between nature and the word, as in everything else, holds perfectly. First the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear ; this is what the Bible says of itself, and this is just what we find it to be. There is but little of external unity in the Bible, it makes no pretensions to any such thing. You need not be at all shaken by the clamours of those who would make this obvious fact an objection to the authority of the Scrip tures. As well might it be objected to the miracles of Christ that they are not given in philosophical order, beginning with the less and going on to the greater, with just so many and only so many of each kind. The unity of Scripture is not an external, it is an internal, a spiritual unity, the unity of one grand idea running through the whole, the idea of reunit- 14 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. ing the human soul to God, from whom it has been so sadly broken off by sin ; and that, too, through a long continued process of sharp conflict and agonizing struggle. Outside, the Bible is like sorae of those grand old rural dwellings in England, a congeries of different buildings in every variety of style, the disconnected work of many successive generations ; but within, a perfect harmony of utility and convenience, and all proceeding on one idea. Warwick Castle, for example, viewed from the out side, is an immense pile, the disjointed work of four or five successive centuries, with every variety of architecture ; but within, the apartments, though each is finished in the style appropriate to its own period, are most nicely adjusted to each other, so as to form suites of rooms perfectly harmonious, and make the whole edifice a convenient and delightful residence. So with the Scriptures : externally a miscellany, or if you please to call it so, a jumble, of different composi tions, in different styles, by all sorts of authors, and separated by ages, and centuries ; yet internally, .spirit ually, a perfectly harmonious whole. So strong is this internal oneness, that it is even seen on the outside. " In the first three chapters of Genesis we have creation, paradise, and the apostacy; then through all the suc ceeding books, conflict unspeakable, a protracted, dread ful struggle, till in the last three chapters of Revelation, we have the new creation, paradise regained, the final eternal victory over sin and Satan, and every form of evil."* * Archbishop Trench. WHAT THE BIBLE IS NOT. 15 It is no objection to the Bible, considering the uses it was designed to subserve, that it is made up, as the objectors say, of the fragments of Hebrew literature throughout many ages, or even that of some of the books the authors' names are not certainly known — any more than it is an objection to Warwick Castle that it was not built at one time, by one architect, and in one uniform style of architecture ; or that the names of the different architects of the different portions of it have not all been preserved. The very interest and beauty of the edifice is greatly heightened by this diversity, as every one sees and feels ; and the name of an architect has no essential connection with the perfection of his work ; that stands .on its own founda tion, name or no name. All this is literally true of the Bible : it is vastly more interesting, more beauti ful, more adapted to the use of mankind, as it is, than it could be if it had been one compact, uniform trea tise ; and the book of Job is just as interesting a book as it would have been if it were certainly known whether the name of the author should be written with two, or three syllables instead of one — whether we should call him Job, or Moses, or Elihu. When we have a statute book issued by the authority of our government, we do not need to have the name of each one of the original engrossing clerks signed to each individual enactment, to give it authority ; enough that the whole book, as it stands before us, has been pro perly authenticated ; and this we claim has been done in respect to the Bible. III. The Bible is not given to us in any celestial or superhuman language. If it had been it would 16 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. have been of no use to us, for every book intended for men must be given to them in the language of men. But every huraan language is of necessity, and from the very nature of the case, an imperfect language. No human language has exactly one word and only one for each distinct idea. In every known language the same word is used to indicate different things, and different words are used to indicate the same thing. In every human language each word has more than one meaning, and each thing has generally more than one name. The boy is learning his letters— the merchant is writing his letters — Dr. Johnson was a man of letters. In these three sentences the same word letters is used to designate three perfectly distinct and most widely diver gent things — yet nobody mistakes, or nobody need mistake, for the connexion in each case shows the mean ing. How many different names there are to designate that one thing, a boat. In every known language words are soraetiraes used in a figurative sense and not always in their literal signification. In the first , stanza of Gray's Ode on Spring, there are no less than eight words used in the figurative instead of their literal sense. Yet who mistakes? Lo, where the rosy-bosomed Hours Fair Venus' train appear. Disclose the long-expecting flowers And walce the purple year ! The Attic warbler pours her throat Responsive to the cuckoo's note, The untaught harmony of Spring : While, whispering pleasure as they fly. Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky Their gather'd fragrance fling. WHAT THE BIBLE IS NOT. 17 In all these cases men can mistake if the}'^ choose. They can make the metaphorical literal, and the literal metaphorical ; they can confound the equivocal, and confuse the synonymous, if they will be perverse and unfair ; and they can understand aright if they desire to. All this is as true of the Bible as of any other book, and no more so. Moreover, human minds are unlike in the impres sions which they receive from the same word ; and it is certain that one man seldom' gives to another, of different temperament, education, and habits of thought, by language, exactly the same idea, with the same shape and colour, as that which lies in his own mind. Yet, if men are honest and right-minded, they can come near enough to each other's meaning for all purposes of practical utility. Here comes in the objection that the Bible can be made to mean everything and anything : all sects build upon it, the most diverse doctrines are derived from it. This infelicity it shares with everything else that has to be expressed in human language. This is owing to the imperfection, the necessary imperfection of human language, and to the infirraity and the perverse inge nuity also of the human mind. It is not anything pecu liar to the Bible. Hear two opposing lawyers argue a point of statute law in its application to a particular case. Hear two opposing politicians make their diverse arguments in reference to the true intent and force of a particular clause in the United States Constitution. Is there not here as wide room for diversity of opinion and opposition of reasoning, as in regard to the mean ing of any text of Scripture, or the coiTectness of any c 18 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. point of theology ? Yet these laws and constitutions are made in our own language, and our own time, while the Bible comes to us from a remote age and in foreign tongues. Enough, that the Bible can be understood, if honestly studied, as well as any constitution or any body of statutes can be understood. This much is suffi cient for ail practical purposes, and it is for practical purposes only that the Bible was given. Yet, prepossessions, prejudices, and passions come in so plentifully to darken and confuse men's minds when they are reading the Bible. Se opened their understand ings that they might understand the Scriptures. Men in these times need to have their understandings both opened and straightened out, that they may understand the Scriptures. IV. The Bible is not a specimen of God's skiU as a writer, showing us God's mode of thought, giving us God's logic, and God's rhetoric, and God's style of historic narration. How often do we see men seeking out isolated passages of Scripture, and triumphantly saying that such expressions are unworthy of God, and could not have proceeded from him. They are unskil ful, the mode of thought is faulty, they are Ulogical, in bad taste, the reasoning is not conclusive, the narrative is liable to exception. God has not put himself on trial before us in that way in the Bible, any more than he has in the creation — any more than he has promised that the Bible shall always be printed for us on the best of paper, with the best of type, and perfect freedom from typographical errors ; and that after it is printed, it shall never be torn, nor soiled, nor any leaf lost : or that apostles and preachers shall be regularly handsome, men WHAT THE BIBLE IS NOT. 19 of fine forms and beautiful f^ices, and faultless elocution. Il is always to be remembered that the writers of the Bible were " God's penmen, and not God's pens." * It is not the words of the Bible that were inspired, it is not the thoughts of the Bible that were inspired ; it is the men who wrote the Bible that were inspired. In spiration acts not on the man's words, not on the man's thoughts, but on the man himself; so that he, by his own spontaneity, under the impulse of the Holy Ghost, conceives certain thoughts and gives utterance to them in certain words, both the words and the thoughts re ceiving the peculiar impress of the mind which conceived and uttered them, and being in fact just as really his own as they could have been if there had been no in spiration at all in the case. The birth and nature of Christ afford an exact illustration. The Holy Infant in the worab of the Virgin, though begotten of God directly without any human father (as it was said, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee), yet this infant lived by his mother's life, and grew by the mother's growth, and partook of the mother's nature, and was just as much her child as he could have been if Joseph had been his father ; the human and the divine in most intimate and inseparable conjunction. -It is this very fact of the commingled and inseparable union of the human and divine, which con stitutes the utility, which makes out the adaptedness to the wants of men, both of the incarnation of Christ and of the gift of the word. Inspiration generally is a puii- fying, and an elevation, and an intensification of the human intellect subjectively, rather than an objective * ' Reply to Essays and Reviews.' 20 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. suggestion and communication ; though suggestion and communication are not excluded. • The Divine mind is, as it were, so diffused through the human, and the human mind is so interpenetrated with the Divine, that for the time being the utterances of the raan are the word of God. Moreover, should we admit the facts in this objection to be just what the objector assumes them to be ; even then they would only show the exact analogy between nature and the Bible, and thus prove, as far as analogy can prove anything, that they are both from the same author. Nature, as well as the Bible, has its useful things, and its good and beautiful things ; and nature, as well as the Bible, and even to a much greater extent, has that which to our eyes may seem mean, ugly, and useless. Why not apply to nature the same kind of criticism which you apply to the Bible, and say of some of the annoying creatures which you find on land, or of some of the queer-looking animals which come out of the sea : " God never made such a looking thing as that — so odd, so out of all taste, so disagreeable, so useless." Why is not creation as weU as the Word fairly open to this kind of criticism? Certainly it is just as weU grounded in the one case as in the- other, and so far as facts go, the creation stands at quite a disadvantage in this particular by the side of the Bible. I see no way to avert the force of this consideration, unless we affirm with the Magi of old that God created the horses and the cows and the nightingales, and the Devil made the hyenas and the hornets and the canker-worms. Could not the old Magian press the believers in one only Creator with the same argument which unbelievers now WHAT THE BIBLE IS NOT. 21 urge against the Bible, and with a much fairer show of justice ? God knows, if we do not, what he made every creature for ; for everything he has made he has a use ; and so it is with every sentence in the Bible ; every paragraph has its own appropriate use, and will at some time or other corae into appropriate play — or at least, how can you prove that it is not so, so as to derive from this source an argument against the Bible ? Example — the book of Jonah — Paul's cloak and parchment. And here may properly be considered an objection derived from certain alleged wrongs and iraraoralities in some parts of Scripture. I. Some of these are just such wrongs as we find in nature, such as the destruction of people by hostile armies' instead of famine or pestilence, fire or storm — making the innocent suffer for the sins of the guilty — visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, even to the third and fourth generation, etc. All this happens every day, both in nature and Providence. II. Others ^re not iraraoralities at all : the manners and social condition of ancient tiraes were quite diverse from ours, and the alleged difficulty arises wholly from bringing the unsuspecting innocence of childhoqd in collision with the fastidious depravity of maturer years. III. A true account of the ancient raisdeeds of men, otherwise good and holy, is not necessarily immoral or of immoral tendency This depends wholly on the spirit and purpose of the narrative. A divine revelation must be true to facts, and give a strictly accurate view of human nature, and not a false or even a flattering one. IV. A revelation is designedly progressive and morally 22 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. progressive, as weU as intellectually and religiously,. socially and politically, as it must be if accountable men, and not creatures merely passive, are to be trained, freely and not compulsively, from the infancy of the race to its maturity; — and we have not and do not pretend to have the perfection of morals tiU we have perfection of revelation in the New Testament. The New Testament itself saj^s, that the law made nothing perfed, but the bringing in of a better hope did. — Heb. vii. 19. And there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before, for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof. V. The Bible does not consist of systematic dis courses, either on theology, or on morals, or on history, or on any other topic. Do not expect the Bible to be like regularly planned and carefully written sermons ; if y'ou. do you wfll never understand it or get much good from it. Take any of the finished sermons of Jeremy Taylor or H. Mel ville, of Dr. Dwight or Dr. Emmons, and, lay them side by side with what you find in the Bible, and they are no more like it than the trimmed lawns and regular paths and formal trees of a gentleman's grounds are like the luxuriant and untouched forests of nature. So far as the form of composition is concerned, can you possibly conceive of a greater contrast ? It may be said indeed of the discourses of these great and good men, that they were adapted to their times and to their congregations, and this no doubt is true ; but a much better and grander thing can be said of the discourses in the Bible, to wit, that they are adapted to aU times and to all congregations ; and this universal adapted- WHAT THE BIBLE IS NOT. 28 ness depends in no small degree on that very absence of systematic and philosophical structure and arrange ment which is sometimes urged against them as an objection. All men are not philosophers, but all men have impulses; few men are trained to systematic thought, but all are capable of emotion. It is only in certain states of society that men can appreciate the artificial plantation, or are capable of using it : but all men in all states of society can enjoy and use the natural forest. It is with the Bible just as it is with nature, both coming from the same God. The truths of religion are found in the Bible, as plants and rainerals are found in nature. The mineralogist and botanist must collect his minerals and plants one by one, as he finds them here and there scattered over the fields and by the hill-side ; and he must [himself, in his cabinet, systematize and arrange them in their scientific order, for God never does that. In arranging his plants and minerals, and assigning them to their several places, in their sevetal localities, God shows an utter disregard of scientific order. So the theologian must pick out the truths of theology as he finds thera here and there scattered about in the Bible ; and if he wishes to arrange thera in a scientific hortus siccus, he must make it himself, for God never makes any such things. VI. The Bible is not conformed to the tastes or to the intellectual horizon, or to the social or ethical stand point of any one age or nation or race. Each age and each race is apt to think itself, if not the whole human race, at least the most important part 24 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. of it, .and that the Bible ought to be specially adapted to its own tastes and wants. But this cannot be. It is intended for the whole race, and not for any one particular portion of it. Naturally, each particular portion of the book must bear the impress pf the par ticular age and nation in which that portion originated. The Bible in its origin is an Asiatic book, and therefore it bears distinctly, as it should do, the impress of Asiatic scenery and manners ; and yet it is remarkable for rising above the local and the temporary, and seizing on those great principles which are common to human nature everywhere, and expressing itself in imagery universally understood. It describes the fertility of Palestine by the metaphor of a land flowing with milk and honey, a pleasing image, and one easily apprehended throughout almost the entire world ; yet the Greeulander and the Esquimaux would doubtless be better pleased and have a quicker appreciation of the metaphor if the image were of a coast abounding with whale-oil and blubber, or walrus-meat — but why should the Green- lander or Esquimaux, in this respect, be gratified at the expense of all the rest of the world? They have as much claim to a special gratification as the German or the Frenchman, the Englishman or the American, and no more. The Song of Solomon, indeed, is entirely an oriental book, adapted to oriental tastes. The oriental religious poetry is everywhere of the same sort — and why should not the orientals have a page or two of their own book specially adapted to themselves ? VII. The Bible is not a solution of the mysteries of existence, nor even of the perplexing problems which meet us in our own every-day life. WHAT THE BIBLE IS NOT. 25 The mystery of the actual condition of the human race, as it is now and as it always has been from the first dawning of history— the question, how can the existence of so much sin and misery so long continued be reconciled with the goodness, the wisdom, and the power of God ? this mystery finds no solution,, this question finds no answer in the Bible. The Bible addresses itself to our faith and comraands us to trust in God, of whose goodness, wisdora, and power, it says we have sufficient proof, even if by searching we cannot find out the Alraighty to perfection. The sovereignty of God, complete, unlimited, .how is this recbncilable with the complete free agency of man ? If Christ must be sacrificed, must there not also be a Judas, and a Caiaphas, and a Pilate ? and how then are they entirely free ? The Bible does not explain, it only asserts the fact. The existence of God from all eternity, always, without beginning, what finite mind can form the con ception of it ? The Bible raakes no explanations of these perplexing problems, nor could we understand them while in this world, even if it did, any more than the scholar can comprehend the differential calculus before he has studied algebra. The events of our own daily life, how mysterious they often are to us ; why was I thrown hither or thither ? why did I suffer this or that ? why are my circumstances thus and so ? — the Bible gives us no inforraation, but stfll tells us to trust in God and all will be well. We can have faith always, but knowledge is often beyond our reach. An old pilot, peering through a dense fog, once said in my hearing, " I know where we are now ; I see the cape lights." None of us could see a lighthouse. 26 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. nor anything else except impenetrable mist ; but we could trust the practised eye and the tried fidelity of our pilot, and in this faith feel as safe as if we ourselves had the knowledge or sight. Is not our blessed Saviour as trustworthy a pilot as man could ever sail with ? May we not believe Him, even when we cannot see ? Let us " first have the evidence that the Lord Jesus is what he claims to be, and then trust in Him. What then is the Bible ? VIII. It is God's message to honest, intelligent, thoughtful men, sent to them by honest, intelligentj ¦ thoughtful raen ; and a message mainly on one parti cular subject, to wit, the way of escaping from the moral evils in which we are involved, and coming to the enjoy-' •: ment of peace with God and in our own souls, for time and for eternity. If we are lost in a forest, and a man is sent to help us, we want one that will lead us out of the forest, and not take up the time in giTang us lectures on botany. It is said that Solomon wrote a very large treatise on botany, and I dare say it was a very good one, but I never heard that it was ever received as a part of the Bible. I was once in a large ship with some four hundred souls on board ; and by heavy fogs, and baffling winds, and adverse currents, we were drifted on to the rocky shores of Nova Scotia, without any knowledge of our exact position. We could not see half the ship's length in any direction for the fog; but we could hear all around us the roar of distant breakers, and we knew that we were in danger. What could we do ? We lay WHAT THE BIBLE IS. 27 as still as possible on the water, and tried not to raove. We fired guns as signals of distress. After a while, by listening attentively Jbetween the booraing of the guns, we coifld hear the splashing of oars in the distance. Then we fired the oftener, that the oarsmen might be guided by the sound. Presently two boats filled with men came alongside. They were strong, healthy-looking men, but they were not very handsome nor very well dressed. They did not seem to be learned raen, and I suppose they had never studied geology, and had forraed no theory in regard to the formation of the rocks along the shores of Nova Scotia. But they knew where the rocks were, and could tell us how to steer so as to avoid them ; and we followed their directions, and asked them no questions about geology, and got safe into Halifax, and lived to study geology afterwards in the books appropriate for that purpose. Now was not that the right way ? But are there not sometimes in the Bible mistakes and inconsistencies in nurabers? and in the naraes of individuals and of nations ? Doubtless literal and numeral errors can be found in all copies of the Bible. There was never yet a book printed so carefully but there were some typographical errors in it, and the liability to such errors was rauch greater when books were perpetuated only in raanuscript — and numbers and naraes are the very places where such errors most frequently occur. The Hebrews were sometimes under idolatrous kings, and sometimes in captivity to their enemies ; and then they lost almost all the copies of their sacred books. In the early part of the reign of Josiah, scarcely a single copy of the Pentateuch could be found in the whole city of Jeru- 28 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. salem. — (2 Kings xxii.) Their letters and numerals in many cases were very much alike, and easily mistaken for each other. No wonder if in the long course of ages there should, under such circumstances, some errors in names and numbers of little importance to after ages creep in ; but these no more impair the authority of the revelation than misprints destroy a statute-book. Mis prints may be so numerous and gross, and on points of such importance, as to destroy the usefulness and authority of a book ; but this certainly is not the case with the Bible, nor with the statute-book of any respectable huraan commonwealth. Compare 2 Chronicles xxi. 20, xxii. 2, with 2 Kings viii. 26. Are there not passages here and there which could not have been written at the time and. by the authors supposed ? The art of bookmaking, ^like all other arts, was in its beginnings exceedingly rude and imperfect. In the times of the Bible writers there were no such things as title pages, chapters, headings, marginal notes, appendix, or index. Books were written full on every page, with lines of single letters, without any division of paragraphs, syllables, or. even words — just line after line, continuous rows of letters, completely filling the page, without any divisions whatever. Of course, what modern writers would put into a title, or heading, a foot-note, or an appendix, or index, in ancient writings comes right in as a part of the original page. Here is all the ground there is for the objection stated. The passages, objected to are just the foot-notes of a subsequent editor, and not forgeries or fraudulent interpolations. WHAT THE BIBLE IS. 29 But does nob the first chapter of Genesis corae in direct collision with the well ascertained facts of geo logical science ? No. Understand first the purpose of Moses and his mode of vrriting, and you will see that there neither is nor can be any collision between him and science of any kind. The Bible does not state, and never professes to state, scientific facts in scientific forms, but only phenomena, or appearances to the eye of a spectator. For example, that the earth revolves on its axis from west to east once in twenty-four hours, thus producing day and night, is a scientific fact ; this the Bible never states, nor even alludes to. Indeed I do not suppose that the writers of the Bible knew anything about it, for "inspiration is not omniscience." That the sun rises in the east and passes a;long in the heavens till he sets in the west, is a phenomenon, an appearance to the human eye, and this and this only is what the Bible speaks of, just as in the language of coramon life and coramon sense everywhere, both among the learned and unlearned. While the statements of the Bible are true to the phenomena, the appearances, they are right ; they have nothing to do with the scientific facts, and cannot come in collision with thera, any more than the decisions of a judge in the suprerae court can corae in collision with the governor's coach ; for the two subjects are not of the sarae kind, they belong to two entirely different spheres of thought, they do not travel at all on the sarae road ; and how can they come in collision ? A decision of a judge can come in collision with an act of the legislature ; and a farmer's waggon may come in col lision with the governor's coach ; but there is and can be no collision crosswise from one sphere of objects to another. 30 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. To interpret the first chapter of Genesis as a geological essay, and to attempt to reraove frora it, by scientific methods, geological difficulties, seems to rae like inter preting the parable of the sower as an agricultural essay, and attempting to avoid the difficulty that fowls of the air devoured only the seed that fell by the wayside by learned inquiries as to whether birds in ancient times could fly over fences, and whether they were not obliged to keep the road, and solemnly imagining the sustaining of the latter supposition to be essential to the vindica tion of the truthfulness of Christ as a religious teacher. How much better to look at the siraple fact just as it existed, to wit, that in the eastern countries, as now in Germany and France, the farms were seldom fenced, and the fields for the most part were guarded by old men, women, and children, whose duty it was to keep away the birds as well as the cattle ; and this practice very generally obtains in those countries at the present day, simply because that there old men, women, and children are cheaper than fencing stuff. In the inter pretation of so plain and homely a book as the Bible, a knowledge of the facts and good common sense are generally much better guides than scientific ingenuity or metaphysical subtlety. Everything to its appropriate use. I would not take a broad axe to mend a pen with, nor a penknife to hew ship timber. The Bible was not written with reference to science or philosophy, but with reference to the feelings and impressions and needs of the great masses of mankind, and they are neither scientific men nor philosophers. Moses, in the six days' work of the creation, gives an account of the fitting up of our planetary system for WHAT THE BIBLE IS. 31 its present race of inhabitants ; and intends to show, in opposition to the pantheistic, polytheistic, and atheistic cosmologies of ancient times, that all existing things are the work of one and the same self-existent, self-conscious, and intelligent God. According to the analogy of all revelation, these transactions were not narrated to him in words for him to write them down as he heard thera, but he saw the transactions aU passing before his eyes in prophetic, or rather ecstatic, vision, and he wrote them down just as he saw them. Like all popular descriptions, the language is phenoraenal, the events are described as they would meet the eye of a spectator, and not at all in accordance with the scientific verities. Each day begins a process which goes on indefinitely, which is going on still ; and no one day completes the process even of that day. It was not till the third day that the sun became the great luminary of the systera. Light is Ilot confined to the sun even now ; it exists of, itself, and entirely independent of the sun. And who knows, so as with authority to contradict Moses on this point, that the sun did become the luminary of the system before the third day ; or that before the sun be came the luminary of the system a day must be just twenty-four of our hours, neither more nor less ; or that the order of the origin of things is not the order which Moses has given ; or that if there had been a spectator of the scene, the successive appearances to his ey^ would not have been in accordance with the Mosaic description ? Many of the raost erainent of scientific men have asserted that they must have been so ; and what scientific man has yet demonstrated that they could not so have been ? 32 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. But after all, remember, and the idea cannot be too strongly enforced, that inspiration is not omnisciencqj, The apostle Paul could write the Epistle to the Romans, but he never knew how to raake a steam-engine or run a locomotive. The apostle John, lovely as he appears in his. gospel, and raagnificent as he truly is in the Apoca lypse, never knew how to make a watch or construct a kaleidoscope. There are men now in every city of Christendom, who, though very poorly qualified to be religious instructors and explain the ways of God to men, can raake electrical machines and construct steam- engines, and manage the magnetic telegraph better than all the twelve apostles put together ; and I am quite ready to believe that Moses knew nothing at aU of the science of geology. Look not into the Bible for what God never put in it — look not there for mathematics or mechanics, for metaphysical distinctions or the abstruse sciences; but look there simply for the way of spiritual life and salvation, and you will find enough, an abundance for all your spiritual needs. I can select two chapters from the New Testament, and if all the Bible were lost except these two chapters, they alone, if we could be assured of their truth, would guide us safely through all the darkness and sorrow of this life, and brbg us to the haven of light and peace above. The two chapters to which I refer are the third chapter of the Gospel of John, and the eighth chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. If of all the Bible we had only these two chapters left to us, and we could be assured that they are from God, and of divine authority, • they alone would WHAT THE BIBLE IS. 33 be sufficient to alleviate the sufferings of life, and cheer us with the most glowing and glorious hopes. The long continued, unalleviated distresses of mankind sometimes fill us with painful doubts as to the nature and purposes of our Creator; but here in the third chapter of John it is explicitly declared, " For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shoiild not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world ; but that the world through him might be saved." Whatevetr may be the difficulty, then, it is certainly no want of love on the part of our Heavenly Father. When* we look away from the world around us, qgjid turn our thoughts within upon ourselves, we see that we are in ruins. We long for a virtue which we have not, and see no way of attaining. What, then, are we lost ? No ; for in this same chapter we are told of an inward regeneration, a new birth, by the power of the Holy Spirit, which brings us into the kingdom of God ; and at the sarae tirae, of an outward regeneration by water baptism, which brings us into God's visible church on earth, which establishes a covenant relation between him and us, and gives us all the advantages of such a relation. " Verfly, verily, I say unto thee, Except a raan be born again he cannot see the king dom of God. 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 bom? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Except a man be bom of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is bom D 34 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. of the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee. Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is bom of the Spirit." But are these advantages reserved for a distant future, or can we have a present realization of them ? The eighth of Romans tells us, " There is therefore now no condem-' nation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law. of sin and death." But how far may th.|ge blessings be extended ? Are they confineS within narrow limits ? Do they include only a few ? Let us hear. " For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly,, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope ; because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious libertyi; of the chfldren of God." Here then is enough for our salvation and our comfort, if we will but take it aright. How much more when we have all the riches of the whole Bible I Yet there are men who would deprive us of our Bible. On the most frivolous pretexts, by the most groundless HOW TO USE THE BIBLE. 35 objections, they would rob us of the comforts of the Divine Word, and give us nothing in their place. As a recent writer has well remarked :* " Weary huraan nature lays its head on the bosom of the Divine Word, or it has nowhere to lay its head. Trerablers on the verge of the dark and terrible valley which parts the land of the living from the untried hereafter, take this hand of human tenderness yet of godlike strength, or they totter into the gloom with out prop or stay. They who look their last upon the beloved dead, listen to this voice of soothing and peace, or else death is no uplifting of everlasting doors, and no enfolding in everlasting arras, but an ending as appalling to the reason as to the senses, the usher to a charnel- house whose highest faculties and noblest feelings lie crushed with the animal wreck, an infinite tragedy, maddening and sickening, a blackness of darkness for ever." The Bible has various and infinite adaptations. Some portions are better understood in some parts of the world than in others. Some parts were better understood in the past tha^ now, and other parts wfll be better understood in the future than ever before ; while again there are other portions raore closely adapted to the present times than to any other portion of the world's history, for it was written not for any one age or nation, but equally for all ages and nations, and with a divine foreknowledge of all these needs and adaptations. Says liOrd Bacon : "The Scriptures being written to the thoughts of * ' Reply to Essays and Reviews,' pp. 340-41, English edition. 36 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. men, and to the succession of all ages, with a foresight^ of heresies, contradictions, differing estates of the church, yea, and particularly of the elect, are not to be inter preted only according to the latitude of the proper sense of the place, and respectively toward that present occa sion when the words were uttered, or in precise con gruity or contexture with the words before or after, or in contemplation of the present scope of the place ; but have in theraselves, not only totally or collectively, but distributively in clauses and words, infinite springs and streams of doctrine, to water the church in every part ; and therefore, as the literal sense is, as it were, the main stream or river, so the moral sense chiefly, and some times the allegorical or typical, are those whereof the church hath most use. Not that I wish men to be bold in allegories, or indulge delight in allusions ; but that I much condemn that interpretation of Scripture which is ov^y after the manner as men use to interpret a profane book." And again this same great phflosopher speaks qf " a latitude which is agreeable and familiar unto the divine prophecies, being of the nature of their author, with whora a thousand years are but as one day ; therefore they are not fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and germinant accomplishment throughout many ages, though the height or fulness of them may refer to some one age."— (' Advancement of Learn ing,' B. ii.) This book should be read dafly and not too much at a time, with the expectation of finding in it that and that only which God has put in it. It should be read with thoughtfulness, with honesty, with reverence, and HOW TO USE THE BIBLE. 87 with prayer. And it should always be home in mind that God saves us by his Word and by his Spirit, neither without the other ; neither by the Word without the Spirit, nor ordinarily by the Spirit without the Word, but usually by both together in harmonious and inseparable co-operation. 38 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. CHAPTER II. THE KIND OF EVIDENCE ON WHICH WE KECEIVE THE BOOKS OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. Doubtless to the great body of Christian believers the chief evidence for the truth of the New Testaraent is the raoral evidence ; that is, they feel within themselves urgent moral needs, irrepressible spiritual aspirations. These needs and aspirations are all supplied and satisfied by the teachings of the New Testaraent: these books they feel are just what the human soul wants, and he who made the soul and knows its wants would naturally afford the appropriate supply. Whfle in the exercise of true devotional feeling, the devout Christian no raore needs an external proof of the truth and divi nity of the New Testaraent, than Elijah needed a metaphysical proof of the existence of God when he was ascending to heaven in his fiery chariot. This is as it should be, and this is the very highest kind of proof. All men need revealed religion, but very few indeed have the power or opportunity to make the external evidences of revealed religion a study. Yet this moral proof is available only to the indi vidual himself, and he cannot make it evidence to EVIDENCE FOE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 39 another. And to the most devotional there corae hours of mental darkness, when assaults seem formidable and faith is easfly shaken from, without, and will be likely to fafl unless strongly fortified on external gi'ounds. Hence discussions of the external evidences of revealed religion, adapted to the various shapes which objections assume in different ages and circumstances, will always be necessary. The old defences will not answer for the new assailants, either as regards the believers or the unbelievers, or those who are simply doubtful and in quiring. The question which is now most perplexing to those who have time to read, but neither time nor means for thorough study, is this : — How is it that there are such diversities of opinion as to the genuineness of the books of the New Testament ? so many different hypotheses as to the authors of the sacred books, and aU main tained by arguments more or less plausible ? The very fact that the books of the New Testament can be sub jected to such treatment seems of itself, to some minds, to throw a shade of doubt over the evidence of their genuineness and authority. A well-known school of German writers began more than half a century since by denying the authenticity of the book of Revelation ; and now, after haA^ng gone through with the whole of the New Testament, and placed all the other books a century or tWo later than the authors to whom, by Christian antiquity, they have been ascribed, they have at length come round to the conclusion, I believe with entire unanimity, that the book' of Revelation is a genuine relic, and possibly the only genuine relic of the very first age of the Christian church. 40 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. How is it that the books of the New Testament can be subjected to such treatment ? The answer is very simple. It is done by ignoring or rejecting all external testimony in regard to these books, and judging of them by the critic's own subjective views of the internal evidence only. Any modern works, subjected to the sarae kind of criticisra, would be lost in the same diversity and uncertainty. For example, the letters of Junius are deficient in external testimony as to their authorship. The consequence has been an endless diversity of opinion on this subject, innumerable hypo- pheses, all sustained with raore or less of acuteness and plausibility from internal evidence, and to this day there is an entire uncertainty. Sir Walter Scott's novels were at first published anonymously; there was no external testimony as to their authorship ; the public was left to internal evi dence only ; the consequence was an endless diversity of opinion, different hypotheses sustained by argument of equal degrees of plausibility, and an entire uncer tainty; until Sir Walter himself avowed the author ship, his publishers confirmed it, and thus the requisite external testiraony was supplied, and since then there has been no doubt. And if such be the case where we are well acquainted with the writers, and with the history and literature of the period, how much more emphatically must it be true where we know alraost nothing of the literature of the period and place except by the books themselves which are in question. It is as easy by such a method to call in question, to assign to various authors, to maintain by plausible arguments discordant hypotheses in regard to the products of EVIDENCE FOE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 41 modern literature, as in regard to the books of the New Testament. In respect to Robertson's ' History of Charles V.,' or Milton's ' Paradise Lost,' how do we know that these works belong to the authors named ? By external testimony, and by external testimony only. Reject this or discredit it, put no faith in it, and we are all at sea in regard to every literary production of every period of the world. Combined with external testimony internal evidence has an important place and use ; but as to that alone, it is like a sail without mast or cordage, it can indeed be blown away by the wind, but it can never move or stay a ship. How much more is all this true of the books ascribed to the apostles and evangelists, to Matthew and Mark, to Luke and John, to Paul and Peter, or any other of the writers of the New Testa ment ! Who knows enough of the literature or of the persons of that period and class of writers to decide, for example, that a certain book ascribed to Paul was written by Apollos ? Who knows anything, indeed, except from the books themselves, of the mental cha racteristics of Paul or Apollos ? It is often impossible, by internal evidence alone, to assign even the age of a book, much less its author. We may sometimes prove by internal evidence only, that a certain book does, not belong to a particular period, if, for ex ample, positive anachronisms are woven into the struc ture of the work, allusions to things which did not then exist, or to events which had not then occurred (except where we admit the prophetic gift, or can show that the allusions are by a later hand) ; but it is not so easy to decide by internal evidence alone to what period 42 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. exactiy a particular work does belong. Many examples ¦ are on record of gross mistakes in this regard. About forty years since Dr. Wilhelm Meinhold, of the island of Rugen, published his celebrated novel pf the ' Amber Witch.' It purported to be the copy of an old manu script found in a church there, and vrritten by a clergyman of the tirae of Gnstavus Adolphus. Critics, who could decide from internal evidence alone, that the books of the New Testament could not have been written earlier than the second or third centuries of the Christian era, were very easily de ceived by the 'Amber Witch,' and pronounced it a genuine production of the period of the Thirty Years' War, being two centuries out of the way in both cases. But is there not a lack of external testimony in regard to the books of the New Testament, so that we are obliged to rely on internal evidence alone, vague as it is, for want of something better ? No, there is no deficiency of this kind : the external testiraony is abun dant, more than we have for any other ancient book whatever, more than we have for most modern books. The English writer. Dr. Nathaniel Lardner, and the German, John Kirchhofer, have in their works drawn out this testimony with great minuteness of detafl and full quotations of passages ; and a very good outline, exhibiting the nature and quality of this testimony, is given by Dr. Paley in his ' Evidences,' chapter ix. Many of the early Christian writings, which contained the external testimony to the genuineness of our sacred books, are now lost, but many of them are also pre served ; and of those which are lost, we have many EVIDENCE FOE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 43 passages which we need on this subject quoted in full by Eusebius. Eusebius is a very important witness in the whole matter of Christian evidence, and therefore he is gene rally the first object of attack among unbelievers and sceptics. With others also he fares hard, and can hardly ex pect exact justice ; for the ultra orthodox dislike him on account of his mildness and aversion to severe treat ment of theological opponents, and the ultra Protestants on account of his willing acceptance of the ecclesiastical organization that had begun to prevail before his birth, and was fully established by Constantine. It is necessary then that we should give some infor mation in regard to this man and his opportunities of knowledge, and his credibility as a witness, which has been so bitterly impugned. He was the pastor of the church at Csesarea, in Palestine, at the close of the third and beginning of the fourth century of the Christian era ; and he becarae the personal friend and ecclesiastical adviser of Constantine, after that emperor had embraced Christianity. In that church at Csesarea, before A.D. 300, there was a remarkable man who seemed raised up by Providence to do just the work in regard to the Christian books which was needed for that and all subsequent time. This was Pamphilus. If there ever was a special providence here was one, for if the work had not then been done it never could have been done afterwards. Pamphflus was the intimate bosom friend of his pastor, Eusebius, so that it was said by their contemporaries that there ^seemed to be 44 THE BOOKS OF THE BinLE. but one soul between them both, and Eusebius gave to himself the surname of Pamphflus, after the name of this friend. This Pamphflus had a great passion for collecting books, the books written by Christians ; and every scrap of Christian literature down to his own time, which he could find, he laid hold of and stored it away in his library. When there was a Christian book which he could neither purchase nor beg for his library, he would laboriously copy it entire with his ovni hand. In this way, by copying them himself, he became possessed of all the folios of the works of Origen, which were then very difficult to be •obtained. He died early the death of a martyr, and bequeathed his entire library to the church at Csesarea, and Eusebius, his pastor, all his life long had the use of it. Eusebius was a voracious reader and voluminous writer, as hungry to read and write books as Pamphflus had been to purchase and own them. Thus Eusebius became intimately acquainted with everything pertain ing to the Christian literature of the first three centuries, and was well qualified to give testiraony in regard to all the Christian books of that period. This testiraony is given very copiously in his historical writings, which are still extant and tolerably complete. He was not a bigoted churchman, he was not rigidly orthodox, he rather leaned towards Arianism, and on all theolo^cal and ecclesiastical questions he was inclined to take the liberal side ; and he shows no disposition to exaggerate the number or the value of the Christian sacred books, but quite the contrary. His testiraony, therefore, especially where it is in favour of a book, is clearly unexceptionable ; and the many literal quotations which EVIDENCE foe' THE NEW TESTAMENT. 45 he makes on this topic from early Christian writings, now lost, are altogether invaluable. But it is said that Eusebius, though a man of great learning and industry, and on the whole reasonably honest, was credulous, vain, and weak, a flatterer of Constantine, and therefore not a reliable witness. Grant ing that these were the faults of Eusebius, it would not materially affect his testimony on the particular points for which we here use it. The genuineness of this or that sacred book was not generally a question on which he had any prejudices or interests to subserve, as is perfectly evident frora his writings ; and it was not a matter which could usually affect the accuracy of his quotations from preceding authors. Allowing that he was very much such a kind of man as Cotton Mather (and I am inclined to think that in many respects he was), yet Mather is a very important authority in the early history of New England, and though a very poor witness on some subjects, is a perfectly reliable one on others. Mather, on account of his credulity and his prejudice in respect to those particular subjects, is a poor witness in regard to papists, and heretics, and witches, and wonderful providences, and the like; but who can impeach his testimony or dispense with it on such topics as the pastors and members of the early churches in Boston, the books which they wrote and approved, the meeting of the synod at Cambridge, and the articles and platform there adopted, the founders and first graduates of Harvard College, etc. ? And who will dispute the general accuracy of the numerous quotations from other authors which are found in his writings? On all such points Mather is a reliable 46 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. witness, and it is on such points as these that we use his authority in the early New England history, and our early history would be meagre and bare indeed with out him. It is precisely on points like these that we use the authority of Eusebius in early church historyf and especially in regard to the Christian sacred books.': On such points he is a reliable witness ; and if we throw him out, we must, like the Tuebingen critics, rely on our imagination for many of our most important facts. Reject Eusebius', and what have we for a history of the Christian churches of the first three centuries, or of the books used as Scripture in those churches? Eusebius is in the main a reliable witness, as much so certainly as the great body of historians, ancient or modern. Where other* testimony is accessible his his torical statements are generally borne out by it, and where we have opportunity to compare his quotations with the authors themselves we generally find them correct. I know of but one exception. It is alleged that in one passage he wilfully misquotes Josephus. Let us examine this .allegation. Josephus, giving an account of the death of Herod, says he saw just before he expired an owl sitting on a rope above him, a mes senger {aryyeXotimius Morens) was born at Carthage about the year 160, and is the oldest of the Latin church fathers whose writings have reached us. He devoted himself at first to the study of the Roraan law, but after his conversion to Christianity he was ordained presbyter, but whether at Carthage or Rome is uncertain. From this time with much learning and a fiery zeal he assafled Jews, heathens, and heretics, in a series of energetic treatises. His own severe and fiery nature, and perhaps also the many annoyances which he suffered from the Roman presbyters, induced him, about the year 203, to join the Montanists ; but he held their principles with moderation, and from this time onward he directed many sharp and energetic writings against the Romish church. He died, as sorae say, about the year 220, or, according to others, as late as 240. He writes in a peculiar and very difficult Latin style, but with rhetorical skill and great force and fire. His writings are numerous, and have been weU preserved and ipublished very often. They are apologetic, polemic, and 120 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. practical. Being so numerous and diversified, and written so near the apostolic age, by one who had been educated a Roraan lawyer, and who was the son of a Roman soldier of proconsular rank, their testimony to the New Testaraent books is exceedingly interesting and- iraportant. His chief book, his ' Apology against the Gentfles,' was addressed to the Roman governors in Africa ; in his book on the testimony of the soul, his object is to show that Christianity is founded in the nature of man. He wrote two books on marriage,,_ addressed to his own wife, in which he sets forth the principles that should govern Christian men and women in their domestic relations ; also a work to show that Christians ought not to attend the games and spectacles of the pagans ; another in defence of a Christian soldier who refused to wear the mflitary garland ; one to show that Christians should take no part in the constractionj of images or other implements of idolatry ; an exhorta tion to chastity to a widow against a second marriage4i^ a book to show that both married women and virgins should remain veiled in church; one against female, extravagance in dress; one in defence of himself for putting off the Roman toga and assuraing the phfloso- pher's mantle ; and on various other topics. Theodord, the only son of pious parents, was born at Antioch about the year 390. He was educated at a> neighbouring monastery, where he was associated with Chyrsostora and Nestorius. In 420 he was ordained,}, bishop of Cyrus, in Syria, and is said to have had the superintendence of eight hundred churches. The country was overrun with Marcionites and anti-trinitarian sects; but such was his zeal and tact, that he brought almost THE ONE HUNDEED WITNESSES. 121 all of them into the communion of the orthodox church, having himself, as he says, baptized not less than ten thousand Marcionites. In 431 he took the part of Nestorius, his early friend, against CyriU, and for this he was excommunicated in 449, but was restored to the communion of the church by Leo, bishop of Rome ; and after he had at Chalcedon, in 451, publicly recanted and given his vote against Nestorius, he was reinstated in his bishopric. From this time he devoted himself to writing tfll his death in 457. He left a commentary on most 6f the books of the Old Testaraent, and on all the Epistles of Paul, and a church history in continuation of Eusebius to the year 427, besides several other works and nearly two hundred letters. His writings are araong the best which that age produced ; they have been well preserved and handsomely published in good and read able editions. Theodotus, a learned tanner of Byzantium, about the year 192, fled from persecutioti there and took refuge at Rome. Since he had denied Christ ih that perse cution for the sake of saving his own Ufe, he was ex communicated by Victor, .bishop of Rome. He then taught that Christ was a mere raan, and this led him of course to reject the Gospel of John. He was welcomed among the Montanists. A considerable portion of one of his works, containing important testiraonies to the books of the New Testament, is stfll in good preserva tion among the writings of Clement of Alexandria. Theophilus was the sixth bishop of Antioch, about the year 168. He was a heathen Sadducee, but by the readmg of the Scriptures was brought to acknowledge the truth of Christianity and devote himself to the 122 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Christian ministry. Some account is given of him by Eusebius, 'Eccl. Hist' iv. 20, 24. He wrote against Hermogenes, against Marcion, and a commentary on the four Gospels. These writings are lost But we have from him three books in vindication of Christianity, addressed to his pagan friend Autolycus. He takes much the sarae views as Justin Martyr. The three days of creation preceding the appearance of the sun and moon he regards as typical of the trinity (rpiaBoii) of God, the earliest mention which we have of the word trinity. The account of vegetables springing up from the seeds he considers typical of the resurrection of our bodies, an idea which he might have borrowed from St. Paul. Titus, bishop of Bostra in Arabia, suffered persecution under Julian the Apostate, and in the reign of Jovian,j attended the Synod of Antioch, in the year 363. His three books against the Manichseans are stfll extant. Valentinus, the celebrated Gnostic, was by birth an Egyptian, probably of Jewish origin, and educated at Alexandria, about the year 120. TertuUian says he forsook the Christian church because he Was not made a bishop. He formed a Gnostic systera of his own, which he zealously propagated in the city of Rome, where he lived till the bishopric of Anicetus. His most celebrated disciples were Heraeleon, Ptolemy, Mark, and Bardesanes. A gospel of his own, which he and his foUowers used, they called the gospel of truth. Several quotations from him, containing important testimonies to our sacred books, are made by the church fathers, especially by Irenseus. Some account of him is given by Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' iv. 11. He cites all the Gospels, THE ONE HUNDEED WITNESSES. 123 but gives the preference to John, and was familiar also with the writings of Paul. ffi'Yidorinus, bishop of Pettau in Steiermark, towards the end of the third century, suffered martyrdom under Diocletian, in the year 303. He wrote commentaries on almost all the books of Scripture, of which only fragments remain. There is stfll extant a commentary on the Apocalypse ascribed to him. 124 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. CHAPTER V. TESTIMONY FOE THE HISTOEICAL BOOKS OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. Each book of the New Testament is a distinct work by itself ; as to the examination of its claims, each must stand independent of aU the rest, and the evidence of each must be separately investigated. Before proceeding, however, to this individual examination, there are some general considerations which should be continuaUy kept in raind. Those books, and those only, were regarded by the primitive Christians as a part of their New Testament canon which were ¦written either by an apostle or by an associate of an apostle with apostolic superintendence and sanction. The authority of an inspired apostle was the only authority for a sacred book. The four Gospels which we have, and these only, have always been acknowledged and quoted by Christians and heretics, Jews and pagans, as the authoritative books of the Christian church. Other gospels have existed, and heretics have claimed for them equal or superior authority to those which we regard as authentic ; but it - HISTOEICAL BOOKS OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 125 has never been pretended that the Christian church has acknowledged any other gospels as canonical. Very generally the Gospels have been arranged in the order in which we now have them, which is probably the order of time in which they were written ; but raany ancient authorities put John iramediately after Matthew, thus placing the two apostolic Gospels together. The origin of the Gospels, according to the best circumstantial evidence that we can obtain, seems to have been this : The apostles preached Christ, that is, they told their hearers who Christ was, what he had done, and taught, and ' suffered ; and explained the con nection between the life and death of Jesus and the religious welfare of mankind. As was customary in ancient tiraes, when books were rare add sold at an .Exorbitant price, raany of their hearers took notes of their discourses, and sent copies of thera to their friends. These notes, necessarily imperfect, without authority, and sometimes perhaps contradictory, were widely circulated. To prevent confusion and mistake, the evangelists were divinely directed to write and publish authentic narratives, for the instruction of their contem poraries and posterity. Luke refers to these prior accounts, which had been written and circulated, in chapter i. ver. 1 of his Gospel : " Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order," etc. - " Many " cannot refer to Matthew and Mark, who had written before hira ; for two could hardly' be styled " many ;" and in verse 4 Luke says he wrote, that the " certainty," respecting the Saviour, might be known. Now if Matthew and Mark had been referred to in the word " many," there would have been 126 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. no need of writing another account, as they were cre^ dible and inspired writers as well as Luke, and the " certainty " could have been learned from them as wefl as frora him. The first three are caUed the Syfioptic Gospels, because, on account of their similarity, they can be taken to gether in one view, and thus afford a sort of harmonized narrative of the life of Christ. Those books and those only were regarded by the primitive Christians as of canonical authority which were written by apostles, or by the companions of the apostles under apostolic superintendence. The question in regard to the canonical authority of any book, therefore, was a question of simple fact, in respect to which the churches, at that time, had every opportunity of forming a correct judgment. Most of the churches were personaUy acquainted with several of the apostles; and every one of the writers of th6 New Testament was personally known to many of the churches. The churches from which the books of the New Testament proceeded were situated around the shores of the Mediterranean sea, from Egypt, through Palestine, Asia Minor, and Greece, to Italy ; and through these countries, in consequence of the extensive mflitary operations of the Roman empire and the roads estab lished for the convenience of the soldiery, and the glory of Rome and the preservation of her power, communica tion was then easy and frequent. These churches were engaged in a great and common cause, in the prosecution of which they were obliged to encounter obloquy and persecution of the severest kind ; and naturaUy they HISTOEICAL BOOKS OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 127 became strongly attached to each other, and the more intimately connected the raore they were separated from the rest of the world. Thus we find them reliev ing each other's necessities -by charitable contributions (Acts xL 29 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 1-3 ; 2 Cor. viu. 1 ; Gal. u. 10). Ministers and church members travelling, were recom mended by one church to another : (Acts xviiL 27 ; Bom. xvi. 1, 2 ; 2 Cor. iii. 1 ; Col. iv. 10). Churches sent friendly salutations to one another (2 Cor. xiii. 1 ; PhiL iv. 22). ApostoUc writings were sent from one church to another (Col. iv. 16). The churches so intiraately connected, so frequently visited by different apostles, and teachers, and church members, and continually sending their sacred writings from one to another, could not be deceived as to what were apostolic books and what were not It would be perfectly easy to ascertain, in respect to any production, whether an apostle composed it or superintended its composition. If this were the case, the book was re ceived as of canonical authority ; if not, its claims to such authority were rejected. It would have been impossible to impose upon these churches spurious books as the writings of the apostles or apostolic men, during their Ufetime, or the lifetime of the members of the churches who had been acquainted with them. Such deception, every one knows, would he impossible now. No one could write a letter to the churches of the United States or Great Britain, or any of the countries of Europe, and affix to it the name of any well-known living preacher, as Spurgeon, or of one recently deceased, as Bishop Whately, without exposing himself to immediate detection. Deception would have 128 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE, been equally impossible then ; for communication' was then equally easy and frequent between the several places where churches were situated, and the connection between the churches was stfll more intimate then than it is now. « The canonical books were kept in a sacred depositoty in the churches, as the manuscript rofls of the Old Testament are still kept by the Jews in their synagogues ; and they were read in course every Lord's day as a part of the regular religious service. Books written by those who were not apostles or apostolic deputies, as Clemens Roraanus, Ignatius, Polycarp, and others, were also occasionally read in public on the Lord's day, for the instruction of the congregation ; as rainisters now some times read occasional communications from the pulpit But the reading of these books did not make a part of the regular religious service, and they were not taken up till after the customary reading of the canonical Scriptures had closed.* The internal and circumstantial evidence confirms the judgment of the ancient churches respecting the canonical authority of these books. 1. The contents of the books agree in every respect with what we know from other sources concerning the history of those times; and nothing can be detected in them inconsistent with their claims to authenticity. They exhibit no marks of a later composition; and the characteristic peculiarities of style by which the several books are distinguished from each other, give evidence of their genuineness. 2. The dialect in which these books are written is * Cave's ' Primitive Christianity,' Part I. oLap. 9. HISTOEICAL BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 129 a, convincing proof of their genuineness. They are Written in a Hebraistic Greek, which was used chiefly by Jews of the first century, and went into very general disuse before the close of the third century. . These books, then, if they are forgeries, must have been forged during the lives of the men to whom they are ascribed, or very soon after their death ; and it is utterly incredible that such forgeries should ever have gained general credit. These books, if written by the apostles, or with apos- toHc superintendence and sanction, are worthy of belief, simply as books written by capable and honest men, set ting aside all questions in regard to divine inspiration and authority. CEEDIBILITY OP THE GOSPELS. I do not here touch the question of the inspiration or divine authority of the Gospels ; but simply the credibflity of the writers as men — as men capable and lionest, or incapable and dishonest. As evidence of their credibility we, observe : 1. They were well qualified to give testimony re specting all the facts which they relate ; for three of them, Matthew, Mark, and John, were eye-witnesses of the transactions which they record, and Luke made himself acquainted with the facts by a dfligent investi gation of the whole subject. Their manner of writing, and all that we know respecting tUem, proves that they were men of capacity and discernment sufficient to make them corapetent judges of all the circumstances which they relate. 2. They give every proof of the most perfect simpli- K 130 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. city and honesty. They impartially narrate their own faults and the faults of their brethren ; when, persecuted and defamed as they were, it would have been very natural for men of their situation to endeavour to palliate each other's failings. They expose all their own weak nesses ; when, if they had been impostors, it would have been greatly for their interest to have concealed them. They record with singular fidelity the severe rebukes which they received from their master for their timidity, forgetfulness, thoughtlessness, and un belief (compare Matt. xxvi. 69 ; Mark vi. 49 — 52 ; viii. 14 — 21 ; Luke xxiv. 25, and many other passages). What stronger proof of honesty is it possible to require ? 3. They changed their whole mode of life in conse quence of their belief of the facts which they stated, and endured all manner of suffering in attestation of their truth. They themselves certainly Ifelieved that the things of which they testified had actually occurred; and these facts were of such a nature, and such were the circumstances of the case, that the witnesses could not have believed them, unless they had actually taken place. 4. If their statements had not been true, the false hood could have been easfly detected ; — for they were continually surrounded by' bitter enemies who were ceaselessly watchful to seize upon every advantage to hinder their progress. The Jews from all parts of the world were continually coming to Judsea, with fuU oppor tunity to learn everything that occurred there, and to report it when they returned to their homes. But the principal facts of the gospel history, instead of HISTOEICAL BOOKS OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 131 being denied, were admitted by its enemies ; and Judas himself, who had been intimate with the disciples, en joyed their confidence, and partaken in all their coun sels, and who had every inducement to excuse his own baseness by aUeging crime against hira whom he had betrayed, offered no such vindication of himself,' but acknowledged that he had sinned and betrayed the innocent, and gave proof of the reaUty of his reraorse and the depth of his wretchedness by violently destroy ing his own Ufe. 'What stronger testimony can we have to the innocency of Jesus and the integrity of the gospel history ? 5. It is irapossible that the character of Jesus should be a fiction, invented by such men as the writers of the New Testament. Their education, character, cir cumstances, everything precludes the idea of their pos sessing the ability or the inclination to conceive and delineate such a character, unless they had actually seen it exhibited before their eyes. Where in that corrupt age, where in all the history of the world, could they have found a model on which to form so grand, so perfect an idea? And. if a model, or even the nucleus of such a character, had existed, how were poor, unlettered pubUcans and fishermen to learn the skfll to fashion and exhibit it with such beauty and effect ? A character possessing every vktue, without any of the corresponding failings, towards which, in iraperfect human nature, each virtue leans — courage without rashness, humiUty without raeanness, dignity without arrogance, perseverance without obstinacy, affection without weakness — always acting in exact consistency, 132 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. and never ruffled by anger or depressed by despair;!, • in all the severe and aggravating trials through which he passed. How could they draw such a character except frora the living person? And who could this person have been-, if not he who came down from heaven ? How short was his stay upon earth ! scarcely three years of public life, and yet how glorious, how permanent the results ! A world disenthralled, cor rupting and debasing superstitions overthrown, men . placed in circumstances of improvement by which they are continually advancing their social and public wel fare; and now, nearly two thousand years after his death, while other founders of religious systems of more recent origin have already lost their hold on the human mind, the influence of Jesus of Nazareth is yet young and fresh, and more extensive and powerful than it has ever been before ; stfll increasing and strengthen ing and brightening, evidently to go on tfll the affec tions of every huraan heart shall be gained, and every tongue shall confess him Lord! Has all this grown out of a fiction contrived by the poor fishermen of Galilee? Another consideration of great iraportance, to be taken in connection with the exalted moral perfection of Jesus, and the wonderful good sense which cha racterizes his teachings, is the cooln'ess and calmness and quiet assurance with which he makes the most astound ing claims, claims which, if made by any human being, would be absurd, revolting and preposterous in the extreme. For example, his discourse at Capernaum, John vi. 32-65, and also many other passages of similar import, necessarily imply that if Jesus were not the HISTOEICAL BOOKS OP THE NEW TESTAMENT, 133 Divine Person he claimed to be, he was the most raving of fanatics, a supposition entirely inconsistent with ^the whole course of his Ufe and every trait of his personal character. > It is true that these expressions are metaphorical ; but let us look at them closely. " Whoso eatdh my flesh and drinkdh my blood, hath eternal life. " For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth me, even he shall live by ME." These metaphors are so strange, so uncouth, and so intensely abhorrent, especially to all Hebrew conceptions and ideas, that when used before a Jewish assembly by a teacher so sober, so clear-headed, so fuU of practical common sense as the Lord Jesus, and repeated over and over again in continuous sentences, notwithstanding the offence which they very naturally gave, they certainly must indicate an idea utterly reraote frora the coramon range of huraan thought, unparalleled, and hitherto in human language unexpressed — and all this occurs in the assertion of a claim peculiar to himself, a property which no other being in the universe, except hiraself, has or can have. CHAEACTEE OP THE GOSPELS. — GENEE4L EEMAEKS. One of the first remarks we make on examining the four Gospels is, that while the first three have a strik ing general resemblance to each other, the fourth is altogether peculiar, frequently in the substance of the narrative itself and always in the mode of narrating. 134 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. So marked is this peculiarity of John, that the simple enunciation of a single sentence from his gospel strikes the ear in a way that precludes the possibility of refer ring it to either of the other evangelists. Another thing which we notice is, that the several i evangelists, in narrating the same circumstance or reporting the same discourse, seldom or never employ exactly the same words; but rather give the sense in forma of expression slightly varied. To • illustrate; this fact by a single example, take the sentence which was pronounced from heaven at the tirae of our Saviour's baptisra. Matthew (iii. 17) gives it, " This is my beloved son, in whora I am well pleased ;" Mark (i. 11), " Thou art my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased ;" and Luke (iii. 22), "Thou art my beloved son, in thee I am well pleased." A like variation is often observable in the quotation of t\\e same passage of the Old Testament by the different writers of the New. For example, compare Deut. viii. 3, and vi. 13, as quoted by Matthew (iv. 4, 10), and by Luke (iv. 4, 8). In all these cases the sense is faithfully preserved, but the phraseology is varied. The writers of the New Testament, indeed, never appear to aim at exact quota tions of language, and provided the raeaning is given, the mode of expression is regarded as of comparatively little importance. Two of the evangelists only, Matthew and Luke, give an account of the birth and childhood of Christ;' but all the four are very particular in their detaUs respecting his death and resurrection ; for these were the great events on which the most important conse quences depended. HISTOEICAL BOOKS OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 135 The most important fact, however, to be borne in mind in reading the Gospels is, that they are neither histories nor full biographies, but siraply scattered notices of transactions and discourses intended to illus trate particular points in the character of Christ, and so arranged as to secure this purpose, but with little regard to the order of tirae. The evangelists disclaim all intention of writing complete and consecutive nar ratives, and declare that their whole design is, by relating a few facts, to give such an impression respect ing the character, teachings, and works of Christ, as might induce men to receive him as the promised Mes siah, the Saviour of the world (John xx. 30, 31 ; xxi. 25). The evangelist here says, expressly, that he had taken but few facts from the whole number which had fallen under'his notice, and that these had been selected with exclusive reference to the object above stated. We are not to look, therefore, for coraplete biography or chronological arrangeraent in the Gospels, but only for detached examples of the teachings and doings of Christ, suited to illustrate his character. The character of the Gospels in this respect can be .easily fllustrated by analogous examples from classical literature. After the death of Socrates, h^s disciples, Plato and Xenophon, undertook by their literary efforts to vindicate the character of their master from the aspersions cast upon it by his enemies. The work of Xenophon is divided into four books and subdivided into distinct topics. The topics of the first book are the following : — I. Socrates did not contemn the gods of his country, nor introduce new objects of worship. 136 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. II. Socrates was not a corrupter of young men. III. What sort pf man Socrates was, both in words and deeds, during his whole life. IV. How Socrates ~ demonstrated the existence of God. V. Hpw Socrates discoursed on temperance. VI. Disputation of Socrates with Antiphon the Sophist. Vii. How Socrates dissuaded men from arrogance. Each of these topics is fllustrated by anecdotes respecting Socrates, and by reports of conversations which he had with different persons, bearing on the several points ; and these are thrown together in the manner best suited to fllustrate the different topics, wdthout regard to the order of time in which the trans actions or conversations actually took place, and without any endeavour to preserve the appearance of continuity of narrative. Accordingly, this work is never regarded as a biography of Socrates, and is always referred to under the appellation of memoirs or memorabilia. Its Greek title aTrofivrjfiovevpiaTa (apomnemoneumcda) is appUed by Justin Martyr to the Gospels, and with great propriety, for they are works of precisely the same kind. An examination of the Gospel of Matthew wfll show that it is constructed on a plan very similar to that of Xenophon's MeraorabiUa of Socrates. After a brief notice of the birth and childhood of Jesus (i. ii.), and his entrance on his public ministry (iii. iv.), Matthew proceeds to show what Christ was as a public teacher of religion, and gives an adequate example of the nature of his instructions and his mode of communi- HISTOEICAL BOOKS OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 137 eating them, by reporting at considerable length the substance of his sermon on the mount (v.-vii.). I say the substaruie of the sermon, for it is evident that Matthew does not give the whole discourse word for word as it was uttered, from the fact that Luke, who gives a much briefer abstract of the same sermon (vi. 20-49), has yet inserted some things oraitted by Matthew, as for example the three woes corresponding to the beatitudes (Luke vL 25). Matthew next exhibits Christ as a worker of miracles, and collects into one connected view several miracles of different kinds, wrought in various places and at different times, for the purpose of showing what Christ was in reference to the exercise of rairaculous powers (vui. ix.). He afterwards exhibits Christ in another view, as a teacher by parables, and coUects together several differ ent parables as a speciraen of this raost interesting mode of teaching (xiii.). Thus throughout his Gospel, Matthew does not foUow any chronological series of events or instructions, but groups together things of the same kind, and shows by a series of living pictures what Christ was in all the various circurastances through which he passed. This mode of writing was chosen by him for the sarae reason that it had been before by Xenophon, because it was the best adapted to the particular purpose he had in view, which was to vindicate the character of Christ before his countryraen, and set it in its true light. Christ had been the great moral teacher and benefac tor of his nation. He had been undervalued, slandered, and persecuted all his life,, and was at last unjustly 138 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE, doomed to a cruel death, attended with all the circum stances of indignity and shame which could be brought together to blast his reputation and throw a shade over the splendour of his exalted virtues. Matthew, his disciple, like Xenophon, the disciple of Socrates, knew and could appreciate his master's worth; and by a simple detail of what he did and said in various circum stances and on different topics, sought to disarm the prejudices of his countrymen, and bring them to see what sort of a man he was whom their rulers with wicked hands had crucified and slain. After these general remarks we shall now turn our attention to the particular circumstances of each one of the evangelists, the special object each had in view whfle writing, the distinguishing peculiarities of each one of the several Gospels, and especially the precise grounds of evidence on which each of these books stands before us in the Bible. For a knowledge of these particulars we must rely mainly on incidental and brief hints scattered through the New Testament ; for the evangelists never make themselves prominent in their narratives, nor give any detaUs respecting their personal history and circum stances. They preach not themselves, but Chrid Jesus the Lord. The genuineness of the books of the New Testament is a question siraply of historical fact, nothing more nor less, and Uke every other question of fact, is to be ascertained and determined by testiraony, by the testi mony of independent and credible witnesses, and this testimony not comtradicted, but confirmed and sustained by the internal evidence. We have already shown, in a HISTOEICAL BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 139 preceding chapter, that the testimony of the early Christians, to their own sacred books, is at least as good and worthy of belief as any human testimony ; and that if the facts in regard to their books cannot be established by their testimony, no facts of secular history can ever he established by any human testimony whatever. Before proceeding to the examination of each one of the historical books of the New Testament, we wish to give some general idea of the state of the testimony in regard to them during the first four centuries. We must remember that the great majority of the writers of this early period have gone into oblivion, their writings have perished, and the witnesses whom we can call are but the few survivors of an immense ship wreck. We wfll cite the principal witnesses by name ; and refer the reader to the preceding chapter for a brief biography of the witnesses cited, which will show their value as witnesses by a statement in regard to their character and their qualifications to give testimony on this particular point. For the first three, or the synoptical Gospels in con nection, we call as witnesses three of the personal friends and associates of the Apostle Paul — to wit, Barnabas, Clement of Rorae (Phil. iv. 3), Hermas (Rom. xvi. 14), and also Ignatius and Polycarp, the friends and associates of the Apostle John, five good witnesses. For the four Gospels in connection, the witnesses are Polycarp, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenseus, Tatian, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria, TertuUian, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Jerome — thirteen witnesses, ten of them not cited before. To the Gospel of Matthew individually, Papias, 140 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. Justin Martyr, Hegesippus, Irenseus, Tatian, Athen agoras, Theophilus, Pantsenus, Clement of Alexandria, TertuUian, Julius Africanus, Origen, Eusebius, Cyrill of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Jerome — seventeen witnesses, five of thera not cited before. To the Gospel of Mark individuaUy, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenseus, Athenagoras, Cleraent of Alexandria, TertuUian, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerome^ten witnesses. To the Gospel of Luke individually, Justin Martyr, the Church of Vienne and Lyons in France, Irenseus, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Cleraent of Alexan dria, TertuUian, Julius Africanus, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerome — thirteen witnesses, one not cited before. To the Gospel of John individually, Barnabas, Her mas, Cleraent of Rome, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Church of Vienne and Lyons, Irenseus, Polycrates, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria, Ter tuUian, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, Eusebius, Dorotheus, Victorinus, Epiphanius, Jerome — twenty witnesses, four not previously cited. Witnesses to the book of Acts, Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, Dionysius of Corinth, Justin Martyr, Church of Vienne and Lyons, IrenseuSj* Tatian, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Tertul- lian, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome — fifteen witnesses, and one which has not been cited before. Besides these vritnesses, who all belonged to the Chris tian church, we have some valuable testimony which is anonymous, as that of the Epistle to Diognetus ; and also other very important testimony, all corroborating HISTOEICAL BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 141 the witnesses belonging to the church, frora heretics and pagans and Jews. ' Before proceeding any further, let the reader now turn to the biographical chapter (chapter fourth), and judge for hiraself whether any ancient books whatever have anything like the araount of unexceptionable tes timony in their favour which we here adduce in favour of the historical books of the New Testament ; and the other books wfll be found equally well sustained when we come to discuss them. It is sometimes objected that these witnesses simply copy from one another, and that accordingly the testi mony of ten or a dozen i no more than the testimony of one or two. To this* e answer, first, that the state ment is a raere assumption of the objector without any positive evidence in its favour whatever. The objec tion, as used in this discussion, is wholly the offspring of the imagination, and has no historical basis io rest upon. Moreover, the objection is in itself altogether improbable. But very few out of hundreds and thou sands of witnesses have corae down to our time. The others have been buried under the ruins "of past ages. To assume, then, that the witnesses which stiU survive of the second and third, and subsequent ages of the church, were taught exclusively by those few who still survive to our time of the first age of the church, and not by any of those who have now passed into ob- Uvion, is to assume that which is on the very face of it an entire absurdity. The witnesses which we cite from each of the primitive ages of the church had the use of all the witnesses who had preceded them, and who are now unknown. 142 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. That we do not overstate the number of witnesses, is evident from the pagan writers themselves. Tacitus (Annal. xv. 44) says that the Christians in Rome, during the reign of Nero, and the lifetime of the apostles, A.D. 64, were already a "vast raultitude;" Pliny, of the next generation, A. D. 112, in his letter to Trajan, gives a similar account of their great numbers in th^ remote province of Bithynia ; while the Christian writers Irenseus (Adv. Hser. i. 10) and Tertuflian (Adv. Jud. 7) frora A. D. 150 to 180 represent their believing brethren as thickly scattered over the whole known world, both civilized and barbarian. At the very time of the composition of the Christian Scriptures, or within one generation theresHer, there were Christian churches in every part of the world ; and every church had its elders (Titus L 5), educated for their work, and fully competent to form a correct judgment in regard to their sacred books. The witnesses of each of the primitive ages took the best matured results of their own time, and their matured results were drawn from hundreds of original and credible witnesses then well known, but since lost, as well as frora the very few who yet survive. None of thera depended exclusively on the dozen or twenty which we have, and who have outUved the ruins of the past All human testimony, even the best, is liable to error, and some witnesses are much more worthy of credit than others. We do not require that the testi mony of every or any witness be received as infallible, nor that there should be no discriraination among the witnesses. We ask only that this testimony be treated HISTOEICAL BOOKS OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 143 just like all other human testimony ; and be received as substantially correct, unless there be sufflcient cir cumstantial or other evidence to contradict it, or unless the character of the witness hiraself be proved to be justly liable to suspicion. Let it, be fully understood that we do not profess in any case to cite all the wit nesses who are still extant ; but only those whose tes timony is the most full and the raost easfly accessible. With these preUminary remarks on the nature and ex tent of the evidence given, we proceed to the discussion of each one of the individual^books of the New Testa ment, beginning, as a matter of course, with the historical books in their usual order. 144 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE, CHAPTER VI. THE FOUE GOSPELS SEPAEATELY EXAMINED. MATTHEW. Matthew was a GaUlean Jew, and held the office of a receiver of customs under the Roman government,^ at the sea of Tiberias, near Capernaum (Matt. ix. 9). By, Mark he is called Levi, son of Alpheus (Mark iL 14). When a Jevy becarae a Roraan citizen he generally assumed a Roman narae ; and it is probable that Levi,, was the original Hebrew, and Matthew the assumed' Roman name of this evangelist. He left his business at the call of Christ, and became his permanent attendant,'.; and one of the twelve aposties a short tirae before the delivery of the Serraon on the Mount (Luke v. 27). In enumerating the apostles he calls himself Matthew the publican (Matt. x. "R) or custora-house officer, a name exceedingly odious to the oppressed Jews. The nature of the pubUcan's office, and the injustice . and , oppression which these officers generally practised, were enough to excite odium in a nation less sensitive , than the Jewish. When the Romans subjugated the^ Jews, they treated them as they did other conquered , THE POUE GOSPELS. 145 nations, that is, they required of every man, in addition to various taxes, the payment of an annual tribute, as a token of his subjection and for the support of the dignity of the Roman empire. This tribute was extremely hateful to the Jews, whp boasted that they had no sove reign but God, that they were Abraham's seed, and were not in bondage to any man. But oppressive as this tax was in itself, it often became stfll more so by the manner in which it was collected. It was customary for the government to expose the taxes of a province to sale, and he who would offer the most for them had, the privflege of collecting; and all that he could obtain above the amount paid to the government went to enrich himself. Those who had thus taken the taxes of a whole province would divide the province into districts, and expose them to sale in the same manner ; and often the district would be subdivided and sold again ; so that sometimes three or four different sets of extortioners were to be enriched out of the surplus tribute money of the people, above that which went into the public treasury. As the right of coUecting was frequently sold from one to another at an increasing price, it was for the interest of the publican to extort as much as possi ble; and as the general government participated with the publicans in their plunder, it was for their interest to listen to no complaint against the collectors of their revenue. There was scarcely a posisibility of redress in case of vnrong ; and if one refused to subrait to injustice, frequently by false accusation he was robbed of his whole property (compare Luke Ui. 12-14 ; xix. 1-10). It is no wonder, then, that the very name of publican be came odious, and synonymous with that of sinner; L 146 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. though doubtless there were sorae who performed the duties of this office in an honourable and conscientious manner. It is the unanimous testimony of the ancients that Matthew wrote his Gospel for the use of the Jewish Christians of Palestine, and this testiraony is confirmed ¦by internal evidence. The writer everywhere takes it for granted that his readers are well acquainted with the geography of Palestine ; and he does not consider it necessary to explain any of the Jewish custoras to which he alludes. The considerations which he adduces to prove the Messiahship of Jesus are such as would have most weight with Jews. He traces the genealogy of Christ from his reputed father through David to Abraham, and takes particular pains to show how the prophecies of the Old Testament were fulfiUed in Jesus of Nazareth. Compare i. 23 ; iL 6, 15, 18 ; ifl. 3 ; iv. 14 ; viiL 17 ; xii. 17 ; xni. 35 ; xxi. 4 ; xxvL 56 ; xxviL 9. Indeed it is the leading object of his Gospel to prove that Jesus is the Messiah spoken of by the prophets, an argument which at that time Jews only could appreciate. The testimony is just as unanimous and unequivocal that Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Hebrew as it is that he wrote a Gospel at all. This will be seen in the citations of witnesses which we shall soon give. And if he wrote for the use of the Hebrews in Palestine previous to the destruction of Jerusalem, as all agree, there was an absolute necessity that he should write in Hebrew. By Hebrew is here raeant the Syro-Chaldaic or Aramsean dialect spoken at that time by the Jews in their own land. This in the New Testament is called THE POUE GOSPELS. 147 Hebrew (Acts xxi. 40 ; xxii. 2), and though not the pure ancient Hebrew, it is as much like it as the English of the present day is like the English of the Reformation .period. It is the language in which Christ usually con versed whfle on earth, as is seen from such passages as Mark v. 41; vii 34; xv. 24; Matt xxvii. 46. The Jews tenaciously held on to this their national tongue, using Greek only frora absolute necessity; and Paul greatly concfliated a Jerasalera raob simply by address ing them in their native Hebrew (Acts xxi. 40 ; xxii. 2). When Paul on this occasion asked permission of the chief captain to address the multitude, that officer ex pressed his surprise that he found the apostle so well acquainted with the Greek language (Acts xxi. 37, 38). Josephus was a Jew of high rank, born about the time when Matthew first wrote his Gospel, and received the best education which Palestine could then give to her most favoured sons, and he gives the following most explicit testimony on this point. ' Antiq.' xx. 11:2 : — " T have taken great pains to acquire the Greek learning, and to understand the elements of the Greek language, though I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with suffi cient exactness ; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations." Again, in his preface to the same work, sec. 2, he says — " It is a difficult thing to translate our history (the Jewish) into a foreign, and to us unaccustomed lan guage " (the Greek). This being the case (and who can contradict the testimony of Josephus on such a point ?), if Matthew cherished any expectation of being read by his own 148 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. countrymen, he must have addressed them in their own language. How happens it then that there has been preserved in the church a Greek Gospel of Matthew and no Hebrew one ? The ancients assign two dates to the composition of Matthew's Gospel, one from A.D. 40 to 45, the other frora the year 60 to 65. The inference is quite obvious that he wrote his Gospel twice, and the reason for this is very plain. After the overthrow of Jerusalera the Jews were dispersed and ceased to speak their own language, and the Greek became their usual tongue, as Hebrew had been before. Matthew, then, foreseeing this exigency, as the time drew near, prepared for them his Greek Gospel, and there being no further use for the Hebrew one it gradually disappeared ; though Jerome affirms that he had not only seen it, in the famous library of Pamphilus at Csesarea, but actually himself translated it into Greek and Latin. Among the manuscripts brought to the British Museum- in 1842, there is a very ancient Syrian Matthew, which Dr. Cureton has published, and which he supposes, not without some reason, to be the original Hebrew Matthew. It differs from our Greek Matthew only in phraseology here and there. The following is a specimen of the variations : Crreeli. Byrifln. i. 20, He shall save Ms people He shall save the world from its from their sins. sins. i. 23, God with us. our God with us. i. 25, knew her not. dwelt with her in purity. vii. 5, hypocrite. accepter of persons. XV. 22, grievously demonized. badly conducted by a devil's hand. xvi. '19, the keys of. the kingdom. the keys of the gates of the king dom. THE POUE GOSPELS. 149 . Our present Greek is no translation, but an original from Matthew's own hand ; and we have the evidence entirely satisfactory of a Hebrew Gospel of his, written some twenty years earlier, and indispensable to Matthew's jpurpose of introducing the life of Christ to his own countrymen. The Hebrew Gospel, as we are informed by Eusebius (' Eccl. Hist.' v. 10), was found among the Christians in India in the latter part of the second century, by Pantsenus, the missionary and phflosopher, who afterwards vrith so much celebrity presided over the catechetic school at Alexandria. He testifies that the book was parried thither by the Apostie Bartholomew, who first preached the Gospel in those regions. Accord ing to the testimony of antiquity, which there is no fground for contradicting, the Hebrew Matthew was the first of the four Gospels that was written. Eusebius says ;that after our Lord's ascension Matthew preached in Judsea (for fifteen years, adds Clement of Alexandria), and then went to foreign nations. He is said to have visited Ethiopia, Persia, an(^ Parthia, and to have died a martyr's death. Matthew may be styled a plain raatter of fact writer ; and the habits of his mind are evidently those of a man of business rather than study. He exhibits Christ mostly in his earthly character and relations; as a lawgiver, promulgating the new dispensation from the Mount, as Moses did the old from Sinai ; as a worker of miracles and a teacher. Because he thus treated of Christ in his iearthly employments and human character, his Gospel was by the ancients caUed a-cofiartKov (somatikon), or the bodily Gospel. He is very brief in narrative, disregarding alraost 150 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. entirely the order of time, but particular in his report^ of the discourses and parables of our Lord, and generally he gives only just enough of the narrative to introduce the discourse. In this re.spect, as well as in some others, his Gospel bears a striking resemblance to the work of Xenophon alluded to above. Indeed, there is the sarae sort of difference between the accounts of Jesus Christ as given by Matthew and John, that we find between the accounts of Socrates as given by Xenophon and Plato; TESTIMONIES TO MATTHEW. In all cases, in exaraining the testiraonies cited, the reader is requested to turn to the narae of each witness, in Chapter IV., and ascertain his qualifications to give testiraony, as there stated. It is also to be noted that rauch of this testiraony is given incidentaUy, and is all the more valuable on that account; that is, it is not expressly stated always that such an author wrote such a book, but there is a quotation from the book, or an allusion to some statement in it, which shows that the witness read the same book in the same way that we now read it, and assigned it to the same author. It is further to be observed that the ancients quote the Nevf Testament very rauch as the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament, seldom with literal exactness, quite freely, often giving the sense only without regard to the exact words, as though they quoted from memory simply, as doubtless they often did. The most important witnesses for Matthew are Papias, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Hegesippus, Letter to Diognetus, THE FOUE GOSPELS. 151 Irenseus, Tatian, Pantsenus, Clement of Alexandria, TertuUian, Origen, Eusebius, Cyrill of Jerasalem, Epi phanius, Jerome, Julius Africanus. As introductory to the quotations which wiU be made from the ancient witnesses in behalf of the Gospels, we commend to the reader's attention the following para graphs from Dean Stanley : — " Irenseus and TertuUian were two writers in the last quarter of the second century ; the former had spent his youth among the churches of Asia Minor, and had migrated araong the Christians of Gaul ; the latter was a presbyter in the Latin church of north Africa. Both were strong traditionists, and both distinctly appeal to the four canonical Gospels by name. But would churches so widely remote as those of Smyrna, Carthage, and Lyons, with one accord receive as Scripture four books which were only a few years old ? And besides, Irenseus had been in his youth a companion of Polycarp, the disciple of St. John. Is it credible that St. John's Gospel could have been received by him if it had been never heard of till a.d. 150 ? Moreover, about A.D. 150, Celsus quotes both the synoptical Gospels and St. John, and says, ' All this I have taken out of your own Scriptures.' About the same date, Theophilus and Tatian both constructed a harmony of the four Gospels ; and ten years earlier stfll Justin Martyr speaks of Gospels written by the apostles and their companions ; meaning, there can surely be little question, the four as we now have them. Twenty years before that Polycarp uses St. Matthew, and quotes the first Epistle of St. John, which is allowed on all hands to be (under any supposi tion) by the same author as the Gospel. And about the 152 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. same period Papias, a bishop in Asia< Minor, who tells us he took particular pains to collect oral information from survivors who had known the apostles, describes how Matthew wrote originally in Hebrew, and how Mark drew his materials from St. Peter. The passage is but a fragment preserved in Eusebius, so that no sound argument against St. John can be drawn e silentio, any more than against St. Paul or St. Luke. Thus we are brought down to about A.D. 100, without a trace of any conciliar action, or of any controversy on the subject which cannot easily be explained. The church emerges from the first century with the sacred book of the four Gospels in her hand. The very earliest apocryphal Gospels only attempt to fill up the blanks in their nar rative, and never give a competing account. The most ancient of all was held by Jerome, who translated it, to be the Hebrew original of St. Matthew. The Montanists, in their wildest hatred of St. John's Gospel, could only attribute it to his contemporary Cerinthus. And every recent discovery, such as the missing end of the Clemen tine Homilies (containing a quotation from St. John), and the original Greek of Barnabas (giving St. Matthew's Gospel the honourable title of ' Scripture '), only tends to corroborate the proof that we have in the four Gospels the primitive records of Christianity, and a trustworthy means for understanding what the raind and the preach ing of the apostles really were."* We subjoin a specimen of the kind of testimony which the ancient witnesses give in respect to Matthew : — Papias: "Matthew set forth his oracles in the Hebrew * This argument is well drawn out in Tischendorf s pamphlet, 'Wan wurden unsere Evangelien verfasst f ' THE FOUE GOSPELS. 153 dialect, which every one interpreted as he was able." Eusebius, 'Eccl. Hist.' in. 39. Irenseus: "^Matthew put forth the writing of the Gospel among the Hebrews in their dialect." Adv. Hseres. ui. ; Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' v. 8. Jerome : " Matthew, first in Judsea, on account of those from the circumcision who believed, coraposed the Gospel of Christ in Hebrew letters and words." Catal. c. 4. " Matthew published a Gospel in Judsea in the Hebrew language." Prolog, in Matt Eusebius : " Matthew, having first proclairaed his Gospel to the Hebrews .... coraraitted it to writing in his native tongue." ' Eccl. Hist' ui. 23. " Epiphanius: "They indeed (the Ebionites) receive the Gospel according to Matthew ; for this both they use and also the Cerinthians. They call it indeed the Gospel according to the Hebrews ; as it is true to say, that Matthew alone in the New Testament raade the declaration and preaching of the Gospel in Hebrew and with Hebrew letters." Hseres. xxx. 3. Clement of Alexandria : " Matthew having first pro claimed the Gospel in Hebrew, when on the point of going also to other nations, committed it to writing in his native tongue." Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' iii. 24. Origen : " The first (Gospel) is written according to Matthew, the same that was once a publican but after wards an apostle of Christ, who having published it for the Jewish converts, wrote it in the Hebrew." Eusebius, 'Eccl. Hist.' vi. 25. Ignatius : " How then was he manifested to the ages ? A star shone in heaven, in splendour excelling all the other stars, and its brightness was ineffable. 154 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. and the strangeness of it inspired terror." Matth. u. ; Ephes. xix. Barnabas already in his time quotes Matthew as Scripture, Epist. chap. iv. " As it is written, many are called but few chosen." Matt. xx. 16; xxii. 14. Again, . chap. V. " He did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." Matt. ix. 13. Justin Martyr : " The discourses of Christ were brief and compendious, for he was no sophist, but his word was the power of God. Concerning chastity he said this : Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath coraraitted adultery with her already in his heart before God. Also, If thy right eye ofiend thee, cut it out, for it is profitable for thee with one eye to enter into the kingdom of God, rather than with two eyes to be sent into eternal fire. Also, He who marries a woman repudiated by another man commits adultery. Also, There are some who are made eunuchs by man, and there are sorae who are born eunuchs, and some who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's! sake ; but not all receive this." See Matt. v. 28, 29, 32 ; xviiL 9 ; xix. 11, 12. Apol. i. p. 21. " Christ called not the just and the chaste to repent'! ance, but the impious, the incontinent, and the unjust, for thus he said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Matt. ix. 13. Apol. i. p. 22. " He cured all sickness and all disease." Matt iv. 23. Apol. i. p. 50. " At that time some coming to him asked him if it were proper to pay tribute to Csesar ; and he answered, Tell me, whose image hath the coin ? and they say Csesar's ; and again he answered them. Render there- THE POUE GOSPELS. 155 fore to Csesar the things that be Csesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Matt. xxu. 15-21. Apol. i. p. 26. " He (John) seated by the river Jordan cried, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but there will come one mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear, he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire, whose fan is in his hand, and he wfll thoroughly purge his floor, and his wheat he will gather into his garner, but he wiU bum up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Matt. fli. 11, 12. ' Dialogue with Trypho,' pp. 268-9. In the few works of Justin which remain to us there are from fifty to seventy-five quotations of this kind from the Gospel of Matthew. Epistle to Biogndus : " Christ taught that we should not be anxious (take no thought) about food and raiment." Matt. vi. 25. Tatian : " The Saviour said it is not proper to lay up treasure on earth, where moth and rust corrupteth." Matth. vi. 19. Clem. Alex. Strom, iu. p. 463. ' ^Athenagoras : " I say to you love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them tha4 persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who causeth his sun to rise on the evfl and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the un just" Matt. V. 44, 45, Legat. p. 11. STheophilus : " Thus he teaches those that do good not to boast, that they be not pleasers of men. Let not thy left hand knowl what thy right hand doeth." Matt. vL 4. Autol. p. 126. , Pantsenus : " To whom (the inhabitants of India) Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles, preached, and 156 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. left them the writings of Matthew in Hebrew letters, which is preserved to this day." Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' V. 10. Clement of Alexandria : " But in the Gospel accord ing to Matthew the genealogy which begins with Abra ham terminates with Mary the mother of the Lord. For there are, he says, from Abraham to David, fourteen generations, and frora David to the carrying away into Babylon, fourteen generations, and frora the carrying away into Babylon untfl Christ, there are likewise four teen other generations." Matt. 1.17. Strom. L p. 341. TertuUian: "In the outset Matthew himself, that most faithful reporter of the Gospel, as companion of the Lord, for no other reason than that he might make us acquainted with the carnal origin of Christ, thus begins, The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of • David, the son of Abraham." De Came Christi, c. 22. "Matthew, bringing the origin of the Lord from Abraham to Mary, says, Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, from whom Christ was born." lb. c. 20. The genuineness of the first two chapters of Matthew has by some bepn called in question, but undoubtedly on doctrinal grounds, solely for the sake of getting rid of the narrative of the miraculous birth of Christ, and not for any historical reason whatever. The earliest testimony, as given above, is just as clear and positive to these two chapters as to any other part of the book, and the most critical examination of the language and style has failed to produce any result unfavourable to the authorship of Matthew. See above, Ignatius, Irenseus, TertuUian, Clement of Alexandria, Epiphanius, Julius Africanus, and others. THE FOUE GOSPELS. 157 Irenssus: "But again Matthew, speaking concerning the angel, says. The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dreara. Of what Lord he himself inter prets : That it raight be fulfiUed which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Therefore a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus, which is interpreted, God with us." Adv. Hser. ui. 9. - Cyril of Jerusalem : " Matthew, writing a Gospel, wrote it in the Hebrew tongue." Catech. xiv. ''i'" Epiphanius: "Wherefore indeed this Matthew also writes the Gospel in Hebrew letters and preaches, and begins not at the beginning, but derives the genealogy indeed from Abraham." Matt. i. 1, 2. Hseres. U. Jerome: "Concerning the New Testament I now speak, that doubtless it is Greek, the Apostle Matthew being excepted, who first in Judsea gave out the Gospel of Christ in Hebrew letters." Prsfat. in iv. Evang. ad Dam. Julius Africanus. This writer gives an elaborate statement of the different genealogies of Christ as they stand in Matthew and Luke, and proposes an ingenious method of reconciling them. It is perfectly certain that he used the same first chapter of Matthew which is found in our own Greek Testaraents. Here are a very few of the testimonies which we have in the earliest ages to the existence of Matthew's Gospel, and as we now have it. We give less than a tithe of what might be adduced even from the scanty remains, which have escaped the ravages of time, of the primitive Christian literature. But the evidence, even from this 158 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. source, that there was from the first a Gospel of Matthew, and that this Gospel, whether Hebrew or Greek, in fact both, was the same Gospel which we now have under Matthew's name, is beyond controversy. GOSPEL OF MARK. Mark was the son of a pious woman in Jerusalem, aud the intimate friend of the Apostle Peter (Acts xu. 12 ; 1 Pet. V. 13). He was also the friend and companion of Paul (Acts xii. 25 ; xiii. 5), till some neglect of his, which occasioned a misunderstanding between Paul and Barnabas respecting him, produced a separation (Acts XV. 36-41). Paul afterwards became reconciled to him, perhaps when he met him at Rome in company with Peter, and speaks of him in several of his epistles with great confidence and affection (Col. iv. 10 ; 2 Tim. iv. 11 ; Philemon xxiv). According to the almost unanimous testimony of antiquity, his Gospel was written at Rome, under the superintendence of the Apostle Peter, a Uttle after that of Matthew, and it was intended for the instruction of the Roman converts from paganism. To this, internal evidence corresponds. He has many pure Latin words written in Greek letters, where the other evangelists use the appropriate Greek words. For example, Kevrvplav (kenturion), the Latin centmio, instead of the Greek eKarovTapyT]'; (hekatontarehes), cen turion, XV. 39, 45, 35. Compare also xii. 42. Again, aireKovXarmp, the Latin speculator, executioner, vi. 27. THE FOUE GOSPELS. 159 The Latin phrases, eo-^j^artu? e^^et (eschatos echei), and ro Uavov iroirjaaLf^to (ikanon poiesai) v. 23 ; xv. 15. The above purely Latin words and phrases, instead of the corresponding Greek, are used by Mark and Mark only of all the writers of the New Testaraent. But why, if he wrote for the Roraans, did he not write in Latin instead of Greek ? It is evident from the statements of Tacitus, Martial, Juvenal, and the very inscriptions on the Roman tomb stones, that Greek was generally understood and used at Rome during this period ; and probably the children universally, when taught to read at all, were taught to read Greek. The emperors themselves, as Marcus Antonius, when they becarae authors, wrote in Greek. Classic authors residing at Rorae, and writing to Roraans, as Epictetus, Plutarch, Polybius, Josephus, wrote in Greek. Justin Martyr, residing at Rome and addressing his two apologies to the Roman emperors, wrote them hoth in Greek. So of the Christian writers generally. Irenffius, Clement of Rorae, Hermas, and others, living in the Latin empire, and writing for Latins as well as Greeks, used the Greek tongue as the dialect raost generally accessible as the language of books. It is no wonder then, that Mark, residing at Rorae, and writing for Roraans, should vmte in Greek, nor that his com position should be characterized by Latin words and idioms. He carefully explains allusions to Jewish customs, as if writing for those who were unacquainted with them (Mark vu. 2-4 ; xv. 6). He is much more brief than the other evangelists, and has but twenty-four verses the substance of which is not found in Matthew and Luke. 160 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Unlike Matthew, he is very particular in narrative,' and very much condenses the conversations and discourses of Jesus. ¦ There is no proof that he had ever seen the Gospel of Matthew before writing his own; much less that his own is an abridgment of Matthew's, as some have supposed. The contrary is shown from the fact that he is in not a few instances rauch more particular in his narrative than Matthew. (Compare Mark v, 1, with Matt. viu. 28; Mark ix. 14, with Matt. xvii. 12-14; and Mark xiv. 66, 67, with Matt. xxvi. 69). It is the uncontradicted testimony of antiquity, which' there is no reason to doubt, that Mark spent the latter! part of his life at Alexandria in Egypt, as pastor of the churches there ; and it is evident, from 1 Pet'er v. 13, that he had been with the Apostle Peter in Babylon. Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' U. 15. The witnesses for Mark especially are Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenseus, Athenagoras, Clement of Aleaxndria,' TertuUian, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerorne. A specimen of their testiraony we subjoin. TESTIMONIES TO MAEK. Papias : " And John the Presbyter said this : Mark being the interpreter of Peter, whatsoever he recorded- he wrote with great accuracy, but not, however, in the order in which it was done or spoken by our Lord, for he neither heard nor followed our Lord, but, as before said, he was in corapany with Peter, who gave him such inforraation as was necessary wherefore Mark has not erred in anything but was carefully THE FOUE GOSPELS, 161 attentive to one thing, not to pass by anything that he heard, or to state anything falsely in these accounts." Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist;' ifl. 39. Irenseus not only directly quotes the Gospel of Mark, but the last verses of this Gospel, which have been rejected by many writers, he especially ascribes to the Evangelist Mark. Adv. Hser. iii. 10, 6. "Mark says in the end of his Gospel (Mark xvi. 19), And indeed the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to thera, was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God." Again, " Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, transmitted to us in writing what had been preached by him." Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' v. 8. Origen: "The second (Gospel) is according to Mark, who composed it as Peter explained it to him, whom he also acknowledges as his son in his general epistle," etc. (1 Pet V. 13.) Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' vi. 25. t Justin Martyr: "In what suffering and torture the wicked will be, hear the words spoken in like manner on this point, for they are these (Mark ix. 44, 46, 48) ; their worm shall not cease and their fire shall not be quenched." Apol. ii. p. 87. " And as also it is requisite to worship God only, he thus declared, saying (Mark xii. 30), the greatest com mandment of the law is, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve, with all thy heart and with all thy might, the Lord who created thee." Apol. iL p. 63. It is to be remembered, both here and elsewhere, that Justin does not quote book, chapter, and verse, but only the sense of each passage ; and for the con venience of the reader I insert in parenthesis the M 162 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. reference to the text quoted. This is to be noticed in every instance of quotations from the fathers, for they indeed, as has already been shown, had no chapters and verses to refer to. Athenagoras: Mark x. 11, "For whosoever shall put away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery." TertuUian : " The Gospel which Mark published is affirmed as Peter's, whose interpreter Mark was." Adv. Marcion iv. 5. Epiphanius : " And imraediately after Matthew,; Mark, the companion of St. Peter at Rome, is directed to put forth a Gospel; which having written, he is sent by St. Peter into the country of the Egyptians." Hseres. 51. Jerome: "Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, being asked by the brethren at Rome, wrote a Gospel in brief, according to what he had heard Peter, relating ; and when Peter had heard it, he approved of it, and gave it forth to be read in the churches by his authority, as Clement also writes in the sixth book of the Hypotuposeis." Catal. Script, c. 8. Hippolytus : " Jesus says to all at the same time, concerning the gifts which shall be given by him through the Holy Spirit (Mark xvi. 1 7), And these signs shall follow them that believe ; in ray name they shall cast out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall take up serpents ; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them ; and they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Conceming Spiritual Gifts, 0pp. p. 545. As observed before, and the reader must remember, THE FOUE GOSPELS. 163 the author qtioted, Hippolytus, does not give the name of the book nor the chapter and verse. ' ' Clement of Alexandria : " So greatly did the splendour of piety enlighten the minds of Peter's hearers (at Rome), that it was not sufficient to hear but once, nor to receive the unwritten doctrine of the Gospel of God ; but they persevered vrith various entr,eaties to solicit Mark, as the companion of Peter, and whose Gospel we have, that he should leave them a monument of the doctrine thus orally communicated in writing. Nor did they cease their solicitations until they had prevailed with the man, and thus became the means of that writing which is called the Gospel according to Mark. They say also that the Apostle Peter, having ascertained what was done by the revelation of the Spirit, was dehghted with the zealous ardour expressed by these men, and that the history obtained his authority for the purpose of being read in the churches." Eusebius, 'Eccl. Hist' iL 15. " When Peter had proclairaed the word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel under the influence of the Spirit ; as there was a great number present, they requested Mark, who had foflowed him frora afar, and remembered well what he had said, to reduce the things to writing ; and that after composing his Gospel, he gave it to them who had requested it of him." Eusebius, 'Eccl. Hist.' vi. 14. ' GOSPEL OF LUKE. Luke was a Gentile by birth, and a physician {Col. iv. 11, 14), and according to the prevailing testimony of the anciehts, a citizen of Antioch, where the followers of 164 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Christ were first called Christians. He was familiaSp with Greek literature, as is evident from the style and- structure of his two works, the Gospel and book of Acts^- and his method of addressing them to Theophilus. The introductory verses of his Gospel are pure and even elegant Greek, and the sarae may be said of his intro duction to the .Acts, and, indeed, wherever he writes independently in his own person, and does not quote from or relate the discourses of others. He becarae a zealous Christian, and raade himself famfliarly acquainted, by personal investigation (Luk& i. 1-4), with all the circumstances attending the origin of Christianity, diligently studied the Hebrew Scriptures,' and was the constant corapanion of the Apostle Paul. Of Theophilus, the friend to whom he ascribes his two works, nothing is known with certainty. He was probably a Greek who lived out of Palestine, and perhaps at Antioch, the native city of Luke. The Gospel of Luke was written at about the, same time with that of Mark ; and as the latter appears to have been designed particularly for the Romans, so the former seems especially adapted to the Greeks. Luke represents Christ as the Saviour of the world, without distinction of nations, and traces his genealogy through his mother, Mary, to Adam, the progenitor of the whole human family ; in this particular affording a contrast to the obviously Jewish complexion of the first chapter of Matthew. He is circumstantial in narrative, gives the dialogues of Christ with particularity, and is careful to insert geographical notices of the places in Palestine which he mentions (Luke i. 26 ; iv. 31 ; viii. 26 ; Acts i. 12). THE POUE GOSPELS. 165 ' Of all the evangelists he is the only one who gives a detailed account of the circumstances which preceded and attended the births of John the Baptist and Jesus ; and in this part of his Gospel the style is more strongly Hebraistic than in any other part of the New Testa ment, if we except the Apocalypse. Luke probably copied this narrative and the genealogy just as he found them in the family of Elizabeth and Mary. Luke was the companion of Paul in many of his missionary journeys, as we see by the book of Acts ; and it is said that after Paul's martyrdom he preacheil in Italy, Dalmatia, Macedonia, Bithynia, and finally suffered martyrdom at a very advanced age. • The witnesses to Luke's Gospel are Justin Martyr, the Letter of the church of Vienne and Lyons, Irenseus, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Cleraent of Alexandria, TertuUian, Julius Africanus, Jerorae. A speciraen of the testimony we subjoin. TESTIMONIES TO LUKE. Church of Vienne and Lyons. Of one of their brethren they say: "That though young, he equalled the character of old Zacharias (Luke i. 6) ; for he walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless." Lardner iL 162. Eusebius, 'Eccl. Hist.' V. 1. Tatian (Luke vi. 25) : "You raay laugh, but you will weep." 'Oration against the Gentiles,' Lardner ii. 150. Tatian compPsed a harmony of the four Gospels, of course including Luke. Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' iv. 29. Athenagoras (Luke xvi. 18): "For whosoever," says 166 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. he, " shall put away his wife, and shall raarry another, comraitteth adultery." Legat. Lardner ii. 1 96. Theophilus (Luke xviii. 27) ; " For the things which with men are irapossible, are possible with God." Ad. Autol. Lardner ii. 205. Irenseus : "Luke, the companion of Paul, committed to writing the Gospel preached by hira." Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' V. 8. " Luke, also, the follower and disciple of the apostles, referring to Zachariah and Elizabeth, of whom, accords ing to the proraise of God, John was born, says they were both righteous before God," etc. (Luke i. 6.) Adv. Hser. iiL 10. Clement of AlexaTidria: "But Luke also, in the commenceraent of his narrative, preraises the cause which led hira to write ; showing that raany others, having rashly undertaken to compose a narrative of matters that he had already completely ascertained,'in order to free us from the uncertain suppositions of others, in his own Gospel, he delivered the certain account of those things, that he himself had fully received from his intimacy and stay with Paul, and also his intercourse with the other apostles." Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist' in. 2, 4. Origen : " The third (Gospel) is according to Luke, the Gospel commended by Paul, which was written for the converts from the Gentiles." Eusebius, ' Eccl Hist.' vi. 25. "But Lucius some suppose to be Luke, who wrote the Gospel." ' Comment, ad Rom.' xvi. 2. Justin Martyr: "As Christ indicated, saying, To whom God hath given the more, he will also require the more of him." (Luke xii. 48.) Apol. i. 28. THE FOUR GOSPELS. 167 , "The power of God coming down upon the virgin overshadowed her. And, at that time an angel being sent to the virgin herself, brought joyful tidings to her." (Luke i. 35.) Apol. i. 54. "As also you can learn from the census that took place under Cyrenius, your first procurator in. Judsea." (Luke ii. 2.) Apol. i. 55. " Therefore moved by fear, he did not put her away ; but when the first census was taken in Judsea under Cyrenius, he went from Nazareth, where he dw«lt, to Bethlehem, where he originated, that he might be enrolled" (taxed). (Luke iL 1-5.) Apol. i. 303. " For that is what our Lord said, they shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage, but shall be equal to the angels, being children of God, and of the resurrec tion." (Luke XX. 35, b6.) Apol. i. 3U8. " In the memoirs which I say were composed by the apostles and those who followed them, we find that his sweat was as great drops of blood, whfle he prayed, saying, if it be possible, let this cup pass from rae." (Luke xxii. 41.) ApoL i. 331. " Yielding up his spirit upon the cross, he said. Father, into thy hands I coramit my spirit, as I have learned this also from those raemoirs." (Luke xxiii. 46.) Apol. i. 333. TertuUian : " For from those commentaries which we have, Marcion seeras to have selected Luke, whom he mutilated. Moreover Luke was not an apostle, but an apostolic man ; not a master but a disciple, as it were less than a master ; and so much the later certainly as he was the companion of the later Apostle Paul doubtie-^s." Adv. Marcion iv., 2. 168 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. Julius Africanus. This writer compares the gene alogy of Luke with that of Matthew. » Eusebius : " But Luke, who was born at Antioch, and by profession a physician, being for the most part con nected with Paul, and familiarly acquainted with the rest of the apostles, has left us, in two inspired booksj the institutes of that spiritual healing art which he obtained from them. One of these is his Gospel, in which he testifies that he has recorded as those who were from the beginning eye-witnesses and ministers of the word, delivered to him, whom also he says he has in. all things followed." ' Eccl. Hist.' ifl. 4. GOSPEL OF JOHN. John, the son of Zebedee and Salome, and the brother of James, was born in Bethsaida of Galilee,^ the native city of Andrew and Peter (John i. 40 ; Matt. iv. 18, 21). From the circumstances ,that the father of John owned vessels on the sea of Galilee, and had hired servants in his employ ; and that his mother was one of those who provided for the support of Jesus, and purchased costly spices for his embalming ; and that he had a house in Jerusalera, and was personally known to the high priest ; it is inferred that his family were in possession of property, and of respectable rank. (Com pare Mark L 20 ; Matt. xxviL 56 ; Luke xxiiL 56 ; John xix. 27 ; xviiL 15). These circurastances of supe-, riority might possibly have emboldened the mother of James and John to make for them the obnoxious request for precedence over the other disciples (Matt. xx. 20-24 ; Mark. x. 35). His mother was a devoted follower of THE FOUE GOSPELS. 169 Christ, but nothing is said respecting ,the religious character of his father. He was originally a disciple of John the Baptist, and was among the first to follow Christ (John i. 35). Having afterwards returned to his business, he was one of the first whora Jesus called to the apostleship (Matt. iv. 18, 21). Andrew and Peter, James and John, were the first chosen of the apostles; three of them, Peter, James, and John, were selected by Jesus to witness the glories of his transfiguration (Matt. xviL 1 ; Mark v. 37), and the agonies of his humiliation in the garden ; two, Peter and John, remained with him when all the others forsook him and fled (John xviii. 15); and one only ' stood by him to the last and witnessed his death (John xix. 26), and this one was John; and to him the ex piring Jesus affectionately comraitted the care of his mother, requesting hira to discharge towards her the duties of a son. " Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus, theretore, saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he said unto his mother. Woman, behold thy son 1 ¦ Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother ! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own house." Peter and John were first at the tomb of Christ after the news of his resurrection (John xx. 2-8). According to ancient testimony, John was the youngest of the apostles, and some four or five years younger than Jesus, and the Gospel designates him as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He remained at Jerusalem, as Eusebius informs us. 170 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. till after the death of Jesus' mother and the imprison ment of Paul ; when he went to Ephesus, about A.D. 65, to take charge of the important church which Paul had established there (Acts xix. 1-20). Soon after he was banished to Patraos by Nero* (Rev. i. 9), where he wrote the Apocalypse. After a time he was restored to Ephesus, where he estabUshed a theological school for the purpose of supplying the nuraerous churches with competent pastors, as they could no longer expect the continuance of miraculous qualifications. Hence he received the appellation of the theologian, or di/ovne, While engaged in this employment he wrote his Gospel and Epistles ; and in the reign of Trajan he died a natural death at a very advanced age. (Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' iii. 18, 23, 31, 39.) From several. instances recorded of him in the Gospels, he seeras to have been originally of an impetuous and fiery temper, which by the influence of the Christian religion became entirely subdued, and produced that warmth of affection, that soul-stirring energy of love, the softness, mildness, and richness of feeling, which we so much admire in this beloved apostle, (Luke ix. 49, 54, 55 ; Mark iii. 17; ix. 38, 39.) His Gospel probably was especially written for the' use of his theological students, and it is equally distin- * Nero was of the Domitian family, and his full family designation was Nero Claudius Domitius, or in the adjective form, Domitianvs. This led to the misapprehension among some of the ancients that John suffered punishment under Domitian and not under Nero, but this was by no means the case with all. The subject is very thoroughly and satisfactorily discussed by Guericke in his Einleitung in das Nrne Testament, pp. 59-65, and 522-530, and also by Professor Stuart in his ' Commentary on the Apocalypse,' vol. i. np. 263-282. The discussion is too wide and involved to be entered into here. THE FOUE GOSPELS. 171 guished for the childlike simplicity of its language and the depth and pathos of its sentiment. It is supple mentary to tbe others, and consists principally of the discourses of Jesus, which are characterized by so great a freshness and naturalness, and so strong an excitement of the most inward emotions, that we are inclined to believe that they must be given nearly word for word as they were uttered. The ancients, on account of these peculiarities, called this the spiritual gospel ; and by a distinguished modern, Ernesti, it has been styled the heart of Jesus. Though the most simple in its language, it is the most difficult of all to be fully comprehended. There is great peculiarity in the use of words, such as light, life, word, etc., and a depth of meaning which has not often been fully explored. It is always a favourite book among those who have full sympathy with the spirituality of the Christian reUgion, but very mystical and obscure to such as know Chris tianity only in its outward forms and precepts. Chrysostom, in speaking of this Gospel, expresses himself in terms like the following : " If the spectators of orators, musicians, and athletes, sit with so great willingness to see and hear, how great readiness and zeal should we manifest when, not a musician, not a sophist, enters the scene, but a man speaking from the heavens and uttering a voice more raajestic than thunder ! For he seizes and holds the world, and fills it with his tones, not by a loud cry, but by moving his tongue with divine grace : and what is wonderful, this voice, though so great, is neither harsh nor unpleasant, but sweeter, more persuasive, raore enchanting than all the harmony of music; and besides all this, most holy and most 172 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. exciting, full of unspeakable glories, and conveying so great blessings, that those who with readiness and diU- gence receive and retain them, are no longer like mortal men, nor do they abide upon earth, but rise above all transitory things, and being transferred to the angelic inheritance, so inhabit earth as if it were heaven." (Preface to ' Homilies on John.') Augustin speaks with equal enthusiasm. "In the four Gospels, or rather in the four books of the one Gospel, John has not unaptly been corapared to the eagle, on account of his etherial intelligence ; for he carries his preaching to a rauch higher and more sub lime elevation than the other three, and in his elevation wiUs our hearts also to be raised. The other three evangelists walked with the Lord as with a man on earth, and said but little concerning his divinity; but John, as if it were irksome to him to remain on earth, ¦ thunders, as it were, in the very beginning of his Gospel ; rises not only above the earth and above the whole circuit of the atmosphere and heavens, but even above all the hosts of angels, and the whole order of the invisible powers, and makes his way directly to him by whom all things are done, saying : ' In the begin ning was the Word, and the Word was vdth God, and the Word was God.' The rest of the Gospel corre sponds to this great sublimity of its commencement. He freely gave what he had freely received. For it is not without reason that it is said of him in this very Gospel, that he leaned on the breast of the Lord at the Last Supper. From that breast he imbibed in secret, and what he had imbibed in secret he gave out openly." (Tract, in Johan. 36.) THE FOUE GOSPELS. 173 Origen also says : " It is not too much to affirm that as the Gospels are the chief of aU writings, so the Gospel of John is the chief of the Gospels ; but no. one can understand it except by reclining on the bosom of Jesus ; and so far indeed he must become another John, as John by sympathy becomes another Jesus." (Com. in Johan.) ¦ But the most characteristic description of the peculiar style of John is by Matthias Claudius, an eccentric German writer. He says : " It delights me most of all to read in St. John, There is in him soraething, so entirely wonderful, twilight and night, and through it. the swiftly-darting lightning — a soft evening cloud, and behind the cloud the broad full moon bodily ; some thing so deeply, sadly pensive, so high, so full of antici pation, that one cannot have enough of it. In reading John, it is with me always as though I saw him before me, lying on the bosom of his Master, at the Last Supper ; as though his angel were holding the light for me, and in certain passages would fall upon my neck, and whisper something in my ear. " I am far frora understanding everything which I read, but it often seems to rae as if what^ John meant were floating before me in the distance ; and even where I look into a passage altogether dark, I have a foretaste of some great, glorious meaning, which I shall one day understand, and for this reason I grasp so eagerly after every new interpretation of the Gospel of John. Indeed the most of them only crisp* the "' See Goethe's ' Faust.' Scene first. " Your speeches, I say, which are so highly poUshed, iu which ye crisp the shreds of humanity, are unrefreshing as the mist-wind which whistles through the withered leaves in autumn." 174 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. evening cloud, and the moon behind has quiet rest." (Claudius's Works, vol. L p. 9). The witnesses to John's Gospel are Barnabas, Pastor Herraas, Clement of Rorae, Papias, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, the Letter to Diognetus, the Letter of the' Churches of Vienne and Lyons, Irenseus, Polycrates, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Cleraent of Alex andria, TertuUian, Caius of Rome, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, Eusebius, Dorotheus of Tyre, Victorinus of Pettau, Epiphanius, Jerome. Theodore of Mopsuestia, who lived in the latter part of the fourth century, preserves the foUowing curious tradition respecting John's Gospel, which is well worthy of .regard. Towards the close of the apostle's, long life, the three first Gospels were laid before him by his neighbouring ministers, to which he gave his sanction, but said that important par ticulars had been omitted, and at their earnest re quest he supplied those omissions in the Gospel which he then wrote. ¦ (Wordsworth on Canon, pp. 136-7.) We now give a specimen of the., testimony above referred to. Ignatius: "He also is the gate of the Father, by whom enter in Abrahara and Isaac and Jacob, and the prophets and the apostles and the church. (John x. 9<) Ad Philadelph. c. 9. " Wherefore as the Lord without the Father doeth nothing." (John vUL 28.) Ad Magn. c. 7. " But living water also speaking in me, says \vithin rae, corae to the Father; I rejoice not in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this Ufe;. I desire the THE POUE GOSPELS. 175 bread of God, the heavenly bread; the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, afterwards born of the seed of David ; and I desire the drink which is the blood, which is love incomiptible and life eternal." (John vL 32, 33, 45 ; xiv. 51-58.) Ad Rom. c. 7. Justin Martyr : " For Christ himself says. Except ye be born again ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.^' (John iii. 4, 5.) Apol. i. 89. "And Jesus Christ was begotten, the only genuine Son of God, being His Word." (John i. 1 , 19.) Apol. u. 68. "But the word of God is His Son." Apol. ii. 95. " By the Word of God Jesus Christ our Saviour was made flesh." (John i. 14.) Apol. iL 98. " But the men supposed him (John Baptist) to be Christ, among whom he cried, I am not the Christ, but the voice of one crying," etc. (John i. 20, 23.) Dial, p. 316. " And he gave himself to be touched by them, and he showed the prints of the nails in his hands. (John XX. 27.) De Resurrect. Epistle to Biogndus : " This (the Word) is the same who was from the beginning." (John i. 1.) Epistle of the Churches at Vienne and Lyons : " And that was fulfilled which was predicted by our Lord in these words. The time will come when whosoever killeth you wiU think he doeth God service," (John xvi. 2.) Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' v. 1. Barnabas, xii. : " And again Moses makes a type of Jesus, to show that he was to die, and then that he, whom they thought to be dead, was to give life to 176 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. others, in the type of those that fell in Israel. For God caused all sorts of serpents to bite thera, and they died ; forasmuch as by a serpent transgression began in Eve ; that so he might convince them that for their transgressions they shall be delivered into the pain of death. Moses then hiraself, who had coraraanded them saying, Ye shall not make to yourselves any graven or molten iraage, to be your god, yet now did so himseifj- that he might represent to them the figure of the Lord Jesus. For he made a brazen serpent, and set it up on high, and called the people together by a proclamation ; where being come, they entreated Moses that he would make an atonement for thera, and pray that they might be healed." (John ifl. 14.) Pastor Hermas : " But the door is the Son of God,':. who is the only access to God. No one therefore wifl enter in to God otherwise than by his Son." (John x. 7-9.) Simfl. ix. 12. Clement of Boms : " Our Lord Jesus Christ, . . . . ; being beaten by the servants of the high priest answered, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil, but if well, why smitest thou rae." Kirchhofer, p. 144. Irenseus : " Afterwards John, the disciple of our Lord, the same that lay upon his bosom, also pubUshed the Gospel, whfle he was yet at Ephesus in Asia." Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' v. 8. " All the elders testify, who were conversant with John the disciple of our Lord in Asia, that John delivered these things." Adv. Hser. ii. 22. "John, the disciple of our Lord, announcing this faith thus began, in - the doctrine which THE FOUE GOSPELS. 177 is 'according to the Gospel, In the beginning was the Word." (John L 1.) Adv. Hser. ifl. 11. '..Polycrates : " Moreover John, who rested on the bosom of our Lord, who was a friend that bore the sacerdotal plate, and a teacher and witness, lies buried at Ephesus." (John xiu. 23.) Euseb. 'Eccl. Hist.' iii. 31. Tatian : " All things were made by him, and with out him was not anything made." (John i. 3.) Orat. cont Grsec. 158. " And this also is said, The darkness did not compre hend the light. The Word indeed is the light of God." (John i. 5.) Orat. 132. " God is a spirit" (John iv. 24.) Orat p. 144. 'Athenagoras: "But the Son of God is the Word of the Father, in idea and in work ; for by him and through him were all things made, the Father and the Son being one ; the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son by the union and power of the Spirit, for the Son of God is both the mind and the Word of the Father." (John i. 3 ; x. 30, 38.) Legat. 10. " For God was from the beginning, being eternal mind ; and He himself had the Word in himself, being eternaUy endowed with the Word. (John i. 1, 2.) Legat. 10. Theophilus: "As the Holy Scriptures and all who have the Spirit teach us, among whora John says. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God ; signifying that God alone was in the beginning and that the Word was in Him. And then he says. The Word was God, and all things were made by Him, and without Him there was not anything made." (John i. 1-3.) Ad. AutoL fl. N 178 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Clement of Alexandria : " John, last of all, perceiving that what had reference to the body in the Gospel of our Saviour was sufficiently detafled, and being en couraged by his particular friends and urged by the Spirit, he wrote a spiritual Gospel." Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' vi. 14, compare iii. 24. ' . ,¦; TertuUian : " Of the apostles, John and Matthew publish the faith to us." Ad. Marc. iv. 2. Origen : " What shall we say of him who recUne| on the breast of Jesus, I mean John ? who has left one Gospel, in which he confesses that he could write so many that the whole world could not contain themi" Euseb. ' Eccl. Hist' vL 25. : Dionysius of Alexandria : " The Gospel and Epist]^ (of ,John) mutually agree ; for the one says. In the beginning was the Word, and the other. That which ¦ was from the beginning ; the one says, The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory; the glory as of the only begotten of the Father ; the other says the sarae things a little altered. That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, and which our hands have handled of the Word of life, and the life was manifested." Euseb. ' Eccl. Hist.' viL 25. , Victorinus of Pettau: "For he (John) afterwards wrote the Gospel." Lardner iv. 211. Borotheus of Tyre : " John, the brother of James,> who was made the evangelist of the Lord, whom also the Lord loved, proclaimed iu Asia the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ." .De Vit. et raort. proph. Eusebius: "The Gospel of John coraprehends the first events of Christ, but the others the history that took place at the latter part of the tlnae. It is probable^. THE FOUE GOSPELS. 179 therefore, that for these reasons John has passed by in sflence the genealogy of our Lord, because it was written by Matthew and Luke ; but that he coramenced ^th the doctrine of the divinity, as a part reserved for him by the Divine Spirit, as if for a superior. Let this suffice to be said respecting the Gospel of John." 'Eccl. Hist' in. 24. • - Epiphanius : " Wherefore also the blessed John coming, and seeing men busying theraselves with the lower coming of Christ, and the Ebionites deducing the bodfly genealogy of Christ frora Abrahara said not that the Word of God, whora the Father begat from eternity, was from Mary alone, nor from Joseph the husband of the virgin, but, In the beguining was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Hser. Ixix. 23. ¦Jerome : " The Apostle John, whom Jesus especially loved, the son of Zebedee and the brother of the Apostle James, whom Herod beheaded after the Passion of our Lord, wrote the Gospel last of all, being called thereto by the bishops of Asia, against Cerinthus and other heretics, and especiaUy the dogmas of the Ebionites, who assert that Christ did not exist before Mary." Catal. Scrip. Eccl. c. 9. " He wrote this Gospel in Asia, after he had written the Apocalypse in the island of Patmos — the last of the Gospels." Prsef. in Cod. Antiq. EELATION OF THE GOSPELS TO EACH OTHER. In the four evangelists we have a fourfold picture of the Saviour ; the same perfect character as it im- 180 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. pressed its image on four minds of different structure and habits ; and the picture in each instance receives a different shade of colouring in consequence of the parr ticular purpose and genius of each writer. Matthew developes the character of Christ in the way best adapted to take hold of the devout Jews, lookijig for the hope of their fathers as promised in the Old Testament. Mark ^vrites for the grave, severe, matter' of fact Roman ; Luke, for the versatile and learnedi Greek, whose eager curiosity could never sleep; and John, for the deeply reflecting, philosophical spirit, which feels keenly the want of that which, earth cannot afford, and whose intense desires remain unsatisfied amid all the physical and intellectual luxuries that satiate the rest of raankind. Matthew exhibited the huraan and subordinate ; John, the spiritual and divine of the Redeemer ; Mark, his official character ; and Luke, his personal history. In the four we have Jesus represented to us as the Messiah, the Teacher, the Pattern, and the God, (Com* pare Olshausen's Introduction to his ' Commentary on the New Testament.') Throughout the Bible God recognizes the principle of approaching different minds by different means, and has so arranged his word that no constitutional pecu liarity remains untouched. Whatever may be your peculiar temperament or habits of mind, in the Bible you will find a Redeemer adapted to your wants, and a Gospel suited to your condition. Try the character and claims of Jesus by the various and pressing spiritual necessities of men, and see how exactly he answers. to .them all ; with what certainty he leads every variety of THE FOUE GOSPELS. 181 Character submitted to his direction towards its own proper perfection ; by what appropriate methods he corrects every evil disposition and soothes every sorrow ; how equally he reveals himself to the most enlightened and the least instructed of those who make him their Saviour ; how uniformly all his precepts are fitted to the nature and condition of men, and tend to promote their highest happine-ss; how strong a hold he has on the warmest and raost devoted affections of all who choose him for their friend; with what undeviating confidence they trust him, and with what unshaken faith they preserve the consciousness of his presence and love ; and how this confidence and faith, when regulated by his instructions) never fails to irapart unalloyed im provement to the intellect and the affections ; how hope by his influence continues steady through every kind of worldly trial, and brightens to rapturous vision when man is called to nature's last struggle. Consider, also, that all this influence has been steadily increasing frora its first commenceraent, and that the number, the zeal, the inteUigence, and the power of those who act under it was never so great as at the present time, and never so rapidly increasing. Contemplate all this, as it actually occurs in this cold, sensual world ; and awed by a miracle really mure stupendous than the darkness and the earth quake, the rending rocks and the opening graves of the crucifixion-day, vrill you not exclaim with the Roman soldier. Truly this man was the Son of God! (Mark XV. 39.) I ask the reader's careful attention to the following extracts from Augustin, as admirably translated by Dr. Wordsworth, in the introduction to his ' Commentary on 182 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. the New Testament' I insert them here because the fathers had ways of looking at the books of the Bible which in our day have nearly become obsolete, and which ought in some raeasure at least to be revived. The in credulity of our own times in regard to the Bible is due, not so much to the want of evidence, as to the want of that reverence and affection and admiration of the Scriptures which so distinguished the Christians of the early ages. " We concur with those," says St. Augustin, " who, in interpreting the Vision of the Four Living Creatur& in the Apocalypse, which represent the four Gospels, assign the Lion, the king of all beasts, to St. Matthew; and the Ox, the sacrificial victim, to St. Luke. The Apocalypse itself says, ' The Lion of the tribe of Judah prevailed to open the book ;' and thus it designates the Lion as symbolical of Christ our King. " St. Mark follows St. Matthew, and relates what Christ did in his human nature, without special refer ence to his functions as king or priest, and is therefore fitly symbolized in the Apocalyptic vision as the Man. "These three Living Creatures — the Lion, the Ox, the Man — walk on the earth. The first three evangel ists describe especially those things which Christ did in our flesh, and relate the precepts which he delivered on the duties to be performed by us while we walk on earth and dwell in the flesh. But St. John soars to heaven as an Eagle, above the clouds of human infirmity, and reveals to us the mysteries of Christ's Godhead, and of the Trinity in unity, and the felicities of life eternal ; and gazes on the Ught of immutable truth with a keen and steady ken. THE POUE GOSPELS. 183 " The first three evangeUsts inculcate the practical duties of active life; St. John dwells on the ineffable mysteries of the contemplative: the former speak of labour, the last speaks of rest : the former lead the way, the last shows our home. In the former we are •j^lpansed from sin, in the last we enjoy the beatific vision promised to the pure in heart who vrill see God. , " He, who is the last in order, declares more fully the divine nature of Christ, by which he is equal to and one with the Father, and in which he made the world ; as if this evangelist, who reclined on the bosom of Christ at , supper, had imbibed in a larger stream the mystery of his divinity frora his lips. "This evangelic quaternion is the fourfold car of the Lord, upon which he rides throughout the world, and subdues the nations to his easy yoke. The rays- tery of his royalty and priesthood, which was foretold by prophecy; is proclairaed in the Gospel. The sarae ^Jjord Christ who sent the prophets before his descent from heaven into this world, has now sent his apostles after his ascension. He is the head of all his dis ciples ; and since his disciples have written those things which he did and said, we are not to affirm with some, that Christ wrote nothing. They wrote, as his members, ^what they knew, from the dictation of him who is their head. Whatsoever he willed that we should know of ,his own words and deeds, this he comraanded thera to write, as it were, by his own hand. Whoever, therefore, rightly comprehends the fellowship of unity, and the ministry of his members acting harmoniously in dif ferent functions under their Divine Head, will receive what he reads in the Gospel from the narration of the 184 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. evangelists, with no other feeling than if he saw the very hand of Christ himself, which he has in his own body, performing the act of writing. " In the first three evangelists, the gifts of active virtue, — in the last, St. John, those of contemplative, shine forth. To one man is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to another the word qf knowledge by the same Spirit. One drinks wisdom from the bosom of Christ ; another man is raised to the third heaven, and hears unutterable words. But as long as they are in the body all are absent from the Lord. And all who believe •with good hope, and are written in the Book of Life, have this promise reserved to them, — I wiU love-him, and wiU manifest mysdf to him. In proportion as we make greater progress in knowledge and intelligence in this mortal pilgrimage of life, let us be more and more on our guard against two devflish sins, pride and envy. Let us remember, that as St. John elevates us more and more to the conteraplation of the truth, so much the more does he instruct us in the sweetness of love. That precept is most healthful and true, — The greater thou art the more humble thyself, and thou shalt find.: favour before the Lord. The evangelist who reveals to us Christ more sublimely than the rest, he also shows us the humility of Christ washing his disciples' feet." 185 CHAPTER VII. THE APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. COMPAEISON OP THE CANONICAL GOSPELS WITH THE APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS STILL EXTANT. The impugners of the New Testament Gospels appeal to the fact that there are gospels acknowledged to be apocryphal, as a proof of their theory that our recognized Gospels are also myths or forgeries. Any one who candidly examines these spurious gospels, and compares them with the New Testament, will find in them, not a refutation of our sacred writers, but a most convincing testimony to their intelligence, honesty, and superna tural inspiration. So totally diverse are they from the genuine Gospels, in conception, in spirit, in execution, in their whole impression, in aU respects so entirely unlike, so immeasurably inferior, that the New Testa ment only shines the brighter by the contrast. They have scarcely so much resemblance to the genuine Gospels as the monkey has to a man. The inspiration of the canonical books is proved quite as strongly by what they omit as by what they insert ; and this ray of evidence shines out very clearly 186 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. on a comparison of the apocryphal gospels with the Gospels of the New Testaraent. .,i An elaborate history and collection of these writings was first published by Fabricius near the beginning of the last century. The first volume of a new and critical edition was issued at Halle by Thilo in 1832. Professor Norton has given an account of them in the third volume of his work on the ' Genuineness of the Gospels,' but with an incredulity in regard to the testi mony of the ancients which amounts alraost to credu- lousness ; yet it is very useful to be studied in connec tion with other and more credulous authorities. UU- mann gives a very good abstract pf them in his treatise entitled Historisch oder Mythisoh, and Guericke, in his ' Introduction to the New Testament,' makes a brief and intelligible catalogue of them. Quite recently Dr. Hoffinann of Leipzig has compfled a life of Jesus accord^' ing to the Apocrypha, accompanied with learned anno tations. English translations oY the principal apocryphal writings of the New Testament have been collected and published both in England and the United States. If this has been done with any purpose of bringing dis credit on our genuine New Testament, the design has most signally failed, for on every fair-minded and intelli gent reader they must produce directly the oppo.site effect Fabricius gave the titles of about fifty of such spu rious writings, and the industry of subsequent investi gations has added to the number ; but scarcely one tenth part of these are now extant, and probably there were never more than ten or a dozen distinct works of the kind, the others being different recensions of the APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 187 same narrative, or different titles of the same work, or ¦ mere repetitions of each other. The best editions of the aprocryphal gospels are the two following, to wit, that by Thilo, published at Halle in 1832, who gives twelve ; and that by Tischendorf, published at Leipsic in 1854, who gives twenty-two. Not all of them, however, can with propriety be called gospels. Mahomet derives his idea of Christ almost entirely from the apocryphal gospels, not at all from the genuine. THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS. Not more than seven of these now remain which are worthy of notice, three of them in the Greek language, two in the Latin, and two in the Arabic. They are the foUowing : 1. The Protevangelium of James the brother of the Lord, of which the full original title is this : Beclara- tion and history how the most holy mother of God was born for our salvation. This seeras to be the most ancient and valuable of these books. It was first made known in Europe by W. Postel, about the middle of the sixteenth century, and was pubUshed by Fabricius in his ' Codex Apoc. Nov. Test.' The principal part of it is pccupied (cap. 1-20) with the history of the birth and childhood of Mary, and the circumstances attending the birth of Christ. Then follows briefly, and much in the manner of our Gospels (cap. 21, 22), the visit of the Magi and the flight into Egypt ; and it concludes (cap. 23, 24) with an extended description of the murder of Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist. The style of this gospel is far more simple and pure 188 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. than that of any other of these apocryphal narratives,' though in this respect, as in all others, it is immeasur ably below the canonical books. Some things men tioned in it are alluded to by Justin Martyr and Clemens Alexandrinus, and the book is expressly quoted by Origen. It was in existence, at least a part of it, as early as the third century, though it was much later than that before it was ascribed to the brother of our Lord, or took the title of Protevangelium. It was for a long time held in high estimation by the Greek church, and publicly read at their festivals, especially those which pertained to Mary. Very probably many of the early church traditions respecting Mary are preserved in it ; and in this respect it may gratify a curiosity for which the canonical Gospels raake very little provision. 2. The Greek Gospel of Thomas. This is one of the most extravagant of the apocryphal books, and pro fesses to give a minute account of Jesus from the fifth to the twelfth year of his age. It is fiUed with muracles which are wholly ridiculous, and some of them decidedly imraoral and raalevolent. The beginning and close of the book are very fragmentary. Irenseus (adv. Hser. i. 17) refers to some things contained in the bobk, and Origen (' Hom. in Luc' i.) expressly mentions it. There is not a shadow of probability that it was written by Thomas the Apostle. It is evidently of heretical origin, and was highly esteemed and in great use among the Manichseans. It is probably of considerably later date than -the preceding one, and its Greek style is very impure. 3. The Greek Gospel of Nicodemus. This, next to APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 189 the Protevangelium, is the most important and respect able, as well as the raost widely circulated of the apoq- ryphal gospels. It is divided into two unequal parts, which seem originally to have been separate works. The first part (cap. 1-16) contains a minute descrip tion 9f the examination of Jesus before Pilate, and of his crucifixion and resurrection, and appears to be a remodelling and amplification of certain epistles and acts of Pilate, which are very early raentioned, but have not come down to us in a reliable shape. (See Justin llartyr, 'Apol.' L 76, 84 ; Tertull. ' Apol.' 21 ; Ores. 'Hist.' vu. 4 ; Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' U. 2). It is probably of Jewish-Christian origin, and written for the purpose of effecting unbelieving Jews by the example of Annas and Caiaphas, who, it alleges, were converted by the testiraony of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. (The second part (cap. 19-27) describes Christ's descent into Hades, and the wonderful things he accom plished there. This is apparently raore modem than the first part. Some Latin manuscripts have an addi tional chapter, in which Annas and Caiaphas make oath before Pilate that they are convinced, from all the testimony, that the Jesus, condemned and executed at itheir instigation, is truly the Son of God. There are also printed with it, by Thflo, letters of Pilate to the Emperors Claudius and Tiberius. The book, in its present form, cannot have been earlier than the fifth century, and was probably much later. It is not expressly mentioned until the thirteenth century. The prologue, which states that it was written in the Hebrew language by Nicodemus in the time of Christ, and translated into Greek by a Jewish Christian, 190 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. named Ananias, during the reign of the Emperoi" Theodosius, is evidently a mere fiction. The book was held in high esteem during the middle ages ; and before the invention of the art of printing it had been translated into 'Latin, Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon, German, and French. ' 4. The Latin Gospel of the Nativity of Mary. This probably belongs to the sixth century. The prologue, which states that it was written by Matthew, and trans lated into Latin by Jerome, deserves no regard. It goes over the same ground as the Protevangelium, but is more minute as to the birth of Mary, and more con densed on the other points. 5. TJie Latin History of the Nativity of Mary and of the Infancy of the Saviour. The first part (cap. 1-17), from the annunciation of Mary to the Bethlehem mas sacre, follows mainly the Protevangelium, though with considerable variations and amplifications ; whfle the latter part, the childhood of the Saviour, is more like the apocryphal books which we find in the Arabic language. 6. The Arabic History of Joseph the.. Carpenter. In this book Christ is introduced as discoursing with his disciples, and gives them a long and marvellous account of the life, death, and burial of Joseph. Its Arabic style has an air of antiquity about it, though it is some what bombastic. It seems to be the product of a Jewish Christian, and a translation from the Hebrew. It may possibly, in its present form, be as early as the third or fourth century. 7. The Arabic Gospd of the Childhood of the Re deemer. This book was in high esteem, among the Nestorians, and may have been the product of some APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 191 Nestorian Christian of the fifth or sixth century, and originally written in Syriac. Cap. 1-9 relates minutely the birth of Christ ; 10-26 the flight into Egypt, and the wonderful miracles wrought by his presence, his clothes, the water in which he had been washed, etc. ; 27-35 another course of miracles through the instiga- sion of Mary ; 36-49 miracles wrought by the boy of his own accord, all of them childish, some of them obscene ; and cap. 50 relates a visit made to the temple at Jerusalera. ABSTRACT OF THE APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. Having thus given an account of these books, it remains that we present an outline of their contents, in order to afford opportunity for a comparison between them and the genuine. To avoid repetition, it will be most convenient to do this in the forra which UUmann has adopted in the work above referred to, namely, by grouping into one view what is said in the different books respecting the same person or subject. Each subject, however, has some one book particulaily de voted to it, so that an analysis of a subject is generally the analysis of a book. We begin with Joseph. According to the Arabic History of Joseph (No. 6), Christ, seated in the midst of his disciples on the Mount of Olives, relates for substance^ the following story: "Joseph, well acquainted with the arts and sciences, was a priest in the temple of the Lord ; but he pursued his carpenter's trade, and lived, even in Egypt, by the labour of his hands, that, according to the law, be might not, for his support, be chargeable to any one. 192 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. He was highly distinguished, not only by his intellectual qualities, but also by the physical ; he never suffered from weakness, his sight never failed, he never lost a tooth nor had the toothache, he never lost his presence of mind, he always walked erect, he never had a pain in his limbs, and was always fresh and cheerful for labour. He lived to be a hundred and twelve years old ; and it was not till near the close of his life that he felt any dirainution of the liveliness and vigour of his mind or body, or lost in any degree his interest in his handicraft. An angel announced to him his approach ing death. He prayed God not to permit frightful- looking demons to come in his way, nor the gate keepers of paradise to obstruct the entering in of his soul, nor the lions to rush upon him, nor the waves of the fiery sea, through which his soul must pass, to overwhelra him, before he had seen the glory of God. In the anguish of death Joseph cursed hiraself, his life, the day of his birth, the breasts he had sucked; he heaped all kinds of accusations against himself, besides original sin, all kinds of actual sin, untruthfulness, hypocrisy, reproachfulness, fraud, and many others. In this distress he calls upon Jesus, the Nazarene, as his Saviour and deliverer, his Lord and God; begs his pardon that he, through ignorance, had sinned against the mystery of his miraculous birth by an unworthy suspicion, and then concludes : ' 0 my Lord and God, be not angry, and condemn me not on account of that hour ; I am thy seirvant, and the son of thy handmaid, and thou art my Lord, my God and Saviour, the Son of God in truth.' This earnest prayer of Joseph not to be forsaken being satisfactory, Jesus laid his hand upon APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS, 193 the bosom of the dying man, and perceived that his soul was about to flee out of his mouth ; and from the south he sees death and hell approaching with their fiery troop; and then, at his prayer, the archangels Michael and Gabriel appear, receive the soul of Joseph, enfold it in a lustrous garraent, and protect it from the demons of darkness which are found on the way. At the lamentations of the faraily, Nazareth and Galflee come together and take part in the mourning. Jesus utters a prayer which he had coraposed before he was born of Mary ; and as soon as he says ' Araen,' a multi tude of the heavenly host draw near ; he comraands one of thera to spread out a resplendent shroud, and therein enwrap the body of Joseph. Then he blessed the dead ; no smell of death should proceed from him, no worm should touch him, no limb should be decoraposed, no hair should fall from his head ; but he should remain entire and uninjured till the millennial feast. After wards the most distinguished men in the city come to array Joseph in his grave-clothes, but they cannot remove from him the linen garment; so closely and immovably does it adhere to his body, that they cannot find a single fold by which they can seize hold of it" The apostles, to whora Jesus relates all this, only wonder that Joseph, the just one, whom Jesus calls his father, whose festival by the coraraand of Jesus all the world raust annually celebrate, was not, by the rairaculous power of Jesus, raade imraortal, like Enoch and Elijah. To this Jesus replies, that by Adam' all men, without exception, who descended from him, are made mortal — that this is the fate which even Enoch and Elijah, who as yet retain their bodies, wiU experience at the final 0 194 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. consummation, when four will be slain by Anti-Christ, namely, Enoch and Elijah, Shilo and Tabitha. Towards the close of the book the celebration of Joseph's festival is most earnestly enjoined, as also the copying and circulating of this history of Joseph. Who ever, on the festival of Joseph, distributes alms, or offers gifts and prayers, shaU be rewarded thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold; whoever copies the history of his life, him will Christ comraend to the special protection of God for perfect absolution ; the poor, who have nothing to give, raust at least give the name of Joseph to a new bom son, and thus protect hira frora poverty and sudden death ; and finally, as Christ in the canonical Gospels says, "Go and teach all nations," so here he says, " Proclaim to them the death of my father Joseph, celebrate his birth with a yearly festival ; and he who adds to this word or takes from it, is guilty of sin." In reading such a Gospel as this, what a totally dif ferent atmosphere we breathe from that of the canonical Gospels. We are transported at once to another age, to a different planet, to a totally diverse world of ideas. It is as different from the New Testament Gospels as ' Jack the Giant Kfller ' is from Bunyan's ' Pilgrim's Progress.' Yet it was written in or near the same country as the canonical Gospels, and probably not many generations later. Maey. Here we derive our information mainly from the book already quoted (No. 6.), from the Protevanger, Hum (No. 1), from the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary (No. 4), and from the History of the Nativity of Mary (No. 5). In the History of Joseph (No. 6), Jesus makes, the following statements respecting his mother, namely, APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 195 that when she was three years old she was brought into the temple, and remained there nine years, till she was twelve. At the close of this period, on consultation with the ' priests, that the change of constitution raight not occur to her in the teraple, and thereby God be incensed, it was resolved to give her to a just and pious raan. Twelve venerable men from the tribe of Judah were called together, and the lot cast, by which she was given to Joseph, who took her away. With Joseph Mary found children of a former raarriage, among them James, whom she brought up, and thence she was called the mother of James. In the fourteenth year of Mary's age, Christ, with the approbation of the Father, and the concurrence of the Holy Ghost, accomplished through her his incarnation, being bom in a raysterious way which no created being can understand. The birth, on account of which Joseph went with Mary to Bethlehem, occurred in that prophetic city in a cave near the grave of Rachel. Satan inforraed Herod of it, and this occasioned the persecution and flight into Egypt Says Jesus : " Then Joseph arose and took ray mother, and I rested in her bosom, and Salome accompanied us on our journey to Egypt." The family remained in Egypt a year, and Jesus relates all the circumstances, as if he had the most perfect recollections of them. The account of Mary in the Protevangelium is far more minute and circumstantial. In this narrative she is in a miraculous manner promised to her parents, Joachim and Anna, who had long been childless, and mourned and suffered rauch on that account. When Mary was six months old, her mother put her on the floor to see whether she could stand, and she walked seven steps 196 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. and then came back to the arms of her mother. In her third year she was brought into the temple attended by a company of pure virgins, and was received by the high priest with the eulogistic words : " Mary, the Lord hath exalted thy name araong all generations, and in the last days God will reveal to thee the treasures of his rederaption for the sons of Israel." Then the high priest placed her on the third step of the altar, and she sprang upon her feet and the whole house of Israel loved her. Mary was now brought up Uke a dove in the temple of the Lord, and received her food from the hand of an angel. By a revelation made to the high priest, at twelve years of age she must be betrothed to an Israelite for her protection, and this her protector raust be pointed out by a divine token. All the widowers of the people were to come together with their staves ; and he on whose staff the sign appeared, was to take her away. A dove flew out from the staff of Joseph, the last one, and rested upon his head ; and then, notwith standing his reluctance, Mary was given to him. , When Mary first went out to draw water, she heard a voice : " Hafl, thou favoured one, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women." She looked, about her to the right and left to see whence the voice proceeded ; and when she returned to the house, the angel of the Lord met her, and announced to her that she would be the mother of the Son of God. Joseph, when he some time after returned from his work, was exceedingly shocked at the appearance of Mary, and broke out into the most bitter complaints against her, both on her account and on his own. She resolutely asserted her purity. The affair came to the ears of the high priest, APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 197 who called them before him and loaded them with re proaches. Mary affirmed that she was pure, and Joseph that he was innocent ; and they both passed the ordeal by drinking the water of proof, and with a result so clear that the high priest acquitted them. Soon after, on account of the enrolment, they took their journey to Bethlehem ; and on the way Joseph, perceiving that Mary is sometimes sad and sometimes laughing, inquires of her the cause. She answers: "I see two nations before mine eyes, the one sighing and weeping, the other exulting and laughing." When the time of her delivery drew near, Joseph placed her in a cave and went out to seek a nurse. And here for a few sentences we will give the narrative literally as it is contained in the gospel. " As I was going (said Joseph) I looked up into the air and I saw the clouds astonished, and the fowls of the air stopping in the raidst of their flight. And I looked down towards the earth, and I saw a table spread, and working people sitting around it, but their hands were upon the table and they did not raove to eat. They who had meat in their mouths did not eat, they who lifted their hands to the table did not draw them back, and they who Ufted them up to their mouths did not put anything in, but all their faces were fixed upwards. And I beheld there sheep dispersed, and yet the sheep stood still, and the shepherd lifted up his hand to sraite them, and his hand continued up. And I looked into the river, and saw the kids with their raouths close to the water, and touching it, but they did not drink. Then I beheld a woman coraing down from the moun tains, and she said to me, ' Whither art thou going, 0 198 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. man ?' And I said to her, ' I go to inquire for a Hebrew midwife.' She replied to me, ' Where is the woman that is to be delivered ?' And I answered, ' In the cave, and she is betrothed to me.' Then said the midwife, ' Is she not thy wife ?' Joseph answered, ' It is Mary,; who was educated in the holy of hoUes, in the house of the Lord, and she fell to rae by lot, and is not my wife, but hath conceived by the Holy Ghost' The midwife said, ' Is this true ?' He answered, ' Come and see.' And the midwife went along with hira and stood in the cave. Then a bright cloud overshadowed the cave, and the midwife said, ' This day my soul is magnifie|i, for mine eyes have seen surprising things, and salvation is brought forth to Israel.' But on a sudden the cloud became a great light in the cave, so that their eyes could not bear it. But the light gradually decreased, until the infant appeared, and sucked the breast of his mother Mary. Then the midwife cried out, and said, ' How glorious a day is this, wherein mine eyes have. seen this extraordinary sight ?' And the midwife went out of the cave, and Salome met her. And the midwife said to her, ' Salome, Salome, I wfll tell you a most surprising thing which I saw. A virgin hath brought forth, which is a thing contrary to nature.' To which Salome replied, ' As the Lord my God liveth, unless I receive particular proof of this matter I vrill not believe that a virgin hath brought forth.' " The narrative goes on to inform us that Salome entered the cave, and proceeded to examine that she might have demonstration of this wonderful fact, when her hand was seized with a blazing fire and excruciating pain ; and it was only by earnest prayer and the inter4 APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 199 position of a miracle, an angel directing her to take the child in her arms, that she was rescued. The Latin Gospel of the Birth of Mary (No. 4) is simflar to the preceding, but has some things peculiar to itself According to this, as many of the greatest and most holy persons were born of mothers before unfruitful, such was the case also with Mary. She was promised to her mother, Anna, as a special gift of God, by an angel, who also predicted her course of life. In her third year, having been taken by her parents to the temple, without a leader she walked up the steps like an adult; and hereby the Lord indicated her future destination. During her residence in the temple, she was daily visited by angels and enjoyed the visions of God, whereby she was protected from all evil and filled with all good. In her fourteenth year, by the direction of the priest, she with her companions were to be betrothed. They cpnsented, but Mary resisted because she had vowed perpetual virginity. The priest in perplexity asked for a divine oracle, and was pointed to Isaiah xi. 1. In order now to espouse her to some one, he called together all the unmarried raen of the house of David. They were to appear with their staves, and he whose staff should blossom, or upon which the Spirit of the Lord should rest in the form of a dove, should be affianced to the virgin, and take her under his protection. The decision was in favour of Joseph, for a dove came from heaven and seated itself upon his staff. During her residence in the house of Joseph, the angel of the annunciation appeared to her, and she at once recognized him as a heavenly messenger, for she had already become familiar with such appearances. 200 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. The angel promised to her a son, whom she would conceive and bring into the world without sin and with virginity intact. Mary wished to know how this were possible ; and the angel informed her that it would be vrithout the aid of raan, solely by the Holy Ghost and the power of the Most High. The sarae general features pervade the other History of the Nativity of Mary (No. 5), though with enlarge ments and additions, and still greater extravagances. According to this, Mary, when three years old, was like an adult ; her face glistened like the snow, so that one could scarcely look at it ; she busied herself with all the labours appropriate to woman, but especially with prayer, in which she continued frora early dawn JiU the third hour of the day, and then again frora the ninth hour onward, till there appeared to her the angel of the Lord, from whose hand she received her food, in order that she might daily grow in the love of God. Never was virgin more pious, more pure, raore virtuous, more lovely, better instructed in the wisdom of the diviue law ; she was firm, always equable, immovable, con stantly increasing in goodness. She took care for her companions that none of thera should fafl in word, or laugh aloud, or do anything wrong. She lived only on angelic food ; the provisions which she received from the priests in the temple she distributed araong the poor. When a sick person touched her, he retumed well to his house. Frequently angels were seen waiting upon her and talking with her. In the choice of a husband for her, three thousand men carae together and deposited their staves with the high priest Joseph, who was highly esteemed as an APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 201 elder, would not take his staff again; but the high priest, Abiathar, caUed after him with a loud voice, and when he received his staff,- out of the top of it there came a dove, whiter than snow, and of great beauty, which flew a long time about the pinnacles of the temple, and then soared away to heaven. Joseph took Mary, and also five other virgins to whom the high priest had assigned work, namely, Rebecca, Sephiphora, Susanna, Abigafl, and Zabel. Mary obtained by lot the most honourable work, namely, the sewing of purple for curtains of the temple ; and on this account the other virgins called her the queen. On the third day, while about her usual employment, an angel of won derful . beauty appeared to her, and made to her the annunciation, etc., etc. Contrast all this fanfaronade of chfldishness, supersti- ti(m, and foolery, with the few brief, simple, and rigidly common-sense notices of Mary, which we find in the four canonical Gospels. Can any two kinds of writings be more utterly unUke ? Cheist. We next turn our attention to the account which these books give of Christ himself. Here the contrast between them and the csinonical Gospels ap pears, if possible, in stfll stronger colours. There is nothiug of the Christ whom we find in the New Testament. All is puerile, bizarre, extravagant. The real dignity, the steady benevolence, the unvarying good sense of the New Testament Christ are wholly unknown. The periods of life selected, and the topics treated, are wholly different from those of the New Testament. Infancy and Childhood of Christ. These topics occur 202 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. in but two of the canonical Gospels, and are there treated very briefly; but they make the great staple of the apocryphal gospels, and are dravm out to a most weari-^ some length. The most minute and characteristic of these narratives is the Arabic Gospel of the Childhood of the Redeemer. According to this book, whfle the chfld . Jesus was lying in his cradle he said to his raother, " I, whora thou hast brought forth, ara Jesus, the Son of God, the Logos, as the angel Gabriel announced to thee; and I ara sent by my Father . for the salvation of the world." At his birth his parents are in a cave, araid the splendour of lights which shine more brightly than the light of the sun. The woman called in by Joseph, as soon as she saw that Mary was the mother, exclaimed, " Thou art not like the daughters of Eve ;" to which Mary replied : " As none araong the children is Uke my child, so his mother has not her like among women." Mary allows the nurse to lay her hands on the chfld, and thus are they made clean. The child is circumcised in the cave, and the Hebrew woman preserves the foreskin in a vessel of spikenard, the same vessel from which afterwards Mary the sinner anointed the head and feet of the Lord. To the Magi, who came in consequence of a prophecy of Zoroaster, Mary gave one of the swaddUng cloths in which the child had been wrapped, and they received it as the choicest treasure. On their return home they held a festival, and, according to their custom in religious worship, kindled a fire, and into it they threw the bandage, which, however, remained unscorched, as if the fire had not touched it. They kissed it, spread it over their heads and eyes, and said, " This is an un doubted truth, verily it is a great thing that the fire APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 203 cannot destroy it." And they took the bandage, and with great reverence preserved it in their treasury. Next comes the narrative of the journey into Egypt, and a loose, disconnected story of the strangest and most trivial miracles. The holy famfly come to a city which is the abode of the most distinguished god in the land ; and the moment they take lodgings in a public house there is great excitement araong the citizens, and they flock to their god to learn the cause. He replies, " An unknown God has arrived here, and he is God in truth ; and besides Him there is no one worthy to be worshipped, for he is indeed the Son of God." In that same hour the idol fell to pieces, and at his fall came all the inhabi tants of Egypt with the other citizens running together ; and a son of the priest, three years old, who was pos sessed of many devfls, being seized with his frenzy, ran to the public house, where Mary was washing and drying her child's linen, one piece of which the demoniac boy caught down and placed upon his head, when immediately the devils came out of his mouth and fled away in the form of rams and snakes. The holy family, proceeding on their journey, came to a den of robbers ; and the robbers hearing a noise, and supposing the king to be approaching with an army, took to flight, leaving behind them their booty and their prisoners. The prisoners stood up and began to break off each other's fetters, and were about to depart with their property, when, seeing the holy family drawing near thera, they asked Joseph what king it was whose perceived approach had put the robbers to flight. Joseph replied, " He is coraing behind us." In the city to which they came next, there met them a demoniac woman. 204 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. who could neither live in a house nor endure clothing'; but the very sight of Mary so completely pacified her, that the devfl fled from her in the forra of a young man. In another city there was a nuptial ceremony, but by the influence of Satan and the magicians, the bride was dumb. She took the Christ-child in her arms, folded him to her bosora, and kissed him, when iraraediately the band of her tongue was loosed. They spent a night in another city, where was a woman whom Satan, in the forra of a serpent, was accustomed to overpower and embrace ; but she took the child in her arms and kissed him, and was thus delivered from Satan's power. This same woman the next day washed the chfld Jesus in perfumed water, which she kept. A girl whose body was white with leprosy, being sprinkled with the water, became entirely well. The people said, " Doubtless Joseph and Mary and their child are gods, for they do not seem to be mortals." The raaiden who was healed, now attended them, and by the wash-water which had cured her, she now performed many miracles; as, for example, she cured the young son of a prince who had been leprous from his birth. They came to another city to spend the night, and put up at the house of a man recently married, but, in consequence of some poison in his system, he was unable to consummate his mar riage. The presence of the chfld Jesus entirely cured him of his infirmity, and he constrained them to stop the next day and feast vrith him. The holy famfly then met three ladies in distress for their brother, who by magic had been transformed into a mule, and they were taking care of him very tenderly in this form. Mary placed the child on the mule, and APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 205 said, " 0 my son, by thy great power restore this mule, and make him what he was before, a rational being ;" whereupon the mule immediately became a beautiful young man, and afterwards raarried the raaiden before referred to, who had been dispossessed of the devfl, and was then attending them. The following night they came upon an encampment of robbers under two leaders, Titus and Dumachus. The first by a gift restrained the other from attacking the holy family, for which Mary blessed him, and Jesus said, " Thirty years from now the Jews in Jerusalem will crucify me and the two robbers with me, Titus on my right hand and Dumachus on my left; and on that day Titus will go before me into paradise." In the neighbourhood of Matarea, Jesus called forth a fountain, in which his mother washed his clothes ; and frora the perspiration which there fell from Jesus, there sprang up an abundance of balsam. They journeyed to Memphis and visited Pharaoh. They abode in Egypt three years, and Jesus wrought raany miracles, which are recorded neither in this Gospel of the Child hood, nor in the Evangdio perfedo. To the above narrative we add some incidents from the Latin History of the Nativity of Mary and the In fancy of the Saviour (No. 5). According to this, during the flight to Egypt, the holy family rested near a cave, out of which many dragons suddenly emerged, where upon Jesus descended from the lap of his mother, and placed himself before the monsters, when they fled, and then turned and worshipped hira. Likewise lions and leopards honoured hira, and even acted as his guides. Lions mingled with the oxen and other beasts of burden which they had with them ; wolves associated with the 206 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. sheep, and they were all equally peaceful and harmless. A tall palm tree, whose fruit was beyond reach, at the command of the child Jesus, bowed itself down to Mary and allowed her to pluck its fruit; and at a second command it restored itself to its original position. From the roots of this palra Jesus caused to flow a spring of the freshest and purest water. A branch of the same palra, at the command of Jesus, was carried into para dise by the angels, there to be a sign of victory to the soldiers of the Christian warfare. When the wanderers were oppressed by heat, Jesus by his word enabled them in one day to perform a journey of thirty days. It is also related here that wheii Jesus entered a temple, the idols all tumbled down. We now return to the Arabic Gospel of the Childhood , (No. 7), which proceeds to give an account of the return to Bethlehem, and of many miracles vyrought by the water in which Jesus had been washed. This sprinkled upon. a child enabled it to remain unhurt in a burning oven. A sick child also was healed by being put into the bed of Jesus and covered vrith his clothes. Maiy often distributed his washing-water as a miraculous tincture, and pieces of his clothing as amulets against all kinds of harm. A demoniac boy, named Judas, was accustoraed in his frenzy to bite at those who were near hira ; and w^hen he was brought near to Jesus he began to snap and strike at him, but Satan soon came out of him in the shape of a mad dog. This was Judas Iscariot, and the same right side on which he struck at Jesus, the Jews afterwards pierced with the lance. Then follow miracles which belong to his later chfld- hood, and which are distinguished from the preceding APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 207 in this respect, that they are not only performed by the power which dwelt in Jesus, but with a more defi nite* consciousness and wfll of his own. Once, in his seventh year, he was playing with other boys, and they were making, with clay, images of oxen, asses, birds, etc., and whfle each was endeavouring to excel the others, the chfld Jesus said, " The figures which I have made I will command to walk." He did so ; and to the astonishment of the other children the clay images walked off, and returned at his command ; he then made sparrows which flew about, obeyed his word, and received food at his hand. At another time, Jesus came into the house of Salera the dyer, and there were clothes there which were to receive different colours. All these Jesus threw iuto one dye-pot, whereupon the dyer coming in was exceedingly angry ; but Jesus said to him, " I wfll give to each piece of cloth the colour you desire ;" and taking them, out, each was dyed as the dyer wished. Then the Jews, who saw this sign and wonder, praised God. Joseph, in his travels to his work, was accustoraed to take the boy Jesus with him, and when anything was made too long or too short, too vride or too narrow (for he was but a bungling carpenter), the child stretched his hands over it, and brought it all right. Once he had a throne to make for the king in Jerusalem, and worked upon it two years. When it was finished, he found it too small for the place where it must be put, and being much cast down about it, the child Jesus bad^ him be of good cheer, and each taking hold of an end of the throne, they pulled upon it till it came to the right size. The throne was made of the figured wood which was in 208 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. use in the time of Solomon. At another tirae, the boys who were playing with hira he turned into little goats," and they hopped about hira and honoured him as their shepherd. The women seeing this, cried out, " 0 ! our Lord Jesus, Son of Mary, thou art indeed the good shepherd of Israel ; have mercy on thy handmaidens." Then, at the entreaty of these women, he restored the boys to their proper shape. In the month Adar, Jesus collected the boys together, as their king. With then: clothes they spread for him a seat, they made him a crown of flowers, placed themselves around hira as his guards, and corapelled all who passed by to do himl honour. Then carae men bearing on a bier a boy who had been bitten by a serpent in the woods. They were compelled to corae up and do homage to the little king. Jesus commanded them to take the wounded boy back to the place where he had received the bite, to force the snake from his hole and compel him to suck out the poison, which was promptly done, and immediately the snake burst asunder. The boy was the Simon Zelotes afterwards mentioned in the Gospels. Once as the boys were playing, one fell from a roof and was kflled. The others fled, but Jesus stood by.= The relatives, coming up, accused Jesus of throwing the child down, but he ordered the boy to arise and give testiraony, which he did, and affirmed that it was another who threw him down. Another time Mary sent him for water, but the pitcher, after he had fiUed it, broke ip his hands ; so he caught the water in his apron and brought it to his mother. One Sabbath day he was playing with other boys by a brook, and he made sparrows which he placed around a little arti- AtOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 209 ficial pool ; but a son of the Jew Hannas, enraged at this profanation of the Sabbath, ran and destroyed the pool. Jesus let the sparrows fly, and then said to the boy, " As the water has disappeared from this pool, so wifl thy life disappear ;" and from that raoment the child sickened, and soon after died. One evening as Jesus was going home with Joseph, a rough, careless boy ran against hira, and he said : " As thou hast over thrown me, so shalt thou be overthrown and not rise again," and immediately the boy feU down and died. Other revengeful acts of the boy Jesus may be found in the Gospel of Thomas (No. 2). Joseph at length gives Jesus to understand that they could no longer be tolerated among parents whose children had been slain by his mischievous power, and Jesus answered : " I know those are not my words, but thine ; nevertheless for thy sake I wfll be silent, but those who have coraplained of me shall receive their punishraent ;" and the com- plainers were soon struck blind. Jesus subsequently restored them to sight, but no one after that dared provoke him to anger. The Gospel of the Childhood and of Thomas have many anecdotes of the schooldays of Jesus, and of his being taught to read. A schoolraaster in Jerusalem, by the name of Zacheus, offered to teach the chfld, and when his parents brought him, the teacher wrote the alphabet, and told the new scholar to pronounce first Aleph and then Beth. Jesus said, " Tell rae the mean ing of Aleph, and then I will pronounce Beth." 'The master threatened to punish him for his iragudence ; but Jesus unfolded the meaning of the letters Aleph and Bdh, and described their different forms and po- 210 I THE BOOKS OP THE BlBLE. sitions in a way the master had never heard of nor read in books ; and then he pronounced the whole alphabet. The master then said, "I beUeve this boy was bom before Noah ;" and sent him back to his parents because he was more learned than all teachers, and had no need of instruction. It fared worse with another more able teacher, who, on a like occasion, struck the boy Jesus, and at once his hand was withered and he died, so that Mary said, " We will not any more let him go out of the house, for all who resist him are punished with death." A third teacher, who hoped to gain the boy's affection, was so astonished at his learning and the knowledge of the law which he manifested to all the bystanders, that he entreated Joseph to take him away. Jesus smiled, and praised the teacher, and said he had spoken well ; and on his account he healed the others. When at the age of twelve he was in the temple at Jerusalem, he asked questions on the different sciences ; he explained the law and the mysteries in the propjietical books, the depth of which no created mind can sound ; he explained to an astronomer all the relations and movements of the heavenly bodies, and the rules of astrology whieh ' are thence derived ; he showed knowledge of aU parts of the huraan body, the fluids and solids, the bones, nerves, and veins — all the faculties of the soul and their relation to each other and to the body; in short^ all kinds of knowledge were entirely familiar to hira ; as the narrative expresses it " the ^ysical and^ the mdaphysical, the hyperphysical and hypophysical, so that a learned philosopher present arose and said, " 0 Lord, from this time onward, I am thy scholar and thy servant." APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 211 From this time Jesus began to withhold the manifesta tions of his knowledge and his power till his thirtieth year. The Beath of Christ and his Descent to Hades. The account of these we find in the Greek Gospel of Nico demus (No. 3). Pilate coraraands an officer to bring Jesus before him, but with gentleness. The officer spreads a cloth before Jesus, for hira to walk on. The Jews complain of this ; and Pfla,te asking him why he had done it, he replied, that he had witnessed the en trance of Jesus into Jerusalem, and noticed how he was honoured. Jesus was made to advance without the cloth, but as he stepped between the soldiers who held the standards, these eagles theraselves bowed down to do him honour. The Jews, observing this, raised their voices in anger against the standard-bearers. Pilate cafled them before him, and inquired why they had done this ; and they assured him that they, as pagans, knew no reason for honouring Jesus, but the standards had done it of themselves. Then Pflate leaves it to the chief of the Jews to make trial for their own satisfaction, and they select twelve of their strongest and bravest men, and commit the two standards, each to a corapany of six, to hold thera before Pilate. They are threatened with death if they allow the standards to bow. But when the officers bring in Jesus, again the standards how and worship hira. Now the Jews complain of Jesus that he is a magician ; that his birth was attended with infamy ; that he was born in Bethlehem, a,nd was the cause of the massacre there ; that his parents fled to Egypt because they dared not confide in the people ; that. he had profaned the Sabbath, etc. During this 212 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. strife Pflate asked Jesus, " What is tmth ?" Jesus answered, " Truth is from heaven." Pilate again — " Is there not truth on earth also ?'' And Jesus answered, " Mark how those who have the truth on earth, are judged by those who have the power on earth'." Then follows the narrative of the crucifixion and resurrection. After this, Joseph of Arimathea had a vision of Jesus, whp appeared to him in a splendid light. Joseph sank down and knew not Jesus, but' Jesus raised him up and said, " Fear not, Joseph ; see me, who I am." Joseph cried out, " Rabboni, Elias." He replied, "I am not Elias, but Jesus of Nazareth, buried by you." For proof, Jesus led Joseph to the tomb in which his body had lain, and showed him the clothes in which the corpse had been wrapped, and then led him back to his house, and, blessing him, separated from him. Joseph of Arimathea afterwards related to Annas and Caiaphas, that Jesus had not risen from the dead alone, but had caUed several others to life, who had appeared in Jerusalem, among them two sons of the high-priest Siraeon, who had taken Jesus in his arms when he was a child. They were then living in Arimathea, but were silent as the dead, and engaged wholly in prayer. Joseph, Nicodemus, Annas, and Caiaphas went immediately to Arimathea, and found thera praying, and brought thera reverently into the synagogue at Jerusalem, where, with closed doors, they adjured thera to disclose the particulars of their resur rection. Charinus and Lenthius (these were their names), when they heard this, trembled and groaned, and they looked towards heaven and made the sign of the cross on their tongues. They then demanded APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 213 writing materials, and when these were brought, they wrote in substance the following narrative : — "They were with the fathers in the dark abyss, when suddenly a golden sunlight entered and shone around them. Father Adam, the patriarchs and prophets, arose and announced the arrival of the Deliverer ; and their father Siraeon, who had taken the infant JeSus in his arms, joined in the announceraent. The whole multitude of the saints rejoiced ; John the Baptist also stepped up and declared what had happened at the baptisra, and that he had come there before Jesus to announce his arrival. Then Adam, . through Seth, in formed the paitriarchs and prophets what he had heard from the archangel Michael, when in his weakness he had sent him to the gates of paradise to get for him some oil from the tree of mercy. Seth related that he was then referred to the coming of Christ on earth ; he should bring to believers the oil of mercy, and should also lead father A.dara into paradise to the tree of raercy. Satan now coraraanded hell to arm against Jesus, who had boasted that he was the Son of God, though still a raan who was afraid of death ; he had himself tempted him while on earth, and excited against him his ancient people the Jews. Yet hell was afraid, for she had felt the power of Jesus, and could not retain Lazarus against his will. Finally the Lord of glory arrived in the shape of a raan, enlightened the eternal darkness, and loosed the perpetual bonds. Death and hell acknowledged theraselves conquered, and against their will celebrated the glory of Jesus. Jesus smote death by his majesty, gave over Satan to the power of hell, and took Adam with him into his glory. He 214 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. called to him all the saints who bore his image and likeness, he took Adam by the right hand and blessed hira with his righteous descendants. Adam returned thanks, and all with hira bowed the knee to Jesus, Then he marked them with the sign of the cross, and led them out of hell with Adam at their head. David uttered a song of praise, so did Habakkuk, Micah, and the other prophets, all the saints joining in. The Lord then delivered Adara and the saints to the archangel Michael,' who led thera into paradise. Here they were raet by two very old men, who, on being asked who they were, replied that they were Enoch and EUjah ; they had not yet tasted death, and were to be kept alive till the coming of Anti-Christ, with whom they were to fight, and to be slain by him, and then, after three days and a half, they would be taken up into the clouds alive. During thig conversation there came along a poor, wretched looking raan, bearing on his shoulder the sign of the cross, and resembling in ap pearance a robber. On being questioned, he acknow ledged that he was the thief whora the Jews had crucified vrith Christ, that Jesus had sent him into paradise, that the angel of paradise had admitted him on account of the sign of the cross ; and had informed him that Adam with his righteous and holy sons would soon arrive. " These are the divine mysteries which we, even I> Charinus and Lenthius, saw and heard ; more we dare not tell, according to the comraandraent of the arch angel Michael. But repent, and make acknowledg ment, and give honour to God, that he may have mercy upon you." Charinus gave what he had written to Annas, Caia- APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 215 phas, and Gamaliel, and Lenthius gave his manuscript to Nicodemus and Joseph, when suddenly they were transfigured in glory, and were no more seen. The two vrritings, on being corapared, were found to cor respond exactly, without the difference of a single letter. EEMAEKS ON THE APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS, AS COMPARED WITH THE CANONICAL. The above is a full and faithful narrative of all that these apocryphal gospels contain ; more full, perhaps, than some may think necessary or wfll have patience to read. But as the idea has been seriously advanced by Strauss, and enlarged upon by others, that these ¦ a|)0cryphal books are of very rauch the same kind, and got up in very much' the sarae way as the canoni cal, it is tirae that the friends of evangelical truth fully understood the matter ; and it can be understood only by examination. The books are as yet in but few hands; some of them are published only in foreign and difficult languages, and it is desirable that the abstract, which we give, should be sufficiently full to make a fair and complete representation of what they actually contain. Such a representation we claim to have made in the preceding pages. Now let any candid raan, with a reasonable share of common sense, carefully read the narratives above given, and compare thera with our four Gpspels, con tained in the New Testaraent, and what will he say to the allegation of Strauss, and those like him ? Is there anything to be said, except this, that the clumsiest 216 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. counterfeit of a bank note which was ever issued, a counterfeit so gross that the most juvenile clerk of a country store can detect it as well as the most expe rienced banker, can not be more unlike the genuine note than these apocryphal gospels are unlike the canonical ? In the great mass, there are some very few touches which seem to indicate a tradition above the ordinary level ; but as a whole, in every aspect of the case, they present a perfect contrast. So, far from possessing any of the excellencies of the canonical Gospels, there is not resemblance sufficient to make them even caricatures. Instead of simplicity, we have bombast ; instead of strong, good sense, silUness ; instead of purity, filthiness ; instead of manliness, puerility ; instead of dignity, raeanness ; instead of self-forgetfulness, self-exaltation ; instead of generosity, spitefulness-; instead of elevated, sublirae sentiment, poor, degrading nonsense. Indeed, while the genuine Gospels are fully equal to, and even above, the delicacy and true refinement and intellectual and moral ele vation of the raost cultivated nations and ages, the apocryphal generally fall below almost the lowest, and could scarcely find anywhere a public mean enough to receive and relish them, except in the dark corners of the declining Roraan empire, where they first ori ginated, or the equally dark comers of the modern papacy and Mormonism. Moreover, if the genuine Gospels were of the same character as the apocryphal, how could the philosophic historian, from such a beginning, account for the de velopment of such an institution as the Christian church ? The Christian church exists ; Hegel himself could APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 217 not deny that, nor reason the fact into non-existence. The Christian church has existed for a longtime; it has had a history, it has exerted influence, it has had a character ; and here are results to be accounted for, events which have had a cause ; and is the cause to be sought in such stuff as these apocryphal gospels are made of? Are these results to be accounted for by ascribing them to such persons as are described in these books, or such minds as produced these writings ? With even more reason might you attribute the plan ning and rearing of such edifices as Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Church, and the new parliament house, to such characters as Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Jingle, the Artful Dodger, and Fagin the Jew. There is reason in all things that are really things ; and that which has no reason in it is nothing (an TJnding), and neither deserves nor needs an answer. COMPAEISON OF THE CANONICAL GOSPELS WITH THE FEAGMENTS OF GOSPELS SUPPOSED TO BE LOST. Besides these apocryphal gospels, which a raere in spection and coraparison with the genuine show to be worthless and of comparatively late origin, there are preserved in ancient writers the naraes and certain pas sages of others, which seem nearer the apostolic period and raore worthy of notice. That there were written memorials of our Saviour's ministry anterior to some of our canonical Gospels, is plain from the declaration of Luke in the prologue to his Gospel ; and that these memorials were imperfect and unsatisfactory is equally evident frora the same authority. To be fully satisfied 218 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. on this head one need only carefully read the verses referred to, Luke i. 1-4. It is not probable that Luke had here in mind Matthew and Mark, for two could not with propriety be called many (iroXKoT) ; and had he referred to these divinely authorized historians, he could hardly have assigned it as his reason for writing, that Theophflus might know the certainty (aa-cpaXeiav) of the things wherein he had been instructed; for as far as the certainty is concerned, it could be as weU ascertained frora Matthew or Mark as frora Luke. Luke, when he. wrote, raight not have known that Matthew and Mark had written before hira ; and it would seem from his introductory remarks, that Theophflus, his friend, had not yet found access to any written account of Christ, except such imperfect and fragmentary notices as had been penned by different men without divine authority. That such notices should have been written, is in itself in tbe highest degree probable ; and existing as they must only in manuscript and in private hands, it is also certain that after the authentic Gospels were pub lished, they would generally cease to be transcribed, and would finally perish. Yet portions of them wovfld probably remain extant for a considerable period ; in certain places and by some persons, they would most likely be preferred to the true Gospels ; and combined, augmented, and variously fashioned, they might hold their position several generations, before they would " finally perish. The earUer Christian writers, as Justin Martyr, Ire nseus, Clement of Alexandria, and TertuUian, make allusions and even quotations, which seem to establish APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 219 the fact of the existence of such narratives in their time ; and when we come dovna to the time of Origen and Jerome, we find gospels mentioned by narae which differ both from the canonical and the apocryphal as we now have them. In the first homily on Luke, published with the works of Origen, and ascribed to that author, there is the following stateraent : " Many undertook to write gospels, but all were not received .... so that you may know that not four gospels only, but many, were written The church has four gospels, the heretics many; one of which is inscribed according to the Egyptians, another, according to the twdve apostles I know a certain gospel which is called according to Thomas, and according to Matthias." The last two of these maj' properly be called apocryphal, but the first two seem not with strict justice to come under that designation, inasrauch as it seems probable that the first was mainly an Egyptian edition of the Gospel of Mark, and the second nearly identical with the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. In his preface to Matthew, Jerome says : " There were many who wrote gospels, .... which, being edited by dif ferent authors, became the sources of diverse heresies, as that according to the Egyptians, and Thomas, and Pwrtholomew, and also the tiuelve apostles." In his work Be Vir. lUust. (c. 2), he makes mention of a "gospel which is called according to the Hebrews, which was lately translated by me into both the Greek and Latin languages." Eusebius, speaking of the Ebionites (' Eccl. Hist' in. 29), says : " They use only the gospel which is according to the Hebrews'' Of those writings, which may be supposed to have 220 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. some connection with the " many " alluded to by Luke, we wfll present a translation of sorae fragraents still preserved from that according to the Hebrews, from the one according to the Egyptians, and the memorabilia (airofjuvrj/iovevfiaTa) quoted by Justin Martyr. We shall add a brief notice of the Diatessaron of Tatian, and of the gospel of Marcion, which last, being for substance an abridged edition of Luke, has been learnedly and laboriously restored and edited by Aug. Hahn, and pub lished entire by Thilo in his Codex Apoc. Nov. Test. i. 401-486. GOSPEL ACCOEDING TO THE HEBREWS. Neither this gospel itself, nor Jerome's translation of it, have for many centuries been , seen ; and all the knowledge which we can now obtain of its contents must be derived from incidental quotations, like those which we herewith translate. Clemens Alex. (L. ii. Strom, p. 380) : " In the gospel according to the Hebrews, it is written, He that hath admired shall reign ; and he that hath reigned shall have rest." Origen (in Johan. vol. iv. p. 63) : " But if any one will gp to the gospel according to the Hebrews, where the Saviour himself saith: Now, my mother, the Holy Ghod took me by one of my hairs, and brought me to the greai mountain, even Tabor." In Matt. xix. 19 (vol. iii. p. 691) : " It is written in a certain gospel, which is called according to the Hebrews (if yet it may please any one to take it, not as authority, but as an illustration of the question proposed), and it APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 221 says: One of the rich raen said to him, Master, doing what good thing shall I live ? He said to him, Man, fulfil the law and the prophets. He replied to him, I have done it He said to hira, Go, sell all which thou possessest, and divide among the poor, and come, follow me. But the rich man began to scratch his head, and it did not please him. And the Lord said to him. How canst thou say I have fulfilled the law and the prophets, when it is written in the law, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; and behold raany of thy brethren, the sons of Abraham, are covered with filth, dying with famine, and thy house is filled with many good things, and nothing alraost goes out of it to them ? And turning to Simon, his disciple, who sat by him, he said, Siraon, son of John, it is easier that a camel go through the eye of a needle, than a rich man go into the kingdom of heaven." Epiphanius (Hseres. xxx. 13): "In the gospel with them (the Ebionites) called according to Matthew, yet not entire and pure, but adulterated they caU it the Hebrew (gospel) it is contained thus: There was a certain man, Jesus by narae, and he was aKout thirty years old, who chose us. And going into Capernaum he went into the house of Simon, who is called Peter, and opening his raouth he said : Passing along by the sea of Tiberias, I chose John and James, the sons of Zebedee, and Simon and Andrew and Simon Zelotes, and Judas Iscariot; and thee, 0 Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, I called, and thou didst foflow rae. Wherefore I will that ye be twelve apostles for a testimony unto Israel. And John was. baptizing, and the Pharisees went out to him and were baptized, and aU Jerusalem. And John had raiment of camel's 222 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE, hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins. And his food, it says, was wild honey, whose taste was that of manna, as honey-cakes with oil ; and thence they, may change the word of truth to a lie, and instead of locusts (aicpiBcov) they may make it cakes (kyKpiSai;) with honey. But the beginning of the gospel with them is this : It came to pass in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, John came baptizing the baptism of repentance in the river Jordan, who was said to be of the race of Aaron the priest, the son of Zachariah and Elizabeth ; and all carae to hira. And after saying raany things, it goes on : The people being baptized, Jesus also came and was baptized. And when he went up from the water, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Holy Spirit of God in the forra of a dove descending and coming to hira. And there was a voice frora heaven saying. Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I ara well pleased. And again, I this day have begotten thee. And immediately a great light illumined the place. Which seeing, it says, John said unto hira. Who art thou. Lord ? And again .there was a voice frora heaven to hira, This is my beloved Son, in whora I am well pleased. And then it says, John falling down before him, says, I pray thee, 0 Lord, baptize thou me. But he forbade him, saying. Suffer it, for thus it is becoming that all things be fulfiUed." xxx. 14 : " Cutting off the genealogies in Matthew, they begin : To make the beginning, as I said before, saying, It came to pass, it says, in the days of Herod king of Judea, in the high priesthood of Caiaphas, a certain man, John by name, came baptizing the baptism of repentance in the river Jordan, and so on." APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 223 xxx. 16: "That which is called the gospel with them, contains this : I have come to destroy the sacri fices, and if ye will not cease to sacrifice, wrath wiU not cease frora you." Jerome (Contra Pel. iii. 2) : " In the gospel according to the Hebrews the history narrates. Behold the mother of the Lord and his brethren said to hira, John Baptist is baptizing for the reraission of sins ; let us go and be baptized by hira. But he said to them. What have I sinned, that I should go and be baptized by hira ?" Comm. in Isa. xL 1 : " According to the gospel which the Nazaraeans read, the fount of every Holy Spirit shall be upon hira. Moreover, we find these things written : And it came to pass, when the Lord ascended from the water, the fount of every Holy Spirit descended, and rested upon hira, and said to hira, My Son, in all the prophets I was expecting thee, that thou shouldst come, and I should rest upon thee. For thou art my rest, thou art my first born Son, who shalt reign for ever." Comm. in Mich. vii. 6 : "In which (gospel according to the Hebrews) it is said in the person of the Saviour, My Mother, the Holy Spirit took me lately by one of my hairs." Comna. in Ephes. v. 3 : " Also in the Hebrew gospel we read, that the Lord, speaking to the disciples, said. You may never rejoice except when you see your brother in charity." De Vir. 111. c. 2 : " The gospel according to the Hebrews, after the resurrection of the Saviour, reports: But the Lord when he had given the linen cloth to a servant of the priest, went to James and appeared to him. For James had sworn that he would not eat 224 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. bread from that hour in. which he had drank the cup of the Lord, until he had seen him arise from them that sleep. And again, a little after, the Lord said, Bring a table and bread. And imraediately it adds, He took the bread and blessed and break and gave to James the just, and said to him. My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man has risen from them that sleep." Coijl. Pel ui. 2 : " And in the same volume (Gospel of the Hebrews), he says. If thy brother sin against thee in word, and make satisfaction to thee seven times in a day, receive him. Siraon, his disciple, said to him, Seven tiraes in a day ? The Lord answered, and said unto hira, Yes, I say unto thee, until seventy times ' seven ! For even in the prophets, after they are anointed with the Holy Ghost, is found matter of sin." Coram, in Matt. vi. 11 : " In the (Hebrew) gospel, the man who had the withered hand is said to be a bricklayer (csementarius), and he prayed for help in this manner : I was a bricklayer, earning my living by my hands ; I pray thee, 0 Jesus, that thou wouldst restore health to rae, that I raay not basely beg ray bread." Ep. 120, ad Hedib. : " In the (Hebrew) gospel we read, not that the vale of the temple was rent, but that the lintel of the temple, of wonderful tnagnitnde, was broken down." From the above extracts, it is manifest that the Gospel according to the Hebrews was vastly superior to the latter apocryphal gospels, of which an abstract has already been given ; and greatly inferior to the canonical Gospels of our New Testament. The ground-work of it would seera to have been the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, in some places mutilated, and in others APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 225 enlarged by augmentations from a tradition not then remote. There were probably several different recensions of it ; and it seeras to have been substantially the sarae with that which was sometimes called the gospel accord ing to ihe twelve apostles. THE GOSPEL ACCOEDING TO THE EGYPTIANS. Epiphanius, in speaking of the SabeUians, has the following passage (Hser. L. xxiL 2) : " Their whole error, and the power of their error, they derive from certain apocryphal books, especially from one caUed the Egyptian Gospel, to which sorae give this narae. For in it are contained raany such things, as it were mysteriously in a jumble, from the person of the Saviour, as that he declared to his disciples that he was the Father, and he the Son, and he the Holy Ghost." Clemens Alex. (Strom, iii. 6, etc., pp. 445, 452, 453) : "To Salome, inquiring how long death should have power, the Lord said. As long as you women bear chfldren. . . . Moreover, she saying, I have done well in not bearing children, the Lord answered, saying. Eat every herb, but that which is bitter thou mayest not eat ; by which words he signifies, that celibacy or marriage is a matter within our own choice, neither .being enforced by any prohibition of the other. This, I suppose, is contained in the gospel according to the Egyptians." Clemens Romanus. In the second epistle, ascribed to this author (vi. 12), there are two quotations from a certain gospel, which, when compared with what is said of the Egyptian Gospd by Clemens Alexandrinus, 226 THE BOOPS OP THE BIBLE. learned men have inferred to be from that work. The first is as follows : " For the Lord saith, ye shall be as lambs in the midst of wolves. Peter answered and said. What if the wolves shall tear the lambs in pieces? Jesus said unto Peter, Let not the lambs, after they are dead, be afraid of the wolves. And ye also, fear not thera that kill you, and are then able to do, nothing to you ; but fear him who hath power, after that ye are dead, to cast both soul and body into hell-fire." The second passage is this : " Wherefore also he saith thus : Keep the flesh pure and the soul unspotted, that ye may receive eternal life." The above is nearly all that remains of the gospel according to the Egyptians; and it is not absolutely certain that all even of these passages are from that work, for Clemens Alexandrinus only supposes, and the source of the quotations of Romanus is whoUy conjectural. So far as we are able to judge,- this Egyptian gospel was stiU more faulty than that of the Hebrews. Besides these, there are raentioned by ancient writers a gospel of Peter (Theodoret., Hseret. Fab. ii. 2), and a gospel of Cerinthus (Epiphan. xxvu. 5 ; xxx. 14) ; but no extracts are given frora them, and from what is said about them, it would seem that the latter was closely connected with the Gospel of the Hebrews, and the former with that of the Egyptians. According to this, the Gospd of Cerinthus would have some connection with our canonical Matthew, and the Gospel of Peter with our canonical Mark. (Guericke, Einleit N. T. 198, 199.) APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 227 MEMOEABILIA OF JUSTIN MAETYR. This father in his writings frequently refers to the deeds and words of Christ, and cites passages from certain apostolic writings, which he calls memorabilia, or memoirs, and also gospels. These writings he affirms were the work of apostles and of companions of apostles. Two passages frora his second Apology raay be sufficient to illustrate the manner in which he refers to these authorities. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called gospels, have thus handed down, do. For in the memoirs which I say were composed hy the apostles or by those who accompanied them, dc. . Some of the passages which Justin quotes are literal transcripts frora our canonical Matthew ; raany are qiiotations, with slight verbal differences, frora Matthew and Luke ; sorae corabine the sense of passages found in two or more of the Gospels ; and others merely give the meaning of a text without attempting to give the words. There are still others which differ very much from our present Gospels, and some few, of which no trace can be. found in our canon. Of the two kinds last mentioned we will give a full selection, and specimens of the others. By comparing all the quotations, it would seem that Justin used mainly our Matthew, and was quite familiar with Luke; while he makes very little direct use of Mark, and stfll less of John. He seems also to have had traditionary reports of some passages in the life of Christ not contained in our Gospels, and access to some writings not now extant, as perhaps the original Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, and some of the " raany " 228 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. referred to by Luke in the introduction to his Gospel. All this is very easily accounted for by the fact that Justin was a native and resident of Palestine, where these traditions and the writings from which he draws originated, and were longest preserved ; while, of the two Gospels which he passes over almost without notice, the one (Mark) was written and published for the use of the Latins, the other (John) was originally designed for the Greeks of Asia Minor. We begin our extracts with the sentences which differ most widely from our canonical gospels. Dial. c. Tryph. : " And then the child, having been born in Bethlehem, since Joseph had not in that vfllage a place to lodge, was lodged in a certain cave near the village. They being there, Mary brought forth, the Christ, and laid him in a manger ((pdrvy) where the Magi, coming from Arabia, found him." " Then Jesus came to the River Jordan, where John was baptizing, and when he went down to the water, a fire was kindled in the Jordan ; and while he was ascending froni the water, his apostles write, the Holy Ghost like a dove flew upon him .... and at the same time a voice carae out of the heavens. Thou art my son, I this day have begotten thee." (Jesus) " being among raen, did carpenter's work, making ploughs, and yokes, by these things even teach ing the symbols of righteousness and an industrious life." "And they, seeing these things take place, said it was a raagical fantasy, for they dared to call him a raagician and a deceiver of the people." " Christ said. In what things I apprehend you, in those also I shall judge you." APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 229 The matters in the above statements, to which there is nothing corresponding in our canonical Gospels, are evidently traditionary notices ; and some of them very closely resemble what the fathers quote from the gospel according to the Hebrews. We proceed to give extracts, of which the sense is found in the canonical Gospels, though not always in one passage nor in the same words. Apol. ii. : " Be not anxious as to what ye shall eat, or wherewith ye shall be clothed. Are ye not better than birds and beasts? yet God feedeth them. Be not anxious, then, as to what ye shall eat or wherewith ye shall be clothed ; for your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of these things ; but seek ye the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you ; for where the treasure is, there is also the mind of the man." " Many will say to rae. Lord, Lord, have we not eaten and drank in thy name, and wrought miracles ? and then I wfll say to thera. Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when the righteous shall shine like the sun, and the wicked shaU be sent into eternal fire. For many shall come in my narae, being clothed outwardly with the skins of sheep, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their works ye shall know them. Every tree not bearing good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire." " Be not afraid of those who destroy you, and after that are not able to do anything ; but fear him who, after death, is able to cast both soul and body into hell." 230 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. These extracts all have the appearance of being quoted from memory out of different parts of the canonical Matthew and Luke, without reference to the particular place, or any attempt at verbal accuracy. Apol. ii. ; " Whosoever is angry, shall be obnoxious to the fire." " For whosoever heareth me and doeth what I say, heareth him that sent me." " Woe to you. Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ; for ye tithe seasoning and rue ; but' consider not the love of God and the judgment." "Many false Christs and false apostles shaU arise, and shall lead astray many of the faithful." " For Christ also said, Except ye be born again, ye cannot enter into the kingdora of heaven. But it is plain to all, that it is impossible for those who have once been born, to enter again into the womb of those that bear them." Dial. c. Tryph. : " A certain one saying to him, Good Master, he answered, ' Why callest thou rae good ? there is one good, ray Father who is in heaven." These are the quotations by Justin which differ most widely frora the text of our canon. He quotes'- often, generally without any variation in sense,' and frequently with literal exactness. Very raany verses of the New Testaraent are found complete in his writings. It is evident, on comparison of the whole, that his memora bilia memoirs were the same Gospels which we now have, with perhaps the adition of a Hebrew Matthew; and when he gives what is not in our Gospels, he copies from the traditions of his own times, either oral or written, or both. APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 231 DLA.TESSAEON OF TATIAN. Tatian is described by Eusebius (' Eccl. Hist.' iv. 29) as once a hearer of Justin Martyr, in good repute among Christians; but after the death of Justin he became an ascetic Encratite, abstaining from flesh and wine, and denying the lawfulness of raarriage. He wrote against the Gentiles a book which Eusebius cora- mends, the object of which was to prove the superior antiquity of Moses and the Prophets to the sages of Greece and Rome. He also wrote the Diatessaron (Sia rea-a-apcov), an abridgement and harmony of the four Gospels; and of this Eusebius speaks dis- paragmgly. ' Theodoret (Hser. Fab. i. 20) informs us that Tatian cut off the genealogies of Jesus and the account of .his birth; and Bar-Salibi, an oriental writer (Asseman. Bibl. Or. i. 57), says his Diatessaron began with the first words of John's Gospel, 'Ei; &pxri rjv 6 X070?. - Epiphanius (Hser. xlvL 1) says, that some called his TO Bia rea-a-dpcov ¦evajjekiov the Gospel according to the Hebrews. This, I believe, is all the reliable information we have respecting this work of Tatian, which some modern critics, as Eichhorn and Schmidt, would have to be a • biography of Jesus, independent of our canon. There is not the least evidence of any such thing, but of the e.tact reverse. The most probable supposition is, that it was a harmony of our four canonical Gospels, somewhat mutilated and modified to suit his Encratite views, and based raainly on the Hebrew Matthew ; as Tatian, it seems, was taught Christianity in Palestine, and by 232 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. Justin Martyr. In any event, certainly, nothing can be made out of, it to the disparagement of our canonical Gospels. GOSPEL OF MARCION. Marcion, an anti-Judaizing Gnostic, according to the uncontradicted testimony of antiquity, published for his followers a gospel, which was simply the Gospel of Luke, mutilated and changed to suit his ovm views. This is the testimony of both TertuUian and Epiphaj- nius (adv. Marc. iv. 2, 6 ; Hser. xlfl. 11). Some of the important parts omitted are cap. L, ii. and iiL 1-9, 29-35; XV. 11-32; xix.' 29-46; xx. 9-18, 37, 38; xxiL 35-38, 42-44. Guericke, Einleit N. T. 206. The beginning of Marcion's gospel, according to the edition of Hahn, is as follows : " In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius OseSar, God came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and was teaching on the Sabbath days. And they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power. And there was in the synagogue a man, having a spirit of an un clean devil, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying :" and so on, word for word, according to Luke iiL J. ; iv. 31-33, , etc. In accordance with the above representa tion of the first appearance of Christ in Galflee, an ancient writer informs us that " Marcionites frequently affirm that the good God suddenly appeared, and came down immediately from heaven into the synagogue." (Pseudo-Orig. Dial. p. 823 ; Thflo, Codex Apoc. N. T. i. 403.) The extract given above may be considered a fair specimen of the book, and of the manner in which it APOCEYPHAL GOSPELS. 233 compares with the canonical Luke. It is perfectly plain from the testimony of the ancients, and from an inspection of the work itself, that it is in no sense a rival of our canonical Gospels, nor derived frora any sources independent of thera. Of the other early gospels, soraetiraes alluded to, that of Bartholomew, according to the testiraony of Eusebius (' Eccl. Hist.' v. 10) and Jerome (De Vfr. IU. c. 36), was nothing else than the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. Of those ascribed to Matthias and Thomas, no authentic trace reraains; and there is not the shadow of evidence that either of these apostles ever wrote a gospel. Those ascribed to Apelles and Basi Udes were nothing more than extracts from the canoni cal Gospels, variously mutilated and interpolated. None of these, certainly, are fit to hold any rivalship with our four which are contained in the New Testa ment. Arabia has been prolific in the apocryphal Uterature of the New Testament ; several of the apocryphal gos pels have been preserved to us through the Arabic language ; and Mohammed was much indebted to this source for his materials in the construction of the Koran. Chapters ui. and xix. of that strange book are weU worthy the perusal of every Christian, for they contain a minute account of the families of Christ and John, and all the wonderful circumstances attending their birth, in the trae Arabic fashion. In drawing up the preceding account of th^ gospel fragments of the early age, we have been largely in debted to De Wette's learned and ¦vigorous ' Introduc tion to the New Testament.' The German unbeUef 234 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. cannot now be successfully encountered without the help of the Gerraan learning. The antidote is scarcely to be found except where the poison grows. The cliraes which yield the most noxious plants are the very cliraes which produce the most effective medicines, the sweetest fruits, the most luxuriant vegetation. 235 CHAPTER VIIL THE MODEEN SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. THE VALUE OF THE FOUE GOSPELS, AS WE NOW HAVE THEM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. To every man who feels the need of religion, and can not surrender his reason to the tyrannical and pre posterous clairas of the papacy, the four Gospels, as we now have thera in the New Testament, are of priceless value. The human soul, in its wants and sorrows and conscious weakness, in view of its brief existence on earth, and the dread unknown which awaits it beyond the grave, is greatly in want of some objective truth to rest upon ; and without it the only wise philosophy is that which says, Ld us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. If the four Gospels be received as objectively true ; if Jesus Christ, as thereki described, be an actually existing personage, and our ever-living, ever-present friend and guide, then we have what we need ; then tbe soul can rest and rejoice ;_ then the spiritual can gain a permanent victory over the physical ; our life on earth can be made a time of usefulness and peace, and 236 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE, our death a season of triumph and joy. Moreover, having Jesus and the Gospels objectively true, on their . authority we have also the other writings of the New Testament, and the historians, the poets, and the prophets of the Old ; and now, with an unmutilated, unimpeachable Bible in our hands, we, like our fathers, can march through the world with heads erect, and a joyous courage, bidding defiance to Satan, and sorrow, and wicked men. But weaken our confidence in the Gospels ; let them be regarded as a jumble of traditions, partly true and partly false, then the chief effect of the Christian religion is, to raise our hopes only to sink us the deeper in despair; to increase our fears, without showing us definitely our danger, or teaching us how to escape it; our life on earth is equally unfitted for sensual pleasure and for spiritual enjoyment; and beyond the grave we have only just light enough to make the darkness visible. With the mere raockery of a revelation which is then left us, there are but two classes of men who can be satisfied with life as it now exists — namely, thoSe whose desires and aspirations never go beyond the physical comforts of the external world, and the proud, cold, self-sufficient thinkers, whose chief pleasure it is to despise the weaknesses of their fellow creatures, and think themselves above them. Entertaining such views, I confess I never can read, or listen to a critique on the sacred writings, and especially on the Gospels, vrithout deep feeUng. If indifference as to the result be an essential qualification for a good investigator of the Scriptures, then I must give up aU hope of ever being one. To the result I SUBSTITUTES' FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 237 cannot be indifferent if I would, for there are all my hopes. Who would be expected to be indifferent, if the object of the investigation on which he is obliged to enter were to ascertain whether his father were a cheat, or his son a thief, or his wife false ? " But we ,must have a zeal for science ; we must let truth work its way ; we must be willing that every falsehood, and every mistake, however long and lovingly cherished, should be torn from our embrace." Very true, so we must ; but does a proper regard for science, a proper love of truth, a proper hatred of error, require the sacrifice of every humanizing and ennobling feeling ? Is man, or is he required to be, all intellect and no heart ? To honour the mind, must we crucify the soul ? Is he the only anatomist who can lay bare to his knife the body of a beloved sister, with the same indifference with which he would hack upon the carcase of an un known culprit just snatched from its dishonoured grave ? I believe no such thing ; and whfle Christ is to me more than father or raother, raore than wife or child, or my own life even, I do not believe that sound philosophy requires me to see that holy Gospel, which contains all that I know of hira, treated by an irreverent critic as the greedy swine would treat a beautiful field of growing corn. Nor do I believe that an irreverent, ungodly critic is the raan to do justice to the Gospels, or tell the truth about thera fairly, in any sense. He raay investi gate their language, and examine their history, and give correctly the results of his verbal criticisms ; but the real substance of the Gospels is far above, out of his sight ; he can have no sympathy vrith Christ ; he can have no conception of the motives which influenced the 238 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. apostles; he can have no idea of the feelings which, animated the sacred writers ; he is a total stranger to the whole soul of that which he criticises. When a man who has never seen, can accurately describe colours, or one who has never had the sense of hearing, can give a good account of sounds, or a horse with iron-shod hoofs can play tunes on a church organ, then I wiU not refuse to believe that an ungodly critic can write a reliable book on the New Testament. It is only the very lowest part of the work that such a critic can perform ; and when he comes to the higher criticism, the interior life of the word, he is wholly out of his sphere. How can a man with no poetry in his soul review a poem ? How can a raan with no raathematics properly estimate a treatise on fluxions ? How can one destitute of the first principles of taste be a critic in the fine arts ? And how can a man wholly irreligious be a fit judge of the raost religious of all books ? Let the Gospels be estimated according to their real worth, and the writers upon them according to their real worth, and then justice will be done on both sides. We will refuse no help, and we will repel no truth, though it come frora the raost ungodly ; but we will not idolize intellect which has no heart, nor allow profane hands to filch frora us our choicest treasures. There is a decided tendency, in our times, to award peculiar consideration and deference to profane writers on sacred subjects. If an author with the spirit and principles and talent of Voltaire were to write a life of Christ, or a comraentary on the Gospels, or especially an introduction to the Old Testament, it would be just in accordance with the spirit of the age to study and SUBSTITUTES POE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 239 quote such works with more profound respect than is awarded to the writings of Luther, or Calvin, or Bengel, or any other writer who loves and venerates the Word of God. This whole tendency is most particularly to be despised or deplored. RELIGIOUS CHAEACTEE OF THE HEGELIAN PHILOSOPHY. The recent assaults on the Gospels have proceeded almost entirely from the Hegelian school of philosophy. The influence of this phflosophy extends far beyond the circle of its professed disciples. It is found where the very name of Hegel is almost unknown, and where not a syUable of his writings has ever been read. It invades Christian and even orthodox pulpits, and soraetiraes neutralizes the power of the Gospel under the most • evangeUcal forms. It is a proud and godless philosophy ; and, like a cholera miasma in the atmosphere, often deals desolation and death where its very existence is unsuspected. Though the most abstruse of aU specula tions, it never exists as a mere speculation, but iramedi ately proceeds to action — and its first acts are the an nihilation of human responsibility, and of the spiritual world, and of God hiraself Whfle in sorae cases it retains the words and phrases of the most evangelical faith, it expels from them all their meaning, and leaves them the mere hieroglyphs of an atheistic mystery. There is a universe but no God — there is development hut not creation. In thus describing the religious character of this phflosophy, I am far from intending a personal attack on its great founder. In many of the qualities which 240 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. make up a man, he was among the noblest of men — ¦ a fine physical organization, a prodigious intellect, and a generous heart ; and he would probably himself be one of the first to protest against the atheistic extremes of some of his followers. Nor are his disciples all alike. There is the extreme right, the central, and the extreme left — or, as I would characterize them, the religious, the non-religious, and the anti-religious. On the extreme right was Marheinecke, a clear-headed and sound-hearted Christian theologian and preacher, one of the best historians and one of the most accurate reasoners ; and how he could be a Hegelian and the author of such works as his History of the Reforma tion and his Christian Symbolik was always a mystery to me. There, too, is Goeschel, a truly pious and erainent jurist ; but inasrauch as he could find in Goethe an apostle of Christianity, and in the Faust a high de velopment of the Christian spirit, it is not so surprising that he can see in Hegel the Christian phflosopher. Dorner, too, one of the best of men, one of the most learned, conscientious, and reliable of writers, the author of that most admirable work, the Development-history of the Doctrine respecting the Person of Christ, is said to be a Hegelian of this class. The assaults on the Gospels have proceeded from the extreme left, represented by such men as the younger Feuerbach, and Strauss, and Bruno Bauer, F. C. Baur, Rdnan, Schenkel, etc. This, I suppose, is the legitimate result of the Hegelian philosophy, and these men, what ever Hegel himself might think of them, I regard as his true followers. But what is the Hegelian philosophy ? I have been SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 241 admonished more than once to treat this phflosophy with respect, to adraire it at least as an " exquisite work of art, if not a systera of absolute truth." I shall do ray best in this particular. I have acknowledged before, and here repeat the acknowledgment, that I have no very definite knowledge of it. It stands before me, in its bulk and unintelligibleness, as a huge, shapeless, threatening spectre, most fitly described in the words of Virgfl: Monstrum horremdwm, informe, ingens, cui Imnen ademptmn. (A monster horrid, hideous, huge and blind.) But vfhen I think of the tremendous influence it exerts, and the mighty mischief it is making, it assumes, to me (in the language of Milton), The other shape. If shape it may be called, which shape has none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb ; Or substance may be called that shadow seems. For each seems either ; black it stands as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, And shakes a dreadful dart ; and what seems its head The likeness of a kingly crown has on. We speak here of the Hegelian philosophy only in its connection with religion, and as it now exists. Whatever of obscurity may rest over some of its specu lations, its principal bearings on religion are perfectly intelligible, and are carried out to their extreme con sequences with a cool audacity that is almost frightful. According to Hegelianism, the subjective is not only more than the objedive, but the subjective is the whole — it is the entire substance, and the objedive has no existence, except as the shadow or reflection or creation of the E 242 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. The great discovery boasted by Hegel and his followers, the great first principle of all truth, the honour of whose development SchelUng in vain at tempted to dispute with Hegel, is the absolute identity of subject and object ; that is, I suppose, the thing perceiving and the thing perceived are one and the same thing. Adraitting this as a fundamental principle, what is God ? Is God the creator of raan, or is man the creator of God ? The latter, of course. The human mind is the only development of God, — only by the workings of the human soul does God arrive at self-consciousness ; and if there were no raen there would be no God, as there can be no colour without an eye, and no sound without an ear. There seems to be recognized a sort of natura naturans, a sort of blind, unconscious, ferment ing leaven, constantly working ; but this never attains to personality or cpnsciousness except in the human souL We wfll not ourselves undertake to make the state ments of the doctrines of this sect — we wfll take them just as they are made by one of the most able and active of the living advocates of the system, in his work entitled Das Wesen des Christenthums. This is a favourite book among the Germans of our own country, and can be obtained in any quantities at our principal German book-stores. A brief, but very satisfactory, notice of it has been given in the' Christian Examiner,' published in Boston, No. clxi. Says this writer, " The absolute Being, the God of raan, is raan's own being." " Since God is but our own being, the power of any object over us, is the might of pur own being. In willing, loving, feeling, etc., there is no influence but of ourselves over ourselves." " All SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 243 limiting of the reason rests on error." " Every being is all-sufficient to itself." " It is delusion to suppose the nature of raan a liraited nature." " Religion is the consciousness of the infinite : it is and can be nothing but man's consciousness of his own infinite being." " If you think infinity, or feel infinity, it is the infinity of thought and feeUng, nothing else. The knowledge of God is the knowledge of ourselves ; for the religious object is within us." " God is man's revealed inner nature T— his pronounced self. Religion is the soleran unveiling of the concealed treasures of huraanity, the disclosure of its secret thoughts, the confession of its dearest secrets. The Christian religion is the relation of raan to his own being as to another being." "Religion is the dreara of the human soul." This is not caricature, nor ridicule, nor' misrepresentation. It is just a plain statement of some of the prominent doctrines of the system, by one of its most able advocates. There is no God ; and the devout man, when he thinks he is worshipping God, is simply worshipping himself. There is no accountability ; there is no individual im mortality ; when a man dies, his soul is reabsorbed into the great mass of being, by the natura naturans to be again, perhaps, in time, developed, and so on from eternity to eternity. These principles are boldly and openly avowed, and find able and popular advocates both in Germany and in this country. One of the most emiuent of the Gerraan republicans. Dr. Voight of Giessen, during the summer of 1848, declared publicly in the Frankfort Parliament, that there could be no permanent freedom, till the idea of God and all respon sibility to God were entirely banished from the human 244 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. mind. No wonder that the German revolution, with such raen to lead it, proved a miserable failure. No wonder that the pious, intelligent, sober men of Europe viewed the whole •raoveraent with distrust, and finally abandoned it altogether. Atheistic Uberty is the worst kind of tyranny. An editorial article in a political newspaper, published in Cincinnati, says, " Religion is the cause of all the oppression which exists ; inasmuch as it cajoles poor sufferers with the chimerical id.ea ofa heaven hereafter; and the source of religion is want of education — ignorance. This is the origin of all evil." The same principles, with a little more regard to reli gious public sentiment, and partially disguised under a, garb of specious phraseology, are zealously propagated in New England, and infect large numbers especiaUy of our educated young men. Before they begin to feel the need of religion, the foundation of reUgious faith is taken away. For this work of ruin, the genius of Hege lianism has peculiar facilities. It can approach unper- ceived, and accoraplish its purpose before its presence is suspected. It can use the language of any theology, even the raost orthodox, and convey its own ideas in the words of an evangeUcal faith, and here is our danger now. One of the phrases already quoted from Feuerbach may serve as an example of the deceptive manner in which language may be used. It is this : " God is man's inner nature — his pronounced self." Here, it may be alleged, is the New Testament doctrine of the Logos, the God-man, God revealed ; and in like manner we may get the Holy Ghost, as that may be considered to be the inner nature of [man reacting SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 245 upon itself, and this may be called that spiritual in fluence which good raen crave and pray for. Thus can the Hegelian atheist, vrith most conscientious de- ceptiveness, use all the language of the Trinitarian Christian. With this phflosophy, testimony is nothing, objective narrative is nothing ; history is not to be learned from external sources, it must be developed from within — facts raust not be sought for, they must be made ; and on this principle these philosophers act with great con sistency and vigour, as we shall see when we come to examine their theories of the Gospel history. Another of the principles of this philosophy is eminently a prac tical one, namely, that "man is God, and must worship himself." This the Hegelians do with the raost enthu siastic devotion. Such self- worship was never before witnessed on earth. The enormous self-conceit of these men, the self-conceit of Hegel hiraself, the pitiful folly of his admirers, who pronounced their eulogies over his grave, are among the greatest monstrosities which ever existed on this planet of monsters, comparable to nothing but the Uzards larger than ten whales, and the frogs bigger than elephants, which are said to have existed on the pre-Adamite earth. Self-conceit is a symptom of the disease. The venerated Neander, in a letter to Pro fessor Schaff of Mercersburg, justly characterizes the system as " the philosphy of a one-sided logic, of intel lectual fanaticism, and of sdf-deification." My respected friend. Professor Schaff himself, I ara happy to see, takes no exceptions to this view of the subject. Indeed, he himself caUs this kind of Hegelianism " an arrogant , pantheism, different from atheism only in form " — " a 246 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. lifeless formalism of the understanding, that destroys at last all soul in man, and turns him into a pure speculator on the open heath, an unfruitful thinker of thinking, a heartless critic and fault-finder." (Schaff's 'Kirchen- freund' for January, 1861, also 'Mercersburg Review,' vol. iu. p. 81, ff.) There is no disinterestedness in this philosophy, there is no veneration, there is no love. Each being is all- sufficient to itself, and each revolves around itself as its own centre, and each is at the same time both planet and sun, both axis and orbit. And what can come of such kind of principles but selfishness, and animalism, and every evil work ? Now, it is such philosophers as these who presume to sit in judgment on the New Testament, to estimate the characters therein portrayed, to determine as to what is, and what is not, fitting in a revelation from God to man; to decide with solemn majesty, a priori, ' froni internal marks only, out of the depth of their own consciousness, and with nothing else to aid them, as to what is spurious and what is genuine in the sacred writings ! How well they succeed, we shall see as we go on. And we will only say here, that if opposites are the best judges of opposites, if goats are the best judges of perfiiraes, if worras have suitable qualifications to decide on the raerits of eagles, then are these men qualified to sit in judgment on Jesus, and the apostles, and the writers of the Gospels. Yet their writings are published, translated into different languages, and ex tensively read. In various ways they exert a great influence, even over those who never read them ; the echoes of their voice reverberate from many a newspaper SUBSTITUTES POE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 247 and popular periodical ; their sound is heard in many a lyceum, and mechanics' institute, and mercantile asso ciation, and debating club ; they inflate the vanity, and heighten' the self-conceit, and set loosp the passions of many a young man in our institutions of learning, and in our mercantile and manufacturing establishments, and produce extensively a ruinous infection in the whole inteUectual atmosphere — not sparing even the theological school, the ministerial study, or the Chris tian pulpit. So many ingenious ways do poor short-lived men de vise, and such infinite pains do they take, to rid them selves of God their heavenly Father, of Christ their gracious and only Saviour. It is often and justly remarked of rogues and freebooters, that they eraploy far more ingenuity, and energy, and perseverance, to get a living by dishonesty, than would be necessary to make them securely and reputably wealthy in an honourable calling ; yet, they are always poor, and in constant dread of detection and punishment. So these proud thinkers tax their minds and hearts raore severely to be irreligious than would be necessary to secure an eminent place in the Christian walk ; while they can look only for the wages of sin, which is death ; while the the gift of God, and that only, is life and peace. According to the Scripture, it is the fool who hath said in his heart, there is no God ; and the same Scripture says. The fool is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason ; and, though you bray a fool in a mortar with a pestle among wheat, yet will not his folly depart from him. How wonderfully descriptive of the foolishness of Hegelian pantheistic atheism ! 248 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. ANALYSIS AND CHAEACTEEISTICS OF THE PRINCIPAL HEGELIAN ASSAULTS ON THE GOSPELS, The four Gospels exist, they have for ages existed, in all the languages of the civilized world ; they have produced the raost astonishing revolutions, they Ue at the foundation of all modern civflization ; they did not arise in a remote antiquity nor in a fabulous era, but in the zenith of the Roman empire and in immediate contact with the Grecian culture. The problem of tbe philosophic sceptic is to account for all this on any other supposition than that of the historical truth -of the Gospel narrative and the reality of miraculous in terposition. The first regular, systematic, Hegelian attempt towards the solution of this great problem was made in 1836, by David Frederic Strauss, then a young man, just commencing his career as a teacher in the university at Tuebingen. I was in Germany at the time when Strau'ss's ' Life of Jesus ' first appeared, and it was exciting as great a commotion among the learned; of Germany then, as, a few years after, the prophesying of the raillenarian Miller excited among the unlearned in America. That was the year fixed on by Bengel for the end of the world ; and many who had no faith in Bengel, or the Apostle John, yet devoutly beUeving in St'rauss, thought surely the end of Christianity had come. Professor Tholuck told me he considered it the most forraidable attack the New Testament had ever sustained, and he was right heartily at work in answer ing it, and soon after published his excellent book on the ' Credibility of the Gospel History.' The answers to Strauss were numerous, almost numberless ; the con- SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 249 troversy raged with great vigour for some six or eight years ; but now Strauss, before he is an old man, finds himself an obsolete and antiquated writer; as rauch so as was, when he began, the old Paulus whom he treated so cavalierly. But though Strauss is already intellectually dead and buried, never to rise again, among the Germans, he just begins to live among those who use' the English language, and translations of his book are read with the most innocent wonder ment by many of our young men, who have no know ledge of the fact that it has long since been thoroughly exposed and exploded in the land of its birth. In the track of Strauss, with more or less of divergency, followed Weisse, Gfroerer, Bruno Bauer, Wilke, Sehweitzer, Schwegler, Leutzelberger, F. C. Baur, Renan, Schenkel, and many, many others ; the greater part of whom remain unto this present, though, as to any influence, they have already mostly fallen asleep. In analyzing some of the principal Hegelian hypo theses of the Gospel history, as specimens of the whole, we shall avail ourselves liberally of the labours of Ebrard, who in his admirable work, entitled Wissen- shaftliche Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte, has vrith great industry, skill, and fairness, epitomised, arranged, and made them intelUgible. (1) HYPOTHESIS OP STRAUSS. (a) The facts out of which the Gospel narratives have arisen. These, according to Strauss, were very few, and mainly the following : The Jewish nation, during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberias, bad the expectation 250 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. of a national Messiah, predicted in the Old Testament, who would be a political deliverer, and work miracles greater than Moses wrought. At this period there was a Jew born at Nazareth in Galflee, named Jeschuah (the sceptic sometimes gains considerably by simply changing the othography of a well-known name) ; and another Jew, by the name of John, becarae a celebrated ascetic preacher and baptizer. Jeschuah attached him self to John as one of his disciples ; and after the imprisonment, of the latter, prosecuted the same work, ¦ and gathered disciples of his own, Jeschuah now formed the design of effecting by his doctrine the moral regeneration of his countrymen ; and being under the influence of the' supernatural prejudices of his times, imagined that God would interpose to help him in so worthy an attempt, and to re-establish the kingdom of David. The idea corresponded very nearly to the Messianic expectations of the Jews ; and they, hearing him preach from time to tirae, began to think whether, he might not be the expected Messiah. At first, Jeschuah shrunk from such a thought, but gradually became reconciled to it, and at length it gained full possession of his mind. He was, however, entirely destitute of the means of carrying out this idea in prac tice, for he had no political influence, nor any power of working miracles. He saw that the aU-powerful priest party was daily becoming more and more incensed . against hira ; the unhappy fate of the persecuted prophets of the Old Testament dwelt on his mind; some texts of the Old Testament, as he began to think, indicated a suffering and dying Messiah ; and, on the whole, he at length anticipated a yiolent death from SUBSTITUTES POE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 251, the hands of his enemies. His anticipations were realized, and he perished on the cross in early life. This, according to Strauss, is the whole of the his torical basis of the Gospels. There were no miracles wrought, nor even pretended to be wrought, during the Ufetime of Jesus; nor did he, at the commenceraent of his career, imagine himself to be the Messiah, nor anticipate the sad fate which at length overtook him. (b) ^Origin of the miraculous stories of the Gospels^ The disciples of Jeschuah believed him to be the Mes siah ; and when the first shock of his terrible end and of their own bitter disappointraent was past, they set themselves to devise some method of reconciling actual facts with their cherished expectations, and especially to see if they could not in sorae way get the idea of suffering and death into their notion of the Messiah. They searched the Old Testament, and found many passages which represented men of God as plagued, persecuted, and slain ; and these answered to them for Messianic predictions. The Messiah, then, though de parted, was not lost ; he had only gone into his glory ; he must still love and care for his own. This idea took such complete possession of their minds, that some of the women began to imagine they had actually seen him after his burial, and they so said to the raen — and the whole company became so excited, and talked about the matter so rauch, and got their iraaginations so inflamed, that two or three tiraes, when they were gathered together, some object dimly seen in the mountain mist, or some unknown person approaching them, gave them the impression that they had actually seen the Lord in bodily presence. .252 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. The great miracle of the resurrection, being thus generated and born and brought into the world, becomes the fruitful parent of other miracles. According to the expectation of the Jews, the Messiah must work miracles, and if Jeschuah wrought no miracles, how could he be the Messiah? The matter was anxiously thought of, and the remembered words and deeds of JTeschuah were scmtinized, to see if they might contain any germs out of which miraculous narratives could naturally grow. He had told them they should be fishers of men — happy reminiscence ! what more natural than that out of this should grow the story of the rairaculous draught of fishes ? He had said the unfruitful tree should be cut down; and here we have the nucleus of the fig-tree which was cursed and withered away. True, the apostles could not themselves imagine that they had with their own eyes seen these miracles ; but knowing, as they did, that the Messiah must work miracles, they could not doubt that such miracles actually occurred. At least, if this was not the idea of the apostles, it raust have occurred to those who had seen but little of Christ while he was on earth, and it became the popular beUef of most of the Christian congregations. The miracles being thus set on growing by Strauss, their increase is very rapid, and raany a scion from the Old Testament tree is grafted into the New, and imme diately bears fruit. The hand of Moses, the face of Miriam, the body of Naaman, had been leprous, and were cured at a word ; and the Messiah of course could heal leprosy as well as Moses and Elijah, and therefore he did. As Jordan occasioned miraculous cures in the Old Testament, so Siloam in the New ; as Elijah struck SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 253 men with bUndness in the Old Testament, so Christ cured blind raen in the New ; as Jeroboara's withered hand was restored 'in the Old Testament, so Christ healed withered hands in the New ; as Moses divided the Red Sea, so Christ stilled the Galilean Sea ; as Moses turned water into blood, so Christ turned water into wine — and so all the miracles of the Old Testaraent find parallels in the New ; and this accounts for very raany of the miraculous narratives of the New Testament But Strauss does not so clearly tell us how to account for these miracles of the Old Testaraent. On hisprinciplea, however, it is very easy to invent methods, and any in vention is preferable to the plain, simple, matter-of-fact truth. As with the doings of Christ, so with his sayings; those which stand recorded are corapositions, araplifica- tions, from brief hints of his remerabered apophthegms. Now we have the materials of the Gospel story, and after a while, one and another writer works up these materials into a written narrative, of which we have four stfll extant, ascribed severally to Matthew and Mark, to Luke and John. (c) Estimate of this hypothesis. Such is the hypothesis of Strauss ; and this sort of stuff forms the staple of two thick, heavy volumes (three in the English translation), written with great energy, clearness, and show?)f leaming, apparently in the raost sober earnest, and giving evidence of untiring industry. And these voluraes have set the world on fire, and in the opinion of ma-ny have demo lished the very foundations of Christianity, and left the world without a Saviour, and almost without a God. What a monstrosity ! in every view of it a monstrosity ! 254 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. The church of Christ is an accomplished fact — a most mighty, efficient, working fact — a fact which confessedly began at the time alleged — and does the hypothesis of Strauss give us raeans in the least degree adequate to account for this fact ? The African who imagines that when the moon is in an eclipse, there is a great serpent attempting to i swallow her, and the child who suppo.ses that when it thunders, God is riding in. a big waggon over a tin bridge, are philosophers of the highest order in comparison with Strauss as he exhibits himself in his Leben Jesu. What an inexplicable enigma is that Jeschuah, for whose existence we are indebted solely to the imagina tion of Strauss ! What unheard-of, unaccountable com pounds of knavery and goodness, of sflliness and great ness, are Strauss's disciples of Jeschuah ! What wonder ful proficients in stupidity must have been the men of that generation, and the generation immediately suc ceeding I How could myfhs arise and gain credence, in the manner and to the extent which he dreams of, in ihe same generation and the same country wherein the facts are alleged to have occurred? This difficulty is felt by Strauss, and he attempts to get rid of it by sup posing that the stories originated mostly in those parts of Palestine east of the Jordan, where Christ had per sonally seraom appeared. The whole of Palestine has scarcely one quarter the extent of the State of Maine ; and can men in Maine lie with impunity, by going east of the Penobscot ? That was an active, enlightened, revolutionizing, realistic age. The whole world was in motion, nations intermingled with each other, languages were cultivated — coramerce, literature, the arts, mflitary SUBSTITUTES POE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 255 Operations, kept everything astir, and there was neither sluggishness, nor stagnation, nor mental stupor to favour the growth of a pew mythology. One might as well look for the growth of raushrooras at midday on the pavement of the Royal Exchange in London, under the tread of the thousands of feet which daily there per ambulate, as expect the prosperous development, of such myths as Strauss dreams of, in such an age and country as that which witnessed the lives and deeds of Christ and his disciples. v; Again, how does Strauss know that matters oame about in the way which he represents ? Who told him ? or was he there to see ? What authority does he bring, that we should postpone to this single statement the testimony of prophets and apostles and martyrs ? Ah ! he knows it by the Hegelian power of intuition — by means of which history is constructed subjectively, instead of being objectively learned from the proper sources. In such constructive history, or rather theories of history, we have no confidence. Yet there is in Strauss's book not a little of learning, and a great amount of acuteness and ingenuity. He starts many difficulties in the Gospel narrative, which it requires a clear head, and a steady hand, and a thorough acquaintance vrith the subject, effectually to obviate. His book has exerted a great and pernicious influence in Europe, and is doing the same in this country. By means of English translations he is in the hands of many young men, who are greedily reading him without any sufficient knowledge of the subject to detect the ground lessness of his assumptions or the fallaciousness of his reasonings, and without dreaming that he has already 256 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. been thoroughly refuted and antiquated in his own country. In the German book-stores the critical writings of Strauss and the theological writings of Tom Paine stand on the same shelf, and are apparently held in equal honour. Why should it not be so with us ? In what respect is Strauss so rauch better than Paine, that he should be respected while Paine is despised ? If he has more learning and more decency than Paine, he cer tainly has much less of sound practical common sense. And we are sorry to be obliged to add, that much of v^hat De Wette has said about the Old Testament (made current among us by Theodore Parker's translations) is very little better than what Strauss .says about the New, Since the blazing celebrity of Renan has thrown its glare over the world, Strauss has entirely re-written his ' Life of Jesus,' but vrith no essential improvement. (2) HYPOTHESIS OF WEISSE. Chr. Herm. Weisse is an older man than Strauss, a philosopher of no raean pretensions, and a metaphysician. He had published a work on the Fundamental Principles of Metaphysics, another on the Idea of God, a System of Mdhdics, etc. ; and in 1838, awakened by the celebrity of Strauss, he pubUshed a book entitled the Gospel History critically tmd philosophically investigated (bearbeitd, bela bored). Weisse understands animal magnetism, and all the mysteries of clairvoyance. (a) The fads out of which the Gospd narratives ha/ve arisen. There lived in Palestine during the reign of Tiberias a good man, one Jesus of Nazareth, who, among other happy gifts, possessed the magnetic power of SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 257 heaUng. He was, in fact, a full-charged galvanic battery, ready at any touch to be discharged. He went about GaUlee preaching, collecting disciples, and applying his magnetic power to the healing of diseases and the quiet ing of demoniacs ; so that he very naturally gained the affections of the Gal'fleans, who recognized in him the Messiah, and would have been glad to make him king. But, though he felt his Messiahship, he had no political ambition, and sought rather the moral elevation of the people ; and in prosecution of this purpose he uttered many parables. Thus he represented the blessed effects of his ministry under the image of the opening of the heavens and the descent of a dove ; the strong faith which raen should exercise in the grace of God, by the parable of a Canaanitish woraan seeking help of a Jew, and taking no denial ; the judgment which is to come upon men spiritually unfruitful, by the image of a barren fig-tree cursed and withered; the regeneration of the world by his word he compares to turning water into wine, etc. He once occasioned great excitement by awakening a maiden who had fallen into a swoon and was supposed to be dead. He never went to Jerusalem but once, and that was at the Feast of the Passover, when he was iramediately apprehended and crucified. We have no reason to believe that he prayed aloud the night before his apprehension ; or that he said, when they were naflinghim to the cross. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. During his crucifixion there was an accidental obscurity of the heavens which made much talk. He was buried, and his body remained in the torab ; but his nervo-magndic spirit once appeared to his disciples and passed up into the clouds. 258 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. (b) Origin of the miraculous stories. These afl came very naturally. After the death of Jesus his parables were turned into stories, and raen thought they were actual occurrences. (How many times has this happened in respect to .^Esop's fables !) These stories were not propagated by the apostles; they busied theraselves only vrith teaching the doctrines of their Master, and said nothing about his biography. But somebody told the stories, and found people to believe them ; and other stories were made from very trivial circumstances. From what he once casually said, that he whose fed are washed is every whit clean, arose the story of his having washed his disciples' feet ; the apostles practised baptism, and after a while began to think (Weisse does not tell us why) that Jesus had instituted such a rite. Once, after Jesus' death, when the apostles were at supper together, they became greatly excited with the idea of prosecuting the work which he had left unfinished ; and this gave rise to the story that Christ himself had instituted the Lord's Supper ; and also tp the tradition, so much like the theophanies of Homer, of his supping vrith the two disciples at Emmaus after his crucifixion. (c) Origin of the written Gospels. According to the testimony of Papias (says Weisse), the Apostle Matthew wrote, in the Hebrew of that time, a collection of the discourses of Jesus. According to the same authority, Mark, a scholar of Peter, vraote a biography of Jesus, as be had .heard Peter relate it ; and afterwards this narrative of Mark was combined with Matthew's collection of discourses (now translated into Greek), and this compilation is our present Greek Gospel of SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 259 Matthew. Meanwhile, Luke, the companion of Paul, had written another biography from independent sources. Here we have the first three Gospels. As to the fourth Gospel, ascribed to John, it was not originally intended for a biography at all ; but the Apostle John, when he was a very old man, continually pondering over his ideal of the life of Christ (now growing very dim and shadowy), that he might not lose entirely this image out of his mind, wrote down fragmentary notices, as they happened to occur to him, without any view to publica tion, and not even intending any real objective biography, but merely for the purpose of defining and fixing his own subjective ideal. But, after the good apostle's death, some unlucky elders found these fragments in his study, and, imagining they were written as an actual memoir of Jesus, arranged them for publication, and gave them to the world, vrith such modifications, additions, and con necting sentences, as the exigencies of the case seemed to require. Thus we have our present Gospel of John. (d) Estimate of this hypothesis. The reader raust imderstand that Weisse does not even pretend to have any testimony as to the facts being as he states them. He would think it unworthy of a philosopher like hira to come at a historical result in that way. It is but a specimen of the developing of history frora internal consciousness, instead of learning it frora external evi dence. To illustrate the safety and accuracy of this method of developing historical facts, let us try it in reference to some book of American biography. MarshaU's ' Life of Washington,' as we now have it, was not written by Judge Marshall, except detached por tions of it, nor has the book been seen in the United 260 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. States till within a few months past. The origin of the work was this : During the nullification excitement of 1827, the Hon. John Holmes of Maine amused himself by writing notes across the Senate Chamber to the Hon. T. H. Benton of Missouri. Mr. Benton preserved these notes, thinking he might sometime have occasion for them, and he added some of his own. At the session of Congress during Mr. Clay's comproraise efforts, Mr. B., perceiving that his time had come, committed these papers to the Hon. Amos Kendall, who, out of them and Judge Marshall's papers, forged the book called Mar shall's ' Life of Washington.' In consequence of this publication. Col. Benton was elected president of the United States, and Gen. Cass, amid much noise and coro- fusion, migrated to California. This, if not exactly Uke the Hegelian hypotheses of Scripture history, is just as good and just as true as the most of them. (3) HYPOTHESIS OF GFEOEEEE. Aug. Gfroerer is a countryman of Strauss, and a writer of reputation. His ' Church History ' especially (published in 1841-45) is spoken of by competent judges as a work of gi'eat merit. He began (as he says) to meditate his theories earlier than Strauss, but they are no better, and, if possible, in sorae respects even worse. The Gospel of John he considers genuine, but the other three spurious and mythical. A few miracles, such as the healing of the nobleman's son and the sick man of Bethesda, he adraits, and does not sympathize with Strauss in his rejection of all miraculous narratives. The three synoptical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 261 Luke), according to him, owe their origin to the influ ence of the writings of Philo and other Jews ; and many ideas in them are derived directly frora the Talraud, the Fourth Book of Esdras, the Book of Enoch, and 'bther apocryphal writings. (The thing counterfeited owes its existence to the counterfeit.) He is at much pains to prove the antiquity of these apocryphal and Talmudic writings, to make them, if possible, seem older than the Gospels, but with very indifferent success. Even grant ing him the antiquity he clairas, the resemblance on which he relies for the support of his theory are marvel- ously unlike, as if one should derive the wigs of the English bishops and judges from the head-dress of the Fejee Islanders. To cite a few examples : According to the Jerusalem Talmud, one day, when Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Jona than were riding together, the former began to dis course, when the latter hastily dismounted from his ass, and said : " It is not reasonable that I should bear the honour of my Creator,,, and thereby ride on an ass." They both sat down under a tree, and there fell fire from heaven and surrounded them (as a reward of their humflity). Frora this and other sirailar passages, Gfroerer concludes that in the time of Christ the Jews held fire to be a necessary accompaniment of revelations from God. Hence arose the tradition that John Baptist had declared that Jesus should baptize with fire ! In the same Talraud it is related that Deuteronoray carae to God and said : " 0 Lord, thou hast written down thy law in me ;" and then coraplained that Solomon, when he took to himself many wives, took away the jod or y out of the word nshym (Deut. xvii. 17). Then God 262 THE BOOKS OP ^HE BIBLE. answered Deuteronoray and said : " Solomon and a thousand like him shall perish ; but not a .vowel shall perish from thee." Hence arose the tradition that Jesus had said, that not one jot or one tittle of the law should fafl. The Targura of Jonathan, in Zech. xiv. 21, translates the word Canaanite by merchant ; hence the tradition that Christ drove the money-changers out of the Temple. These derivations certainly exceed Knickerbocker's etymology of the word mango from the name Jeremiah King ; for in this case the steps are quite obvious, thus : Jeremiah King, Jerry King, Jerkin, Cucumber, Mango. The doctrine of the Trinity, Gfroerer thinks, is of Rabbinic origin. The text, Zech. xiv. 4, the predicted disruption of the Mount of Olives, is explained of the Messiah and his sister the Holy Ghost, who are both, ac cording to the Rabbins, ninety-six miles high and twenty- four miles wide. Hence comes the whole Christian doc trine of the Trinity. O, Gfroerer ! thou >art beside thysdf; much learning hath made thee mad. Ebrard, in the first edition of his work, with great significancy certainly, if not with scrupulous delicacy, illustrates the probability of Gfroerer's hypothesis of the origin of the Gospels, by the following figure: A company of leprous beggars wash themselves in a river, and from this river a beautiful young man is seen to emerge : the inference is certain that this young man was made from the impurities which the ^eggars had washed off. And what in this case is the more remarkable, the young man came to the shore before the beggars had been in the water at all ! SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 263 (4) HYPOTHESIS OF BEUNO BAUEE. Bruno Bauer is a younger man than Strauss, a,nd he may well be regarded as the extreme extremity of the extreme left wing of Hegelianism. In him, self-deifi cation and the annihilation of aU objective truth have reached their culminating point. No subtilty, or re finement, or locomotive force of Hegelianism can ever go beyond Bruno Bauer. His thoughts are so misty, and his expressions so bombastic and overstrained, that it is exceedingly difficult to get his meaning, and still more difficult to give a translation of it in another lan guage ; for, Uke very tenuous gases, it all seems to evaporate as soon as it meets the air. It is, however, sufficiently plain that Bruno has a very high opinion of himself, a very low opinion of all theologians, and of God no opinion at all. At the very outset he annihilates all historical truth. There was indeed a Jesus, and there was a community in the Jewish nation which formed the nucleus of the Christian, church ; and this is nearly the whole of the historical basis which he is disposed to acknowledge. There were no Messianic prophecies or expectations araong the Jews, there was no baptism of Jesus, there were no discourses, no miracles — not anything to give an objective foundation to the historical narratives in the Gospels. These narratives are not records of facts which once actually occurred; but they are the spontaneous efflorescence of the innermost reUgious consciousness of the age. The vnriters did not even profess to themselves to record facts, nor did they pretend to make other people think they were recording facts. How is it that men could write long narratives without thinking they were facts. 264 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. and without intending to write fiction, Bauer himself explains in a way of his own. We will translate his language as well as we are able, and leave the reader to guess his raeaning. Says Bauer : " The religious spirit is that disruption of the self-consciousness, in which the essential definiteness of the sarae steps over against the consciousness as a power separate from it. Before this power the self-consciousness raust naturally lose itself; for it has therein cast out its ovm contents out of itself, and so far as it can stUl sustain itself as a Me for itself, it feels itself before that power as nothing, so as it must regard the same as the nothing of its own self Nevertheless, the Me as self-consciousness cannot entirely lose itself — in its subjective, secular thought filled with moral ends and its willing, it still maintains its freedom ; and into this freedom also the religious consciousness and the historical development of the same are involuntarily drawn. Both the religious con.sciousness and free self-consciousness thus corae into contact, to interpenetration, without which the first could be neither individually living nor capable of a historical growth. But so as this livingness and growth, after their first contact, becorae the subject of religious reflection, they are again torn from the self-consciousness, they step be fore the consciousness as the deed of another, and now also, necessarily, the interposition which had placed them in the self-consciousness as its own movement, becomes a machinery whose bands are guided in another world." (Kritik der evang. Geschichle der Synoptiker, i. 25 i.) Such is his explanation of this wonderful phenomenon, and doubtless it is to himself very profound and satisfactory! These principles being settled, the origin of the first SUBSTITUTES POE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 265 three Gospels, according to Bruno, was as follows : Somebody wrote the book which bears the name of Mark, and others very strangely mistook it for a veritable biography of Jesus. Another afterwards took this book in hand, and, without thinking it was not historical, changed and modified it according to his own ideas, and thus we have the Gospel of Luke. Now comes a third, and compares these two writings together, seeks to reconcile the contradictions he finds, compiles and com bines, reading first a verse in one and then a verse in the other. In this writer's reflection, subjectivity pre-" dominates ; yet he, as well as his predecessors, is all unaware that what he vTrites is simply the product of his own imagination, and not real, objective history. Here we have the Gospel of Matthew. This Bruno is very confident, and feels great con tempt for theologians. He says : " See how they (the theologians) stand there ; how the theological hate glows from their eyes. Ha! would you grasp the thunder? Miserable mortals ! well that it was not given to you !" " Now, after the above exploitations, ask...ihem whether , they really think their Jesuitism can' hold on ; virhether they believe that their deception and lying will endure for ever ? When the time coraes that their falsehood' must be a conscious and determined Ue, then their judgment is no longer far off." \ HYPOTHESIS OF /r^NAN. The Vie de Jesus (' Life of Jesus ') by Ernest Renan, published in Paris sorae two /years since, has becorae well known. It differs frora| the Gerraan works to 266 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. which we have been attending as a Frenchraan generally differs frora a Gerraan. It is lively and popular in style, but pre-erainently superficial and untrustworthy^ It is not nearly so much a biography of Jesus as Daniel Defoe's ' History of the Devfl ' is a biography of Satan. Before expressing my own opinion of the work of Renan, I will give an estimate of it by a learned Prussian Jew, Dr. Philippson of Magdeburg. Dr. Philippson, as a Jewish Rabbi, is as much averse to admitting the historical credibility of the Gospels as Renan himself, but his solid Teutonic erudition is repelled and disgusted by the flippant shallowness of the Frenchraan. He says : " The author who after StrauSs has gained the greatest renown in literature of this kind is the Frenchraan Ernest Renan (' 'Vie de Jesus,' cinquierae edition, Paris, 1863), but for our subject he is of no value. Renan is no critic ; he is merely a rationalist. ' "With the aid of lively colours, or psychological raisonnements, he, as a master of his language, produces ^ a very readableobiography. It was natural, therefore, that his work foumi many readers, especiaUy in France, and was met with violent refutation on the part of the clergy ; but it could gain no great importance in the domain of science and historical criticism, for, after all, much of the work- rests upon arbitrary assumptions — . very little upon critical principles and an examination corresponding with them. "He often contradicts hiraself most glaringly, even now and then on the same page of his book. " Meeting with such a confusion of ideas and such a misconceptioir of all history, we may dispense with all SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 267 ftirther examination. We said so much, lest we should be charged with omission."* A very brief exposition of the style of thought and the general tone of Renan's celebrated work will, I think, satisfy every intelligent reader that the truly learned Jewish Rabbi whom we have just quoted has given a fair and accurate estimate of his real merits as a writer on the Gospels. In making out the foUowing analysis, we avail our selves of an able article in the ' London Reader.' His Family and Native Place. He came from the ranks of the people. His father Joseph, and his mother Mary, were persons of middling condition, belonging to the class of artisans living by their labour, in that state, common in the East, which is neither one of easy circumstances, nor of misery If we set aside something of the sordid and the repulsive which Islamism everywhere carries with it, the town of Nazareth, in the tirae of Jesus, did not differ much, perhaps, from what it is at present. The streets where he played as a chfld, we see them still in those stony paths or those small crossways which separate the huts. The house of Joseph much reserabled, doubtless, those poor shops, lighted by the door, serving at once as working-booth, kitchen, and bed-charaber, and having for their furni ture a mat, some cushions on the ground, one or two clay vessels, ^nd a painted chest. The faraily, proceed-^ ing from one or more marriages, was nuraerous enough. Jesus had brothers and sisters, of whom he seems to have been the ' eldest. AU the others remain obscure ; * Dr. Philippson on the ' Crucifixion and the Jews,' translated from the Jllgemeine Zeitung des Judenthvms, by Mr. Mayer. 268 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. for it appears that the four persons represented as his brothers, and of whom at least one, James, became of great importance in the first years of the development of Christianity, were his cousins-gerraan. Mary, in fact, had a sister, naraed also Mary, who raarried a certain Alpheus or Cleophas (these two names seem to desig nate one person), and was the mother of several sons, who played a considerable part among the first disciples of Jesus. These cousins-german, who adhered, to the young master while his true brothers opposed him, took the name of " brothers of the Lord." The true brothers of Jesus were, as well as their mother, of no importance tfll after his death. . . . His sisters married at Nazareth, and there he passed the years of his first youth. Naza reth was a small town .... the population at present is from three to four thousand souls ; and it cannot have changed much. The cold there is keen in winter, and the cliraate very healthy. The town, as at that epoch all the sraaller Jevrish' towns, was a coUection of huts built without style, and must have presented the dry and poor aspect which villages in the Semitic countries still offer. The houses, as far as appears, did not differ much from those cubes of stone, without elegance either exterior or interior, which now cover the richer parts of the Libanus, and which, mingled with vines and fig- trees, have stfll a very agreeable look. The surrounding country, on the other hand, is charming ; and no spot in the world was so fitted for dreams of absolute happiness. Even in our days Nazareth is stfll a delicious place of residence — the only spot,' perhaps^ in Palestine, where the soul feels itself soraewhat relieved from the burden which oppresses it in the midst of desolation unequalled. SUBSTITUTES POE THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 269 The people are araiable and cheerful ; the gardens are fresh and green. Antoninus Martyr, at the end of the sixth century, drew an enchanting picture of the fertility of the country round, coraparing it to Paradise. Some valleys on the western side fully justify his description. The fountain, round which were 'gathered the life and gaiety of the small town, is destroyed ; its choked-up channels give now only turbid water. But the beauty of the women who meet there in the evening — that beauty which was already marked in the sixth century, and in which people saw a gift, of the Virgin Mary — is preserved in a striking manner. It is the Syrian type, in all its grace, so full of languor. Doubtless, Mary was there almost every day, and took her place, the urn on her shoulder, in the string of her fellow-country women who have left no name. Antoninus Martyr remarked that the Jewish women, elsewhere disdainful to Christians, are here full of affability. Even to the present day religious animosities are less keen at Naza reth than elsewhere. His Youth and Education. He learned to read and write, doubtless according to the method of the East, which consists in placing in the child's hands a book, which he repeats in cadence with his little comrades, until he knows it by heart It is doubtful, however, whether he knew well the Hebrew Scriptures in their original tongue. His biographers make hira quote them from the Aramean translations The school master in the sraall Jewish towns was the Hazan, or reader in the synagogues. Jesus frequented little the higher schools of the scribes, or Soferim (Nazareth, perhaps, had not one of them) ; and he had none of 270 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. those titles which confer, in vulgar eyes, the rights of knowledge. It would, nevertheless, be a great error to iraagine that Jesus was what we should now call uneducated It is not probable. that he had learned Greek. That language was little spread in Judea beyond the classes which shared in the govern ment, and the towns inhabited by pagans, Uke Cesarsea.. The idiora proper to Jesus was the Syriac dialect; mixed with Hebrew, then spoken in Palestine. . . . Neither directly nor indirectly did any element of Hel lenic culture reach Jesus. He knew nothing beyond Judaism ; his raind preserved that frank naivete which an extended and varied culture always enfeebles. Nay, ¦within the bosom of Judaism, he remained a stranger to many efforts that had been made, often parallel to his own. On the one hand, the asceticism of the Essenians or Therapeutse ; on the other, the fine essays, of religious philosophy raade by the Jevrish school of Alexandria, and of which his conteraporary Philo was the ingenious interpreter, were unknown to him. . . . Happily for him, he knew nothing of the strange scholasticism which was being taught at Jerusalera, and which was ultimately to form the Talraud. If sorae Pharisees had already brought it into Galilee, he did not attend to thera; and when, afterwards, he came in contact with this silly casuistry, it inspired him only with disgust. One raay suppose, nevertheless, that the principles of Hillel were not unknown to him. Hfllel, fifty years before hira, had uttered aphorisms which had much analogy to his own. By his poverty humbly endured, by the sweetness of his character, by his opposition to hypocrites and to priests, Hfllel was the true master SUBSTITUTES POE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 271 of Jesus, if it is lawful to talk of a master when one is concerned with so high an originality. .. . . The reading of the Old Testament made far more impression . upon him The law appears not to have had much charm for hira. He beUeved that a better could be made. But the religious poetry of the Psalms was in wonderful accord vrith his lyrical soul ; they remained all his life his food and sustenance. The prophets, in particular Isaiah and his continuator of the time of the Captivity, were, with their brilliant dreams of the future, their impetuous eloquence, their invectives mingled with enchanting - pictures, his true masters. He read, doubtless, also, some of the apocryphal works — that is to say, of those writings sufficiently modern, the authors of which, in order to give thera selves an authority raore willingly allowed to the very •ancient writings, sheltered themselves under the names of prophets and patriarchs. One of these books, above all, struck him ; it was the Book of Daniel Betimes, his character in part revealed itself. The legends delight in showing him, from his childhood, revolting against paternal authority, and walking from common paths, in order to follow his caUing. It is certain, at least, that the relations of kindred were to him of small concern. His farafly do not seem to have Hked him; and, at tiraes, he is found hard- towards them. Jesus, like all raen exclusively preoccupied by an idea, came to regard the ties of blood as of small account. Galilee and Southern Judea. Every people called to high destinies ought to be a small complete world, enclosing opposed poles within its bosom, Greece had, 272 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE, at a few leagues from each other, Sparta and Athens—* two antipodes to a superficial observer, but in reality rival sisters, necessary the one to the other. It was the same with Judea. Less brilliant in one sense than the development of Jerusalem, that of the north was on the whole much more fruitful ; the most living performances of the Jewish people always came thence. A complete absence of the sentiment of nature, bordering somewhat on the dry, the narrow, the sullen, struck all works of purely Hierosolymite origin with a character grandiose indeed, but sad and repulsive. With her solemn doctors; her insipid canonists, her hypocritical and atrabiUous devotees, Jerusalem could not have conquered humanity. . . . The north alone produced Christianity; Jeru salera, on the contrary, is the true native country of the obstinate Judaisra which, founded by the Pharisees and fixed by the Talmud, has traversed the Middle Ages and reached our own days. A ravishing natural scenery contributed to forra this spirit much less austere, less fiercely monotheistic, if I may so say, which impressed upon all the dreams of the Galilean mind something idyllic and charming. The saddest country in the world is, perhaps, the region near Jerusalera. Galilee, on the other hand, is a land very green, very shady, smfling all over — ^the true land of the Song of Songs, and of the chants of the Well-beloved. During the two months of March and April, the Champaign is a dense thicket of flowers of incomparable freshness and colours. The animals there are sraall, but of extrerae docflity. . . In no country in the world do the mountains lay them selves out with more harmony, or inspire higher thoughts. Jesus seeras to have particularly loved them. The most SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 273 important acts of his divine career took place on the mountains ; there was he best inspired ; it was there that he held secret communion with the ancient prophets, and that he showed himself to the eyes of disciples aheady transfigured. . . ' . Jesus lived and grew up in this intoxicating raediura ; but, from his infancy, he made almost annually the journey to Jerusalem for the The Theology of Jesus. A high notion of Deity, which he did not owe to Judaism, and which seems to have been in all its parts the creation of his own great soul, was, in a manner, the principle of his whole power. . . . The highest consciousness of Deity that has ever existed in the breast of humanity was that of Jesus. One sees, on the other hand, that Jesus, starting from such a disposition of. soul as his, never could have been a' speculative philosopher Uke Cakya-Mouni. Nothing is farther from scholastic theology than the Gospel. ¦ The speculations of the Greek fathers on the dirine essence came from quite another spirit God conceived immediately as Father — this is all the the ology of Jesus. . . . It is probable that, from the first, he regarded himself as being to God in the relation of a son to his father. Here is his great act of originality ; in this he is not Uke one of his race. Neither Jew nor Mussulman has understood this delicious theology of love. The God of Jesus is not that fatal master who kills us when he pleases, condemns us when he pleases, saves us when he pleases. The God of Jesus is our Father. Matured Notion of his Mission. This name, "King-, dom of God," or " Kingdom of Heaven," was the favourite term with Jesus for expressing the revolution which he T 274 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. brought into the world. Like almost all the other Messianic terms, it carae frora the book of Daniel Ac cording to the author of that extraordinary book, to the four profane kingdoras, destined to sink, a fifth empire was to succeed, which should be that of the saints, and should endure for ever. This kingdom of God upon the earth had naturally received diverse interpretations. . . . . All that Jesus owed to John was, to some extent, lessons in preaching and popular action. From that raoment, in fact, he preached with much more force, and imposed himself on the crowd with authority. It seems, also, that his sojourn near John, less by the action of the Baptist than by the natural progress of his own thoughts, greatly matured his ideas respecting the " Kingdom of Heaven." His watchword thenceforward was " Good tidings " — news that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Jesus will no longer be raerely a delightful moralist, aspiring to enclose sublirae lessons in some' loving and brief aphorism ; he is the transcendant revolutionist who strives to renew the world from its foundations, and to found on earth the ideal which he has conceived. To " wait for the Kingdom of God " will be the synonym for being a disciple of Jesus Who is to establish this Kingdom of God? Let us reraeraber that the first thought of Jesus — a thought so profound with him that it had probably no origin, but belonged to the very roots of his being — was that he was the Son of God, the intimate of his Father, the door of his wfll ; and then the answer of Jesus to such a question wfll not be doubtful The conviction that he would cause God to reign possessed itself of his spirit in a manner quite absolute. He considered himself as the SUBSTITUTES POE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 275 universal reformer. Heaven, earth, all nature, madness, malady, and death are but his instruments. In his access of heroic will he believes' hiraself all-powerful. If the earth is not ready for this last transfprmation, the earth wfll he burnt, purified by fire and the breath of God. A new heaven vrill be created, and the whole world will be peopled with the angels of God. A radical revolution, embracing even physical nature itself — such was the fundamental thought of Jesus. Inadequate Modern Appreciation of great Characters cmd 'Movements. Our principles of positive science are hurt by the dreams which the plan of Jesus embraced. We know the history of the earth ; cosmical revolutions of the kind which Jesus expected are produced only by geological or astronomical causes, the connection of which with moral matters has never been ascertained. But, to be just to great creative minds, it is necessary not to stop at the prejudices they may have shared with their time. . . . The deisra of the eighteenth century and a certain kind of Protestantism have accustomed us to consider the founder of the Christian faith only as a great moralist, a benefactor of humanity. We see in the Gospel only good maxiras ; we throw a prudent veil over the strange intellectual state in whieh it was bom. There are people, also, who regret that the French Revolution went more than once out of the track of principles, and was not the work of wise and moderate men. Let us not impose our small plans of middle-class good sense upon those extraordinary movements so greatly beyond our stature. Let us continue to admire the '' morality of the Gospel," — let us suppreSfe in our reli gious instructions the chimera that was the soul of it ; 276 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. but let us not believe that, by siraple ideas of goodness or individual morality, the world is ever stirred. The idea of Jesus was much more profound ; it was the most revolutionary, idea that was ever conceived in a human brain ; it raust be taken in its totality, and not with those timid suppressions which retrench from it precisely that which raade it effective for the regeneration of humanity. Fundamentally, the ideal is always a Utopia. When we wish at present to represent the Christ of modern consciousness, the consoler, the judge .of these new times, what do we do ? That which Jesus himself did 1830 years ago. We suppose the conditions of the real world altogether other than they are ; we represent a raoral deliverer breaking, without arms, the chains of the negro, ameliorating the condition of the poor, freeing the oppressed nations. We forget that this supposes a world turned upside-down, the climate of Virginia and that of Congo modified, the blood and race of millions of men changed, our social complications . brought back to a chimerical simplicity, the poUtical stratifications of Europe tilted out of their order. , What is all this but tho sheerest and raost extravagant raoonshine ? What shadow or even pretence of a shadow of historical testimony or historical evidence of any kind does Renan give us ? Not a particle of evidence of any kind, except the vagaries of his own brain, does he pre tend to give. Strauss, Renan, and all the rest simply start with the principle that a miracle is impossible ; and ' then any hypothesis to account for the existence of Chris tianity, however wfld, absurd, and self-contradictory it may be, is more rational than the belief in its miraculous origin so simply and so clearly stated in our sacred hooka SUBSTITUTES POE THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 277 . Compare the following passages : (1) " So long as the Gospels are regarded as historical sources, in the strict sense of the word, so long a historical -view of the Ufe of Jesus is impossible " (Strauss p. 40). For " historical inquiry refuses absolutely to recognize anywhere any such thuig" as a miracle (p. 146). (2) " In the person and work of Jesus nothing supernatural happened ; . . . for thus much we can soon discover about our Gospels, that; neither all nor any of them display such historical ^stworthiness as to compel our reason to the acceptance of a miracle" (p. 15). Simflarly M. Renan : (1) " The first twelve chapters of Acts are a tissue of miracles. Now, an absolute rule of criticism is, to aUowno place in historical narration to miracles " (p. 43). (2) " Show me a specimen of these things, and I will adrait them. . . . The onus pro- landi in science rests with those who allege a fact " (p. 45). HYPOTHESIS OF SCHENKEL. Professor Daniel Schenkel is probably the highest au thority among the German rationalists of the present ¦feneration ; and his is the most recent effort at construct ing the life of Jesus out of one's own inward conscious ness, without reference, or rather in direct opposition to the historical testimony on the subject.* From his own inward consciousness, and without any external testimony, he thinks himself competent to cor- * 'The Character of Jesus' Portrayed.' A Biblical Essay with an Appendix, by Dr. Daniel Schenkel, Professor of Theology, Heidelberg. Translated from the third German edition, with introduction and notes, by W. H. Purness, D.D. Boston : Little, Brown, and Co. 278 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. rect the Gospel narrative as follows : " Jesus was bom at Nazareth, not at Bethlehem. He was not in the wilderness all the tirae of the temptation, nor did he abstain from food. He made no journey to Jerusalem but the last, which terminated in his death. John the Baptist did not recognize Jesus' Messiahship, nor testify of him, nor urge any disciples to follow him. Jesus could not possibly have said that not one jot or tittle of the Old Testament would pass away. He could, not have referred to his resurrection before his death, for he was not raised, and if he had been, he could not have known it beforehand. Of a suffering Messiah the Old Testament knows nothing." Of the writers of the four Gospels " Mark he thinks the raost accurate of all, though many things have been added by another hand, which are not trustworthy, Matthew was written by a Jewish disciple, and, as it attempts to prove that the prophecies of a Jewish Messiah found fulfilment in -Jesus, much of it must be rejected. Luke adds many incidents and parables to adapt the new religion to the Gentile world, and these raust be carefully winnowed. Little reliance can be placed on John's Gospel, for it contradicts the historical order, by making Jesus have a distinct conception of his work from the beginning. This accords, indeed, with Old Testaraent teaching, and with the plan of God as revealed, but it cannot have a place in Dr. Schenkel's historical theory, and must be rejected," Now one ^laturally imagines, from such statements, that Dr. Schenkel must doubt the veracity of the Gospel writers. It would seera as if there were but two alter natives in the case : either they told the simple truth. SUBSTITUTES POE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 279 which they claim to have known, and to whose veracity they bore witness by suffering and death, or else they inveiited the whole or a part to deceive the world. But his theory is strangely elastic, and saves their credit while it denies their statements. He says : ¦ "It is no device of writers aiming to establish a point ; stifl less, as from a low historical point of view it may be thought, is it falsehood and deceit that we have here. In these extraordinary accounts we have the unconscious homage of a religiously inspired imagination paid to Jesus by disciples and friends."* I cannot see that Dr. Schenkel has iraproved at all upon Strauss, or that he is really any raore reliable than E^nan. All these hypotheses are utterly baseless ; they have not a foot to stand upon ; they are constructed not only without historical testiraony, but in direct opposi tion to all the historical testimony we actually possess on the subject. They are simply the outgrowth of the fancy and the imagination of the -writers. They are, in fact, the Apocryphal Gospels of the nineteenth century, in every respect as apocryphal as those compositions of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, which have already passed under review, only adapted to the faithlessness of this generation, as those were to the superstitious cre dulity of the times in which they originated. HYPOTHESIS OF P. C. BAUR. It is generally admitted by these theorizers that there was no intentional deception on the part of the writers of our Gospels. Though there is very little, if any, * ' Christian Watchmkn and Kefleotor.' 280 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. historical truth in their compositions, yet their intentions were good ; a religious imagination, a harmless enthu siasm, an amiable fanaticism guided their pens. F. C. Baur, the founder and the most brilliant representative of the famous Tuebingen school, takes a somewhat different view. The Gospels were originally written for the express purpose of deception, for the express purpose of sustaining the theology of Paul against that of Peter, or the theology of Peter against that of Paul. Of course there is no historical testimony to that effect, he does not even pretend to any ; he makes his conclusion from internal evidence alone; yet, strange to say, these writings have been so raodified and sraoothed over since their original production, that all traces of this contro versial tendency have pretty much disappeared from the pages. The following- statements are from an elaborate article in the London ' Quarterly Review :' " According to Baur, each' of the Gospels had a terir dency — was written for a purpose. There was, he alleges, a much more active feud between two opposite elements in the early church — between the Ebionitish or Petrine element and the Pauline — ^than would be gathered from the New Testaraent itself This contro versy began frora the time of the apostles, and did not end until the middle of the second century. It was a contest between those who viewed Christianity as Judaism and the Lord as the Messiah and those who viewed it as a new principle by which both Judaism and heathen ism were to be moulded and transformed into a new system. Of the former opinion Peter was the chief champion ; the supersedure of temple and law in favour of Christianity, an all-embracing system, was th,e work SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 281 of Paul But the contest, says Baur, was much raore obstinate and lasting than we should infer from the Acts of the Apostles. The life of Paul was passed in the struggle for recognition as one of the apostles, for perfect equality of Jew and Gentile converts, for emancipation from the law. But the dispute continued far beyond his hfe, and all the early church literature is to be inter preted by the light of this dispute. The books of the New Testament are either party writings on on'e side or the other, or else they are later productions, intended to conciUate and conceal this difference, and to unite all Christians upon one common ground. And most of the books are of this latter class, and it follows that they are not the genuine productions of those whose names they bear. The lateness of St. Mark's Gospel is inferred from the absence of controversial matter and other reasons. St. Luke's Gospel had originally a strong Pauline and anti- Jewish tendency; but in the letter edition of it, which we possess, this tendency was much modified and softened. St Matthew must likewise have been modi fied, the original Gospel being very different frora that which we now possess, raore decidedly Judaic in 'ten dency,' whilst the Greek Gospel as we possess it has the general character of the other two Gospels, one of con- cihation between the two great parties. " The critical power that can discover a strong Gentile prejudice in a nari'ative, after some one has gone over it with the express purpose of taking out aU signs of this, does not belong to the region of science but of second sight If ever there were books free from all taint of prejudice, from the stifling heat of controversy, the four Gospels are these books. If it had been reserved for 282 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. this century to disclose a hidden purpose and bias in the writers, the grounds on which it rests should surely be accessible to us aU. We can conceive that eyes long exercised in the twflight of antiquity may catch forms and shades that escape our own ; but eyes that read not only what is there, but what would have been there if it had not been taken out, are beyond the reach even of imagination." It is scarcely necessary to give any specimens of Schwegler, Keim, Volkraar, and other critics of the Tuebingen school. Though differing somewhat from the Hegelians already noticed, practically they belong to the same category. There is the same self-conceit and self-deification, the same reckless disregard of facts, the same extravagant baselessness and groundlessness of speculation. In one species of folly they even exceed Gfroerer ; for while they admit the writings of the apostolic fathers, Papias, Ignatius, Irenseus, etc., to be ancient and genuine, they affirra that the writings of the New Testament ascribed to John, Paul, Peter, etc., are spurious, and the product of a later age. They have been abundantly refuted by Thiersch, Ebrard, Domer, and other writers ; and though they are the most recent representatives of the sceptical spirit in Germany, and some of them (as for exaraple, Baur) accomplished scholats and powerful writers, they are already growing obsolete, and fast hastening to a deserved obUvion. Truth alone is irarautable and permanent ; error has numberless forms, and in aU of them it is transient and short-lived. After aU these assaults and speculations the honest old Bible stands just where it did before, speaks the SUBSTITUTES POE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 283 same language, exerts the same influence, and emits the same heavenly radiance. This sure word of prophecy will.. .remain, and we do weU to take heed to it, as to a light that shineth in a dark place, till the day dawn, and the day Star arise in our hearts. The enormous self-confidence and self-estimation of this whole class of Gospel assailers most forcibly reminds us of the words of Holy writ : Seest thou a man wise in Ms own conceit ? there is more hope of a fool than of him. God resistdh the proud, but givdh grace to the THE REAL VALUE OF THESE SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTORY. These assaults on the Gospels consist of two parts, namely: 1, Objections to the historical truth of the Gospels, derived from the narrative itself; and, 2, Hypotheses to account for the existence and influence of the Gospels, supposing them to be historically untrue. It is these hypotheses only which we have thus far considered. The objections are matters of detafl, and must be considered in detafl, and there is no room for them in a volume of this kind. A few vrill be selected as specimens of the whole, and answers given to them which will show how all the rest may be answered. In considering these objections, we must always bear it in mind that the Gospels are not, and do not profess to be, complete histories. They are siraply detached memoirs, or select anecdotes, intended solely to illustrate the character and teachings of Christ ; to show what kind 284 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. of a teacher he was, and to give an idea of the Substance and manner of his teaching. This the writers themselves affirm in so many words. Says John, at the close of his narrative : There are also many other things which Jesus. did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples; which are not written in this book. But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name. John xxi. 25 ; xx, 30, 31. Out of the countless multitude of events in our Sa-riour's Ufe, and frora his numberless teachings, the different evangelists select different transactions and ' different discourses for this purpose, all equally appror priate, as would also have been thousands of others which are left unrecorded. The evangelists sometimes repeat each other, but very often they do not ; and not one of them undertakes, or pretends, to give a complete narrative of all that Jesus did and said, but on the contrary, they all carefully and expressly disclaim any such undertaking or intention. ' • The most plausible of the objections to which we allude are derived from supposed contradictions in the Gospel narrative ; but such contradictions are assumed and supposed; they have never yet been proved. For example, in Luke -vii. 1-10, we are informed, that when Jesus was in Capernaum, a centurion there sent friends to him, requesting him to heal a sick servant of his, who was very dear to hira. In John iv. 46-53, we are told, that when Jesus was SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 285 in Cana, a nobleman of Capemaum, whose son was sick, went himself to Jesus, and asked him to heal his son. In both cases the sick person was restored without being seen by Jesus. Because there are points ot similarity in the two nairatives, the objectors assume that they are intended as narratives of the same event ; and then they point out the discrepancies between them, to show that the Gospel history is unworthy of credit. The faUacious- ness of this mode of reasoning, especially when con sidered in connection with the nature of the Gospel narrative as already pointed out, is very easily demon strated. We wfll suppose two discourses by two dif ferent authors, intended to iUustrate American charac ter by incidents of American history. One of these authors gives in iUustration the battle of Baltimore ; the other, the battle of New Orleans in 1815. In these two battles there were reraarkable coincidences, as well as remarkable diversities. They both took place during the same war ; in both an assault was made by a British army- on an Araerican city; in both, the British com mander was killed and his troops repulsed. But in the one case there were cotton-bale intrenchments ; in the otber there were none. In the one battle Gen. Jackson gained great celebrity ; in the other he was not present. One battle occurred on the southern border of the United States ; the other on the eastern. Some fifteen hundred or two thousand years hence a Hegelian critic gets hold of these two discourses — and for the sake of destroying the credit of both, affirms that they both refer to the same battle ; and gives the purpose and object of the writers, namely, the fllustration of Araerican cha- 286 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. racter from American history, and states all the resem blances, to prove that they do both intend the same event ; and then states all the discrepancies, to show that they are not reUable histories. He will not listen to the suggestion that they raay be giving accounts of different battles — the similarities are too nuraerous and striking to admit of that idea ; nor -wfll he allow that one of the two narratives, after all, may be true, for the style and tone of the two are so exactly alike, that if one is false, the other raust certainly be false also. This is a fair fllustration of a multitude of the most plausible and strongest of the objections of Strauss and his colabourers ; and sometimes they are even tenfold more fallacious and absurd than this. For exaraple, Luke xviL 11-19, at the gate of the city of Nain, Jesus raised from the dead a young man, the only son of a widowed mother. ' Mark v. 35-43, in the house of Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, Jesus raises from the dead a daughter of this Jairus, a little girl twelve years old. Now, says Gfroerer, there are such resemblances in these narratives that they must be identical; yet so diverse are they, that they destroy the historical credit of the writers. The difference of place, the difference of sex in both parent and child, the diversity of all the attending circurastances, prove, not that they were two different transactions, but that the writers are not truth ful ; for the resemblances are so strong that the proof of identity is irresistible, whatever improbabilities may intervene. What are these resemblances which make the conclusion of identity so irresistible ? Why these, and these only — (1) they were both young SUBSTITUTES FOR THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 287 people ; (2) they each had a living parent ; (3) they both died ; and (4) they were both raised from the dead. By ¦ the same kind of argument we might prove irresistibly, and in spite of all inherent improbabilities, the identity of Gen. Jackson and Mr. Van Buren's grandmother, that they were one and the same 'person — ^for (1) they were both old people ; (2) they were both very fond of Mr. Van Buren ; (3) they both died ; and (4) they neither of them ever rose from the dead — and the difference of sex, and name, and place of abode, and all things of that kind are merely the discrepancies of unreliable historians. Such is the character of the objections which these critics make — such is the kind of contradictions which they point out — and when we exaraine their hypotheses, we find them quite as baseless as their objections, and even more so. Their positive side is no more tenable than their negative. Their constructive efforts are even more decided faUures than their destructive.. Their hypotheses have absolutely nothing to stand upon. They are made wholly out of air and fog, and the moment the sun shines on thera they are gone. We can at any tirae, and on any historical subject what ever, make a thousand suppositions, all false, yet all as plausible as any of these. That fine piece of burlesque by Archbishop Whately, entitled ' Historical Doubts respecting Napoleon Bonaparte,' in which he shows how exceedingly iraprobable it is that any such person as Napoleon ever existed, is tenfold more plausible, and sustained by arguments tenfold stronger, than many of these Hegelian hypotheses of the Gospel history. In all their hypotheses they entirely mistake the times and the men wherein the Gospel history originated. 288 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Their theories are such as could have arisen only in the minds of studious, speculative men, greatly in want of something to do, and driven to the necessity of inventing something to say that shall be new, striking, and attrac tive, in order to draw attention to themselves and their sayings ; and they seem to imagiue '1;hat the early pro moters of Christianity were very much the same kind of men and in very nearly the sarae circumstances as them selves. Their theories all smell strongly of the shop. In theirjudgraent of the evangelists, apostles, and martyrs of the early church, they are quite as much out of the way as an exquisite of the west end of London would be, if he were to undertake, frora his own feeUngs, purposes, and daily employments, to form an estimate of the feelings, purposes, and daily eraployraents of a backwoodsman in the western states of America. Were . they to ask me the question : " Why are we not qualified to write critiques of the Gospel ^history?" — I would reply to thera, as Henry More did to Southey, when he inquired : " Why ara not I qualified to write a biography of John Wesley ?" " Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep." To think of the Apostle John writing his Gospel as Weisse supposes — or the early teachers of Christianity inventing myths as Strauss imagines — what can be conceived raore utterly inappropriate to the times and the men — more entirely beyond the limits of all inhe rent probabflity ? Indeed these German unbelievers do not intend to be probable, nor have they any serious purpose of discovering and advocating truth. They delight in a sort of intellectual gladiatorship, and no thing vrith them is too serious to be made a plaything SUBSTITUTES POE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 289 of They sport with God and eternity, with heaven., and hell, with their own souls and the souls of theii' feUow-men ; all the while thinking only of the fine and fraitful subjects they are getting for lectures and books. But when their speculations are imported into this land of serious purpose and earnest endeavour and practical results, they become immediately matters of life and death, of eternal life and eternal death, to thousands. That which is a fashionable, though far from an innocent, amusement in Germany, is a deadly, death-dealing work in America. But what are these myths, of which these assailants of the Gospel say so much ? They suppose them to be fanciful or fabulous narratives, having but a remote resemblance to events of actual occurrence, and intended mainly to embody certain general ideas, which the iliventors wished in this way to preserve for the world. According to Strauss, the myths of the Gospel illustrate Biainly the dominion of mind over nature. The very idea of such myths, so near the time and the place of the alleged occurrence of the events, presents to the sober mind nothing but the aspect of a blank irapos- sibflity. According to Strauss's own showing, not a single generation had passed away before the rajdihs began to spring up like mushrooms on the very soil of Palestine itself As well might we now have a mythical Hstory of the last war with Great Britain, or myths of the presidential election in 1840 — and these poetical romances, these moral apologues, these elaborate fictions designed to illustrate great moral truths, invented and put in circulation by the hard old soldiers and the tough old politicians ^who took a leading part in the u 290 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. actual events (whatever they raight be) — and implicitly believed as actual raatters of fact by the siraple-hearted people who did the fighting and the voting ! Surely the legends and religious fables of the patristic and mediaeval period do not equal in baselessness and extra vagance the inventions and hypotheses of these philoso phic Gospel-assailers in the middle of the nineteenth century ; and besides, the former have at least the advantage of being imbued with the spirit of veneration and the love of God, of which the latter have not a particle. True, there were apocryphal gospels, containing ro mances and myths ; but these, for the most part, were remote both in time and place from the actual scenes of the Gospel history, and written after men had begun to withdraw into deserts and caves and convents, to spend their lives in solitude and mortification, hoping thereby to gain the favour of God ; instead of going about doing good, as Christ did, and as he taught all the early preachers of Christianity to do. Theodore Parker occasionally says some very good things, and he happfly fllustrates the folly of this whole method of inventing history in regard to the Gospels rather than studying history, by applying it to an im portant event in our own Araerican annals. He says : " The story of the Declaration of Independence is liable to many objections, if we examine it d la mode Strauss. The Congress was held at a mythical town, whose very name is suspicious — Phfladelphia— brotherly love. The date is suspicious. It was the fourth day of ¦ the fourth nlonth (reckoning from April, as it is pro bable the HeraclidsB and Scandinavians, possible that SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 291 the aboriginal Americans, and certain that the Hebrews did). Now four was a sacred number with the Ameri cans. The president was chosen for four years ; there were four departments of affairs ; four divisions of the political powers — namely, the people, the congress, the •executive, and the judiciary, etc. Besides, which is stfll more incredible, three of the presidents, two of whom, it is alleged, signed the declaration, died on the fourth of July, and the two latter exactly fifty years after they had signed it, and about the same hour of the day. The yea/r also is suspicious : 1776 is but an ingenious combination of the sacred number, four, which is re peated three times, and then multiplied by itself to pro- ' duce the date ; thus 444 x 4 = 1776. . . . StiU far ther ; the declaration is metaphysical, and presupposes an acquaintance vrith the transcendental phflosophy on the part of the American people. Now the ' Kritik of Pure Reason ' was not published till after the declara tion was made. Still farther ; the Americans were never, to use the nebulous expression of certain phflosophers, an " idealotranscendental-and-subjective," but an " ob- jective-and-concretivo-practical " people, to the last de gree ; therefore a metaphysical document, and most of afl a "legal-congressional-metaphysical" document, is highly suspicious if found araong them. Besides, Hual- 'teperah, the great historian of Mexico, a neighbouring state, never mentions this document ; and farther stfll, if this declaration had been made, and accepted by the whole nation, as it is pretended, then we cannot account for the fact that the fundamental maxim of that paper, namely, the soul's equality to itself — "all men are bom free and equal " — was perpetuaUy lost sight of. 292 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE, and a large portion of the people kept in slavery. StiU later, petitions — supported by this fundamental article — for the abolition of slavery were rejected by Congress with unexampled contempt ; when, if the history is not mythical, slavery never had a legal existence after 1776* etc., etc. But we could go on this way for ever." The reader wiU notice that the names of Polycarp and Irenseus occur in this volume as witnesses to nearly every book of the New Testament. To show how immediately these vritnesses are connected with' the apostles themselves, and that there is absolutely no room and no time for the formation of the myths on which Strauss, and Renan, and the other romancers on the Gospel history rely, we close this chapter vrith an extract of a letter from Irenseus to Florihus, an elder in the church at Rome. (Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' v. 20.) " For I saw thee when I was yet a boy in the lower Asia with Polycarp, moving in great splendour at court, and endeavouring by all means to gain his esteem. I remember the events of those times much better than those of raore recent occurrence. As the studies of our youth, grovring with our minds, unite with it so finnly that I can teU also the very place where the blessed Polycarp was accustomed to sit and discourse ; and also his entrances, his walks, the complexion of his life and the form of his body, and his conversations with the people, and his familiar intercourse with John, as he was accustomed to tell, as also his famfliarity with those that had seen the Lord. How also he used to relate their discourses, and what things he had heard from them conceming the Lord^ Also concerning his miracles, his doctrine, all these were told by Polycarp, in con- SUBSTITUTES FOE THE GOSPEL HISTOEY. 293 sistency -with the holy Scriptures, as he had received them from the eye-witnesses of the doctrine of salvation. These things, by the mercy of God, and the opportunity then afforded me, I attentively heard, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart ; and these same facts I ara always in the habit, by the grace of God, to recaU faithfuUy to mind." The same facts also are stated by Irenseus, Contra Hser. iu. 3, 4. Notice here that Irenseus had the Christian Scriptures at the same time that he had the oral testimony of Polycarp. 294 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. , CHAPTER IX. ACTS OF THE APOSTLES AND THE APOCEYPHAL ACTS. ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. From the first sentence in this book it is seen that Luke intended it for a continuation of his Gospel rather than a separate work. The Gospel was an account of what Jesus began to do and teach while on earth in person*; and the. Acts, of what he continued, after his ascension to heaven, to do and teach through his apostles and by the Holy Spirit which he had promised. Throughout the Acts it is Jesus who does and teaches as really as in the Gospel. It is Jesus who works the miracles, sus tains Stephen, delivers and enlightens Peter, converts and encourages and teaches Paul, and so on through the book. The headings or titles of the different books of the New Testament, as of ancient books generaUy, were usually the work of the publishers of the manuscript rather than of the original authors. Hence the titles are somewhat varied in successive publications ; in the New Testament books the most ancient being the shortest and simplest. Thus in this book, the older manuscripts are entitled. Acts of Apostles, Acting of Apodles, The Acts of the Apodles, The Acts of the Holy Apodles, Luke ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 295 the Evangelist's Acts of the Apostles, and then toward the middle ages, Acts of the holy and all-praiseworthy Apostles, written by the holy, illustrious, and all-praiseworthy Luke the Evangelist. The oldest titles, Acts or Acting of Apos tles, are much the most appropriate, for the book does not profess to give a full history of the apostolic doings, or of any of the apostles, but the sarae course is pursued as in the Gospels. A few leading pictures are presented, more or less connected with each other, to give the reader an id6a of what the apostles did and how they discharged the important trusts coraraitted to them. Only three of the apostles are particularly spoken of in the book, to wit, James, Peter, and Paul. Peter disap pears from the book after his imprisonment by Herod and his escape aided by the angel (xiL), and appears but once afterwards, at the council of Jerusalera (xv.) ; whfle almost the entire book, from xiu. onward, is de voted to the life and labours of Paul The narrative occupies the space of about thirty years ; there are but few chronological notices in it, and these not very pre cise. The whole book is very brief, not much larger than some single sermons ; yet so full and varied is the information it conveys that it seems to the reader like a long history. The story is told not in the way of dry abstract, but of lively anecdote ; it combines in a won derful degree condensation and fulness ; there is one systematic purpose throughout, but the most uncon strained freedom of manner; the style is perfectly simple, yet wonderfully graphic and animated, and is most skilfully varied as different persons and scenes are to be represented. This is seen- to most advantage in the different speeches that are reported, for though they 296 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. must be of necessity the very briefest of abstracts, they are each amazingly characteristic and peculiar. Paul addressing the rough Jews in the interior of Asia Minor, the polished Greeks of Athens, the furious mob at Jeru salem, Festus the governor and Agrippa the king at Csesarea, the elders of the church at Mfletus, is always the same Paul, yet speaking in a style adrairably varied to raeet most skilfully the peculiar circumstances of each case. Never before nor since has an abbreviator of dis courses retained so perfectly in every case the character istic features of his original. It wfll be seen in the narrative of Paul's journeys that Luke generally accom panied hira frora xvL onward, but was sometimes sepa rated frora him. Chrysostom testifies that the book was read dafly in the churches between Easter and Pentecost in his time (Hom. i. 477), though it was in troduced later for church reading than sorae of the other books. The chief witnesses for the Acts are Barnabas, Clement of Rorae, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, Dionysius of Corinth, Justin Martyr, the Church of Vienne and Lyons, Irenaeus, Tatian, Athenagoras, Cleraent of Alex andria, TertuUian, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome. The testimony is full, varied, and explicit, but only a few brief specimens can be given here. Ignatius. "After his resurrection he did eat and drink with thera." Acts x. 41. Papias. "This Justus is mentioned in the book of Acts as the one over which the apostles prayed," etc. i. 23, 24. Bionysius of Corinth. "Dionysius the Areopagite, who was converted to the faith by Paul the apostle, according to the statement in the Acts of the Apostles.' ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 297 ' Irenseus. " But that Luke was inseparable from Paul, and his feUow-labourer in the Gospel, he hiraself makes manifest, for he says." (Then Irenseus quotes from the ^cts the account of the separation of Paul and Barnabas, and their missionary journeys in different directions, and shows that Luke was with Paul from the narrative in m. 11, 13, 16, etc.) Athenagoras. "The world was made not as if God needed anything." xvii. 25. ': ' TertuUian. " It is stated in the commentary by Luke that at the third hour they were considered drunken. ' il 15. ¦'*' Origen. " In the Acts of the Apostles Stephen tcs- s' Eusebius. "Luke has left us in two inspired books — one of these is the Gospel — the other is his Acts of the Apostles. The Areopagite, called Dionysius, whom Luke has recorded in his Acts." iii. 4, also u. 22. The testimony is full, unequivocal, uncontradicted, that Luke wrote the Acts of the Apostles, the same that we have in the New Testament ; and this the in ternal evidence clearly shows. "" ' Church of Lyons and Vienne. " As Stephen the per fected .martyr. Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." vii. 60. Clement of Alexandria. " As Luke in the Acts of the Apostles mentions Paul, saying. Ye men of Athens," etc. xvu. 22, 23. 298 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. APOCRYPHAL ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. Of these Prof. Tischendorf, the most indefatigable and successful scholar of modern times in this branch of literature, published in 1851 thirteen, to wit : 1, Acts of Peter and Paul ; 2, of Paul and Theelsi ; 3, of Barna bas by Mark ; 4, of Philip ; 5, of Philip in Greece ; 6, of Andrew ; 7, of Andrew and Matthias ; 8, Acts and Martyrdom of -Matthew; 9, Acts of Thoraas; 10, The Consummation (Teleiosis) of Thomas; 11, Acts of Bartholomew ; 12, Acts of Thaddeus ; 13, Acts of John. Some of these are of very early date, reaching as high at least as the beginning of the third or latter part of the second century, but they were never delivered to any of the churches. They were vrritten for the most part, as TertuUian, Eusebius, Gelasius, Epiphanius, Jerome, ^ Augustin, and other ancient witnesses assure us (Tis chendorf, Prolog.), in the interest of some particular error to which the churches were opposed, and they never had any very wide circulation. The most ancient existing manuscripts of these books are generally not earher than the tenth or the eleventh century ; and a shght inspection of them fully justifies the sound discretion of the early Christians in rejecting them. It is indeed surprising that books written so near the apostoUc tunes, and among the class of people to whom the apostles preached, should be so entirely different from all the 'apostolic writings. To the candid thinker the contrast affords one of the most striking proofs of the absolute divine inspiration of the New Testament books. We wiU select for examination two of the best of these apocryphal Acts, those numbered 2 and 7 in the enu- THE APOCEYPHAL ACTS. 299 meration of Tischendorf; and wfll endeavour to make the analysis sufficiently comprehensive to put the reader entirely in possession of the means of judging between these and our sacred books. ACTS OF PAUL AND THECLA, This book must be very ancient, for it is mentioned by TertuUian, who was born A.D. 160. We have the most satisfactory evidence that the book, as we now read it,, is to all intents and purposes the same as that which was read by TertuUian ; though of course, as is the case with all ancient books, there are variations and errors in the written text. It soraetiraes had for its title, ' Con cerning the holy and glorious and illustrious martyr Thecla, who was in Iconium.' Thecla is a saint both in the Greek and Romish churches, and her virtues are celebrated by the latter on the 23rd of September. The two oldest manuscripts which Tischendorf found are both in Paris, and both of the eleventh century. TertuUian says the book was first vratten in the in terest of those that held that women had the right to pieach and baptize ; and it was much esteemed by the early Quakers, as sustaining their views of the position of women in the church. The foUovring extract, being the first five chapters in the old English translation by Archbishop Wake, vriU give a sufficient idea of the whole book, and enable the reader to make a fair comparison between the best of the apocryphal and the canonical Acts : " When Paul went up to Iconium, after his flight from Antioch, Demas and Hermogenes became his compa- 300 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. nions, who were then full of hypocrisy. But Paul, looking only at the goodness of God, did them no harm, but loved them greatly. Accordingly be endeavoured to make agreeable to thera all the oracles and doctrines of Christ and the design of the Gospel of God's well-beloved Son, instructing them in the knowledge of Christ as it was revealed to hira. And a certain man named Onesi- phorus, hearing that Paul was come to Iconium, went out speedily to raeet him, together withTiis \rife Lectra, and his sons Siramia and Zeno, to invite him to their house. For Titus had given them a description of Paul's personage, they as yet not knowing him in person, but only being acquainted with his character. They went in the king's highway to Lystra, and stood there waiting for hira, comparing all who passed by with that descrip tion which Titus had given them. At length they saw a man coming (naraely, Paul), of a low stature, bald (or shaved) on the head, crooked thighs, handsome legs; hollow-eyed ; had a crooked nose ; full of grace ; for sometimes he appeared as a man, sometimes he had the countenance of an angel. And Paul saw Onesiphorus, and was glad. And Onesiphorus said. Hail, thou servant of the blessed God. Paul repUed, The grace of God be withthee and thy farafly. But Demas and Hermogenes were moved with envy, and under a show of great reli gion Demas said. And are not we also servants of the blessed God ? Why didst thou not salute us ? Onesi phorus replied. Because I have not perceived in you the fruits of righteousness : nevertheless, if ye are of that sort, ye shall be welcome to my house also. Then Paul went into the house of Onesiphorus, and there was great joy among the family on that account ; and they THE APOCEYPHAL ACTS. 301 employed themselves in prayer, breaking of bread, and hearing Paul preach -the word of God concerning tempe rance and the resurrection, in the follovring raanner : Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are they who keep their flesh undefiled (or pure), for they shall be the temples of God. Blessed are the temperate (or chaste), for God will reveal hiraself to them. Blessed are they who abandon their secular en joyments, for they shaU be accepted of God. Blessed are they who have wives as though they had thera not, for they shaU be made angels of God. Blessed are they who tremble at the word of God, for they shaU be com forted. Blessed are they who keep their baptism pure, for they shall find peace with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Blessed are they who pursue the wisdom (or doctrine) of Jesus Christ, for they shaU be called the sons of the Most High. Blessed are they who observe the instructions of Jesus Christ, for they shall dwell in eternal light. Blessed are they who for the love of Christ abandon the glories of the world, for they shall judge angels, and be placed at the right hand of Christ, and shall not suffer the bitterness of the last judgment. Blessed are the bodies and souls of virgins, for they are acceptable to God, and shall not lose the reward of their virginity ; for the word of their (heavenly) Father shall prove effectual to their salvation in the day of his Son, and they shaU enjoy rest for evermore. "Whfle Paul was preaching this sermon in the church which was in the house of Onesiphprus, a certain virgin named Thecla (whose mother's name was Theoclia) and who was betrothed to a raan named Thamyris, sat at #• certain window in her house, from whence, by the 302 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. advantage of a window in the house where Paul was, she both night and day heard Paul's sermons concerning God, concerning charity, concerning faith in Christ, and concerning prayer ; nor would she depart from the window till with exceeding joy she was subdued to tie doctrines of faith. At length, when she saw many women and virgins going in to Paul, she earnestly de sired that she might be thought worthy to appear in his presence and hear the word of Christ ; for she had not yet seen Paul's person, but only .heard his sermons, and that alone. But when she would not be prevafled upon to depart from the vrindow, her mother sent to Thamyris, who came with the greatest pleasure, as hoping now to marry her. Accordingly he said to Theoclia, Where is my Thecla ? Theoclia replied, Thamyris, I have some thing very strange to tell you ; for Thecla, for the space of three days, vrill not move from the vrindow, not so much as to eat or drink, but is so intent on hearing the artful and delusive discourses of a certain foreigner, that I perfectly admire, Thamyris, that a young woman of her known modesty will suffer herself to be so pre vafled upon. For that man has disturbed the whole city of Iconium, and even your Thecla among others. All the women and young men flock to him to receive his doctrine ; who, besides all the rest, tells them that there is but one God, who alone is to be wonsbipped, and that we ought to live in chastity. Notwithstanding this, my daughter Thecla, Uke a spider's web fastened to the window, is captivated by the discourses of Paul and attends upon them with prodigious eagemess and vast delight ; and thus, by attending on what he says, the young woman is seduced. Now then do you go and \ THE APOCEYPHAL ACTS. 303 speak to her, for she is betrothed to you. Accordingly Thamyris went, and having saluted her, taking care not to surprise her, he said, Thecla, my spouse, why sittest thou in this raelancholy posture ? What strange irapres- sions are raade upon thee? Turn to Thamyris, and blush. Her mother also spake to her after the same manner, and said, Chfld, why dost thou sit so melancholy, and, like one astonished, makest no reply ? Then they wept exceedingly; Thamyris, that he had lost his spouse ; Theoclia, that she had lost her daughter ; and the maids, that they had lost their mistress ; and there was a universal mourning in the family. But all these things made no impression upon Thecla, so as to incline her so much as to turn to them and take notice of them, for she stfll regarded the discourses of Paul. Then Thamyris ran forth into the street, to observe who they were that went in to Paul and came out from hira ; and he saw two raen engaged in a very warm dispute, and said to Jihera : Sirs, what business have you here ? and who is that raan within, belonging to you, whp deludes the minds of men, both young men and virgins, per suading thera that they ought not to marry, but con tinue as they are ? I promise to give you a considerable sum if you will give me a just account of him ; for I am the chief person of this city. Demas and Hermogenes repUed, We cannot so exactly tell who he is ; but this we know, that he deprives young men of their (intended) wives, and -rirgins of their (intended) husbands, by teach ing there can be no future resurrection unless ye con tinue in chastit;^, and do not defile your flesh. "Then said Tharayris, Corae along vrith me to my house, and refresh yourselves. So they went to a very 304 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. splendid entertainraent, where there was wine in abun dance and very rich provision. They were brought to a table very richly spread, and made to drink plentifully by Tharayris, on account of the love he had for Theckj and his desire to raarry her. Then Thamyris said, I desire you would inforra rae vyhat the doctrines of this Paul are, that I may understand thera ; for I am under no small concern about Thecla, seeing she delights in that stranger's discourses, so that I am in danger of losing my intended wife. Then Demas and Hermogenes answered both together, and said : Let him be brought before the governor CastelUus, as one who endeavours to persuade the people into the new reUgion of the Christians, and he, according to the order of Csesar, wiU put him to death, by which means you will obtain your wife ; while we at the same time will teach her that the resurrection which he Speaks of is already come, and consists in our having children ; and that we then arose again when we came to the knowledge of God. Thamyris, having this account frora them, was fiUed with hot resentment ; and rising early in the morning, he went to the house of Onesiphorus, attended by the magistrates, the jailor, and a great multitude of people with staves, and said to Paul, Thou hast perverted the city of Iconium, and, among the rest, Thecla, who is betrothed to me, so that now she will not marry me. Thou shalt therefore go with us to the governor Cas telUus. And all the multitude cried out. Away with this impostor (magician), for he has perverted the minds of our wives, and all the people hearken to him. " Then Thamyris, standing before the governor's judg ment-seat, spake with a loud voice in the foUowing THE APOCEYPHAL ACTS. 305 manner: 0 governor, I know not whence this man cometh, but he is one who teaches that matrimony is unlawful Command him therefore to declare before you for what reason he publishes such doctrines. While he was saying thus, Demas and Hermogenes whispered to Thamyris, and said. Say that he is a Christian, and he wfll presently be put to death. But the governor was more deliberate, and calling to, Paul, he said. Who art thou ? What dost thou teach ? They seem to lay gross crimes to thy charge. Paul then spake with a loud voice, saying. As I ara now called to give an account, 0 governor, of my doctrines, I desire your audience. That God, who is a God of .vengeance, and who stands in need of nothing but the salvation of his creatures, has sent me to reclaim them from their wickedness and corruptions, frora all (sinful) pleasures, and from death, and to persuade them to sin no more. On this account God sent his Son Jesus Christ, whom I preach, and in whom I instruct men to place their hopes, as that person who only had such compassion on the deluded world, that it might not, 0 governor, be 'condemned, but have faith, the fear of God, the know ledge of religion, and the love of truth. So that if I only teach, those things which I have received by revelation from God, where is my crirae ? When the governor heard this he ordered Paul to be bound, and to be put in prison, till he should be raore at leisure to hear him more fully. But in the night, Thecla, taking off her earrings, gave them to the turnkey of the prison, who then ppened the doors to her, and let her in ; and when she made a present of a silver looking-glass to the jailor, was allowed to go into the room where Paul was. X 306 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Then she sat down at his feet, and heard from him the great things of God. And as she perceived Paul not to be afraid of suffering, but that by divine assistance he behaved himself with courage, her faith so far increased. that she kissed his' chains. " At length Thecli was missed, and sought for by the family and by Thamyris in every street, as though she had been lost ; till one of the porter's feUow-servants told them that she had gone out in the night time. Then they examined the porter, and he told them that she was gone to the prison to the strange man. They went therefore according to his direction, and there found her ; and when they came out, they got a mob together, and went and told the governor all that happened. Upon which he ordered Paul to be brought before his judgment- seat. Thecla in the mean time lay wallowing on the ground, in the prison, in that same place where Paul had sat to teach her; upon which the governor also ordered her to be brought before his judgraent-seat ; which summons she received 'with joy, and went. When Paul was brought thither, the raob with more vehemence cried out. He is a magician ; let him die. Nevertheless, the governor attended with pleasure upon Paul's discourses of the holy works of Christ ; and, after a council caUed, he summoned Thecla, and said to her. Why do you not, according to the law of the Iconians, marry Thamyris ? She stood stfll with her eyes fixed upon Paul ; and finding she made no reply, Theoclia her raother cried out, saying. Let the unjust creature be bumt ; let her be burnt in the midst of the theatre for refusing Thamyris, that all women may learn from her to avoid such practices. Then the THE APOCEYPHAL ACTS. 307 governor was exceedingly concerned, and ordered Paul to be whipped out of the city, and Thecla to be burnt. So the governor arose, and went iraraediately into the theatre ; and all the people went forth to see the disraal sight But Thecla, just as a larab in the wilderness looks every way to see his shepherd, looked around for Paul ; and as she was looking upon the raultitude she saw the Lord Jesus in the likeness of Paul, and said to herself Paul is come to see rae in my distressed circum stances. And she fixed her eyes upon him ; but he instantly ascended up to heaven while she looked on him. Then the young men and women brought wood and straw for the burning of Thecla ; who being brought naked to the stake, extorted tears from the governor, with surprise, at beholding the greatness of her beauty. And when they had placed the wood in order, the people commanded her to go upon it ; which she did, first making the sign of the cross. Then the people set fire to the pile. Though the flame was exceeding large it did not touch her ; for God took compassion on her, and caused a great eruption fron the earth beneath, and a cloud frora above to pour down great quantities of rain and hail, insorauch that by the rupture of the earth very many were in great danger, and some were killed, the fire was extinguished, and Thecla preserved." ACTS OP ANDEEW AND MATTHIAS IN THE CITY OF THE CANNIBALS. In some authorities the latter apostle is Matthew instead of Matthias, though the above title is the usual one. With sorae the city of the cannibals is Sinope, 308 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. in Pontus of the Scythians, while others suppose it to be Myrraene in Ethiopia. The book is ancient, but not so old as the preceding ; and it • exists in the raanuscript and other authorities with very considerable variations. The two oldest manuscripts used by Tischendorf are in Paris, and of the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries. There are also a few fragments in Paris in the uncial letters, which Tischendorf and Thilo judge to be as early as the eighth century. The following brief analysis of the story wiU give the reader a correct idea of the book, and enable him to inakje an intelligible comparison between it and the Acts in the New Testament. The twelve apostles were gathered together and assigned their different missionary fields by lot, and it fell to Matthias to go to the country of the cannibal^. Instead of bread and water, the cannibals ate the flesh and drank the blood of strangers who visited their coast. They put out the eyes of these unhappy wanderers and gave them a bewitching draught, which deprived them of their reason, so that they wandered about eating hay and grass like cattle. Immediately on the arrival of the man of God they put hira in chains, destroyed his eyes, and gave him the bewitching drink. But he retained his reason, and continued to praise the Lord. At night, in prison, he shed bitter tears and offered earnest prayers to God. Suddenly the prison was illumi nated, and a heavenly voice assured him that he would soon be delivered from his distress by Andrew, who would shortly visit his prison. Every thirty days the heathen held a solemn asserably, in which they desig nated the prisoner who in his turn would be served as THE APOCEYPHAL ACTS. 309 a meal at their public table. Matthias awaited with patience his approaching doom. Meanwhile Andrew, who was preaching in Achaia, received frora heaven a coraraand that he should in three days go to the city of the cannibals, where his brother and companion was in danger. At first he hesitated, it was a great distance and he did not know the way ; but God commanded him to hasten to the sea-shore early the next morning. When Andrew and his companions reached the shore at the appointed time, he saw a skiff approaching manned with three sailors. These were Jesus the Almighty God, and two of his angels, all disguised in human form Uke common men ; and Andrew, not knowing thera, asked for a passage. At first the boat-raaster declined unless he was paid the passage money ; but when Andrew assured him that he had neither money nor goods, but was an apostle of the Messed Saviour, and was travelling under his Master's directions, he and his associates were received into the boat. Andrew admired the youthful beauty and handi- ness of the boat-master, who directed his angels to refresh the poor pilgrims with food. A severe storm arose, and the companions of Andrew were afraid. The boat-master offered to set thera ashore, but they were ashamed to seek their own safety and leave the apostle. Andrew coraforted thera, and reminded them that the blessed Saviour had once suddenly stflled a Uke violent tempest. They fell asleep, the waves were calmed, and Andrew entered into edifying conversation with the heavenly boat-raaster. He asked of the apostle an accurate narrative of the deeds and miracles of the Saviour. Andrew related how that Christ, when teased 310 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. by the unbelieving raultitude for a miracle, commanded the statues of the Cherubira and Seraphim, which were fixed on the walls of the Temple, to come down and go to Mainre, and there call the three great patriarchs from their graves; and thus he^gave them an irresistible proof of his divine power. In such conversation the tirae passed; and at length Andrew, overcome with weariness, fell asleep. In this condition God directed his angels to bear him safely to the shore, where on awak ing the next morning he found himself in sight of the prison of Matthias. His associates were also asleep beside him, whom he aroused and informed them that the raan with whora they had sailed the day before could have been none other than the Supreme Being, the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, they answered, while we were asleep, eagles came and took our souls and bore thera through the air to heaven ; and there we heard an innuraerable corapany of angels, with a thousand voices, praising the Lord God, and we saw the twelve apostles standing before the Son of God, and the angels minis tering to thera. Delighted with this vision, Andrew offered thanks giving to God, and besought pardon of the Creator for all he had said the day before without recognizing the Alraighty on board the boat. Then God again made hiraself visible and spake peace to hira, and said, Thou wert guilty of a greater sin in Achaia, when thou didst despond on account of the long distance and the voyage by sea, for all things are possible with God. But go up to the prison and deliver thy brother and his feUow prisoners. Then thy sorrows will begin; but endure them steadfastly, and remember the torments which I THE APOCEYPHAL ACTS. 311 suffered on the cross. In-risibly then, for the hand of God covered his steps, Andrew came up to the prison. Seven sentries stood before the door, and they suddenly feU dead. The door of itself sprang open, the heathen were ui a drunken sleep, and Matthias sat alone in the inurderer's den. The apostles recognized and embraced and kissed each other, and then knelt down and prayed. Matthias now without delay proposed to leave the prison, he and two hundred and forty others, whose way God concealed by a cloud, so that no swift messenger of the enemy could overtake them. Andrew attended them, and then cheerfully returned to the city, and sat down by a brazen pillar to await what might happen. Mekn while the tirae of the heathen festival approached, and the heathen designed to bring out one of the prisoners and devote hira to death. But they were disappointed. They found the prison open and the sentries dead. The frightful tidings spread, and hunger and terror took pos session of the raultitude. All the citizens were called together, and lots cast to deterraine who should be slain, that his body raight afford food for the rest. The lot fell upon a respectable old man, whora they imraediately bound. Laraenting, he offered thera his young son instead, whom the hungry multitude gladly accepted. Now the youth, being fettered, raised a bitter cry, and Andrew, who saw all frora his pillar, was inwardly moved by it. He prayed to God for the innocent one, and was heard, for the weapons which they directed against the boy melted like wax. The boy was set free, but raging hunger again began to be felt among the people. , Now the Devil, black and hateful appeared in the 312 . THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. form of a miserable man, and betrayed the presence of the saint who had caused the prisoners to escape, that against hira all the wrath of the people might be turned. Andrew ridiculed the fiend, who only inflamed tbe people the raore. A divine voice directed the appstle to come out from behind the pillar and show himself to the people. His hands were now bound, and the multitude dragged him through the streets and over stones and rocks all day till evening ; his body was torn and trickled with blood, but his soul was steadfast and believing. Andrew spent the night in prison ; but early in the morning he is again beset, and his tortures cora- raence anew. The cries of the sufferer ascend tp heaven ; the Devil excites the multitude raore and more ; in the evening he comes with six others to insult Andrew, but is driven off by the sign of the cross. On the third morning the tortures are again renewed, and are continued through the day. Andrew prays and longs for death, his blood is_ spread over the ground, his hairs are scattered along the way. The heavenly King directs him to look back, and he sees blossoraing trees growing up in the places where the drops of blood had fallen ; and when the enemies had for the fourth time brought the saint back to his prison, God drew near and greeted him, and gave strength and soundness to his wounded body as at the beginning. Now he noticed by the wall two large weather-stained stone pillars, and one of them he thus addressed : It is the will of God, the Almighty, that streams should pour forth from thee among the heathen people. Thou art resplendent with gold, and in ancient times the Lord was pleased to write on thee his ten commandments ; THE APOCEYPHAL ACTS. 313 but to-day there is reserved for thee a still greater honour, for thou shalt proclaim the counsel of God. Scarcely had the saint uttered these words, when the stone was rent, and endless floods of water were poured forth from it, which increased to a raighty river. Many chfldren were drowned, and the raen tried to flee to the mountains ; but an angel with a flaming sword stopped the way, the waves increased, the wilderness howled, and firebrands flew about. There was a universal yell of grief and terror, and at length one cried aloud, You see now for yourselves that we have laid the innocent stranger in chains; therefore a frightful punishment awaits us ; hurry, let us unchain him and beg of hira for help. They hastened to unbind hira, but the water still increased, and the flood becarae so great that it reached to the neck and shoulders of the men. But Andrew addressed the water-flood, and the heavens became fair, and the earth opened its mouth and drank in the waters. Fourteen of the worst men were drawn into the abyss and disappeared frora the earth. All the people trera- , bled for. fear, and acknowledged that God had sent this holy man. Andrew warned and exhorted, and uttered a prayer for the souls of the children who had found death in the flood. The prayer was acceptable to the Most High. He ordered that they should rise from the dead ; and as soon as they had returned to life they were baptized and received under the divine protection. In the place where the flood sprung up and baptism was adrainistered, Andrew caused a church to be buflt ; and frora all places men and women were asserabled and were baptized, and renounced the service of the Devil and the heathen altars. Afterwards Andrew appointed 314 ^ THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. a pious bishop over them by the name of Plato, and longed himself to leave the country and go over the sea. All were grieved that he would depart from them so soon, and a voice from heaven warned him that he should remain yet seven days longer with his new flock and confirm their faith. So long did he teach and strengthen them, to the disgust of the Devil, who saw all these people delivered from hell At the expiration of the appointed time Andrew prepared hiraself for bis journey; the people accorapanied hira with sadness to the shore, looked after the ship so long as their eyes could follow it, and praised the eternal God. The above extract is modelled on the argument to an old Anglo-Saxon poem published by J. Grimm', which gives a very good general idea of the book. The book itself is too long to be inserted here, and in this case an abstract is better than extracts. In this poem it is throughout Matthew who -wrote the Gospel that is the associate of Andrew. Here we have a fair example of the best of the Acts of the Apostles out of the New Testament. Is not the difference quite as great and of the same kind as that which we have already shown to exist between the apocryphal gospels and the canonical? Would it not be an insult to the common sense of the reader even to propose to him the question seriously whether the two classes of books could have proceeded from the same source ? The apocryphal Acts were among the best products of the human mind of that period, and among the people who were nominally Christian ; and the canonical Acts, as the contrast stows, must have been from the divine and not the human mind. 315 CHAPTER X. , THE FOURTEEN EPISTLES OP PAUL. The following is the chronological order in which the epistles of Paul were written : Thessalonians I. and IL, Galatians, Corinthians I. and IL, Roraans, Ephesians, Colossians, Phileraon, Philippians, Hebrews, I. Tiraothy, Titus, II. Timothy. As this book is written for those who use the common editions of the Greek Testament, and the coraraon translations, it 'wfll be raore convenient for the reader that we follow the usual arrangeraent. EPISTLE TO THE EOMANS. That this epistle is a genuine production of the Apostle Paul is susceptible of the most satisfactory proof, and the fact has seldom been seriously called in question. The objections of the Englishman Evanson, published about a century since, never raade much irapression, and they have been abundantly refuted. The testiraony of the early Christian writers is full and unanimous. We have dired testimony from Irenseus (adv. Hffir. III. xvi. 3), TertuUian (de Cor. Mfl. o. 6, 316 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. adv. Prax. c. 13), Clemens Alex. (Peed. i. p. 117, Strom, iu. 457), Origen, who wrote a commentary on this epistle, etc., etc. The indirect tedimony also of quota tions and allusions is equally copious and reliable, e.g. Clemens Rora. (Ep, I ad Cor. ii. 35), Polycarp (ad Phfl. G. 6), Theophilus of Antioch (ad Autol. ii. p. 99 ; iu. p. 18), the letter' of the churches of Vienne and Lyons, quoted by Eusebius ('Eccl Hist.' v. 1), and raany others. (Corapare Guericke, New Test. Isagog. pp. 329, 30.) The internal evidence is no less clear and explicit. See Paley's ' Horse PauUnse,' chaps, i., ii. But why did the apostle write to the Romans in the Geeek language ? Why did he not write in Latin ? The members of the church at Rome were not exclu sively or principally natives of Rome, or even of Italy. The population of Rome at that time was coraposed of persons frora every part of the Roman empire, from every nation under heaven, and with them Greek was the coraraon language of social intercourse, business, and literature. The native Romans themselves neglected their own language and used Greek. Tacitus de Or. c. 29 ; Martial, Epig. xiv. 56 ; Juvenal, Lat vL 184-9. Authors, Christian, Jewish, and Pagan, living at Rome," composed their works in Greek, as Cleraent, Justin Martyr, Josephus, Plutarch, Epictetus, the Em peror Marcus Aurelius (see Tholuck and Alford on Romans) ; and among the comraon people, vrith whom the Christians would generaUy be found, the predomi nant language was Greek. Juvenal, Sat. ui. 60-80. If Paul then wished to be understood by the great body of the church members at Rome, it was necessary that he should write in Greek rather than in Latin. THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OP PAUL. 317 The epistle was vratten at Corinth, probably during the winter of A.D. 57-58. Paul had then been a preacher of the Gospel twenty-eight years. A part of the summer A.D. 57 he had spent in Ephesus, the remainder of the summer and the autumn in Macedonia ; and he was passing the three winter months at Corinth, whence he was about to make a journey to Jerusalem, with the contributions to the saints, in the spring. Acts XX. 2. 3, 1 Cor. xv. 25, xvi. 6. Phoebe, a deaconess of the church at Cenchrea, the eastem seaport of Corinth, bad occasion to go to Rorae on business, and the appstle took the oppor tunity to send a letter by her to the important church there, though he had himself then never "risited that city. Compare Acts xix. 21, xx. 1, 2, 6 ; Rom. xv. 24, 28, xiv. 1, 21, 23^; 1 Cor. L 14. Among the members of the church at Rome were some of Paul's relatives (Rom. xvL 7), and some of his intimate friends, vrith whom he had been acquainted before their residence in Rome. He speaks of Rufus in particular, and sends salutation to the mother of Rufus as his own mother (Rom. xvi. 13). Was this Rufus the son of Simon the Cyrenian (Mark xv. 21), who bore the cross of Jesus ? And was Paul an inmate of that famfly while he studied at Jerusalem ? Among the persons converted at Jerusalera during the first Pentecost after our Lord's ascension, are raen tioned sojourning Romans (Acts ii. 10), and araong the distinguished" teachers of that church Paul raentions some of his own kinsmen (Rom, xvi. 7), who were Christians before he was. It is probable, then, that 318 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. the first foundations of the Roman church were laid by Jewish Christians who had been converted by the preaching of Peter. The statements in the book of Acts make it impossible for us to believe that either Paul or Peter were at Rorae during the early period of the existence of that church. We may, however, without hesitation admit the historical fact that they were both there during the latter part of their Uves ; though probably their stay was but brief, Paul's first -risit being about two years, and his second a rauch shorter tirae, and Peter's whole stay scarcely exceeding one year. It is not likely that either apostle ever held any official connection with that particular church (Alford, Proleg. to Rom. sec. 2). Paul's own statements show that he had not been at Rome when he wrote this epistle (Rora. I 10, 13, 15, xv. 23), and we have the testimony of Origen that Peter did not come to Rome till quite the latter part of his life (Eusebius ' Eccl. Hist.' ifl. 1), and there is no testimony in the Bible or in Christian antiquity to the contrary effect in regard to either. All the probabilities are decidedly in favour of the conclusion above stated. It is obvious enough from the very nature of the case, and perfectly certain frora the contents of the epistle, that the church at Rorae was raade up of both. Jewish and Gentile Christians. Chap. ii. 17, in. 19, iv. 1, 12, vii. 1-4, ix., xL, plainly have reference to Jews ; whfle L 16-32, vL 17, ix. 24, 30, xi. 13-25, 28, 30, xiv. 1, XV. 14, as plainly refer to Gentiles. Perhaps it would not be easy to come to any certain conclusion as to the relative strength of these two component parts of the church-; yet from some passages, as i. 5, 6, 13, xv. 16, we THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OP PAUL. 319 might infer that the Gentile part was the more powerful and influential. The epistle, unUke the others we have from Paul, except that to the Ephesians, was not called forth by any particular exigency in the church, nor is it designed to .raeet any peculiar circurastances. On this account its discussions stand on a broader basis, and its topics are of a raore general character than those of the other epistles, with the exception already raentioned. In consequence of this general dograatic character of the book, it occupies the first place in alraost all raanuscripts and printed editions of the epistles, though not by any means the first written in the order of time ; the two to the Thessalonians, that to the Galatians, and the two to the Corinthians, having all preceded it, making the Romans the sixth instead of the first. The epistles would be much better understood if read in the order in which they were written, as they are arranged by Conybeare and Howson, and by Wordsworth, than as they stand in the coraraon editions of the Testament. It is the general object of the epistle to point out to both Jewish and Gentile Christians the peculiar mis takes to which they were each liable, in consequence of prejudices of education, position, and habits, and to lay open before them the true theory and practice of the Christian reUgion. After a general introduction (i. 1-15), he makes a statement of his subject, naraely, that the Gospel of Christ is the power of God to sal vation for both Jew and Gentile, and that entirely through the justification and righteousness which is by faith (i. 16, 17). That such a inethod of salvation is needed by the Gentfles is plain from their well known 320 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. and enormous wickedness (i. 18-42). That the Jews also equally need the same method of salvation is plain ; because, though they have higher knowledge and better principles than the Gentfles, their character is equally bad if not worse ; and God judges of men exactly by what they are and what they do, and not by what they have and what they profess (ii. 1-29). He then answers some objections to this statement, which raight arise in the Jewish raind in consequence of the covenant relation of the Jewish nation to God, and the promises made to the fathers (iii. 1-20). He then sets forth the nature of that justification by faith, which is the basis of his instructions (iu. 21-31). He next insists that this method of justification is not new or pecuUar to the Gospel; that Abraham hiraself was justified by faith (iv. 1-4), that David also distinctly recognizes the doc trine (iv. 6-8), that Abrahara received justification by faith before he was circuracised (iv. 9-12), and before the law was given (iv. 13-15) ; therefore the Jews, who have both circumcision and the law, cannot be justified unless they have Abraham's faith also ; and the Gentiles, who have neither circuracision nor the law, raay be justified without either if they but have the faith of Abraham (iv. 16, 17). And then follows an exhibition of the nature and strength of Abraham's faith (iv. 18, 22), and an application of the whole to the subject in hand (iv. 23-25). Next tbe advantages of this justification by faith, peace with God, and confidence in his love (v. 1-11) ; and a contrast between what we have lost by Adam and what we may gain by Christ, showing the latter to be immeasurably the greater (v. 12-21). Thus far the subject of justification — now comes that THE FOURTEEN EPISTLES OP PAUL. 321 of sanctification. This doctrine of justification does not give license to sin ; for 1st, the very nature of our rela tion to Christ forbids us to sin, vi. 1, 14 ; 2nd, the different wages of the two services, sin and righteousness, should bring us entirely into the service of the latter, ¦ri. 15, 23 ; and 3rd, being now dead to the law and united to Christ, instead of our old ineffectual struggle against sin, we have in Christ an inward principle of love which leads to a willing obedience, vii. 1, 6. Further to fllustrate the sarae topic, he takes the raost favourable case which can possibly arise under the law, that of a man approving and loving the law, and sin cerely desiring to become holy by it, but without Christ living in a fruitless struggle and baffled in every en deavour, vii. 7-25. In Christ and Christ alone sin is overcome and sanctification attained, viii. 1-17. So far then frora the doctrine of justification by faith giving license to sin, it is the only principle which can possibly lead men to holiness. There is the lawless state of men, vii. 9 ; the legal state, vii. 5, vii. 7-25 ; and the glo rious spiritual state, vu. 6, vni. 1-17 ; and this last i° obtained by the Gospel and the Gospel only ; and the fundamental principle of the Gospel is justification bv faith alone, apart from the deeds of the law, iii. 20, 28. The glorious consummation of the completed work of redemption, extending as widely as the ruins of the faU have extended, is then described, viu. 18-39. But if the preceding be true, many of the descendants of Abra ham fall out of their covenant relations with God. He admits it, ix. 1-5, but affirms that this is nothing new, ix. 6, 7 ; the same has happened often before, as he Y 3'<^2 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. shows in the case of Ishmael, ix. 8, 9, and Esau, ix. 10, 13. God confers special favours, according to his own sovereign will, as he shows in the case of Moses, ix. 14-16, and chooses his ovm tirae and manner of punish ing transgressors, as he shows in the case of Pharaoh, ix. ' 17 ; in all such matters he acts entirely as a sove reign, and with entire justice and mercy, ix. 18-24; and moreover the ancient Hebrew prophets had them selves expressly predicted that the time would corae when many Gentiles and comparatively few Jews would be in covenant relation with God, ix. 25-33. The cause of all this is entirely the unbeUef of the Jews and nothing else, X. 1-13, and their inexcusable unbelief, for they had had abundant opportunity both to hear and accept the Gospel, x. 14-18, as Moses and Isaiah had before announced would be the case, x. 19-21. But the tirae would come when Israel would repent and be restored to all his covenant privileges, xL 1-16 ; the Gentfles, therefore, were not to boast, or despise the Jews, but to be humble and loving, xi. 17-32 ; and then he breaks forth into a rapturous strain of praise to God for his marvellous wisdora and goodness, xi. 33-36. Thus closes the dograatic part of this most wonderful epistle, and then follows the practical or hortatory part, xii.-xv., and the eminently social and sociable conclusion, xvi, STYLE OF THE EPISTLE, The style of Paul is altogether peculiar. Nothing like it, I believe, can be found out of the New Testa ment, It is the style of a Jewish rabbi rather than of a classical Greek writer, but of a rabbi of a very THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 323 peculiar cast of character. His style is the natural out growth of these elements ; to wit, the fiery impetuosity of his own nature, his thorough and strictly Jewish education, and the characteristic peculiarities of the Christian theology which he inculcated. All the cha racteristics of his style culminate in the epistle to the Romans. He cannot be called a perspicuous writer, but he is never equivocal He is either understood or not understood — seldom, by the careful student, who analyses his own thoughts, misunderstood. He abounds in ira perfect parentheses, that is, sentences which interrupt the flow of thought, and yet are so essential to the sub sequent arguraent that they cannot be oraitted ; and he is full of those rhetorical irregularities which the Greeks designate by the hard naraes of anantopodoton and anakolouthon. He frequently uses an imperfect kind of antithesis, a sort of phflological equation, of which the, two sides are not always by any means equal as they stand, and the equalizing raust be made by the reader, guided by the purpose and context of the sentences. He so isolates himself in a particular topic on hand, that often he states universally that which is true only with limitations ; and he uses prepositions with great profuseness and a wide latitude. His mind had been so thoroughly imbued with the forms of Hebrew thought, that a knowledge of the Hebrew language is almost as essential to the intelligent study of his writings as a knowledge of the Greek. He darts with inconceivable rapidity from thought to thought, so that one must be assiduously on the watch to keep him in sight He gives himself no time to express one thought fully before he hurries on to another ; and multitudes of ideas 324 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. are struggling in his soul for a simultaneous utterance. Yet his sentences can be disintegrated and his meaning ascertained— and when once he is fairly unravelled, his thought coraes out, not only with perfect explicitness, but with warmth the most genial and eloquence unsur passed. No study can be raore profitable as a disciplin ary exercise, vvhether raental, ethical, or religious, than the writings of the Apostle Paul. The witnesses for the epistle to the Romans are, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Letter to Diognetus, Churches of Vienne and Lyons, Irenseus, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Cleraent of Alexandria, TertuUian, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, Au gustin. Clement of Rome : "Hateful to God, not only those who do these things, but those who have pleasure in them." i. 23. Ignatius : " Of the race of David according to the flesh, son of man and son of God." i. 9. Polycarp : " We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and each give account of himself" xiv. 10. Judin Martyr : " For all have gone out of the way, he cries out, they have together become corrupt," etc. iiL 11-17. Irenseus : " The Apostle Paul -writing to the Romans, Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ, set apart for the Gospel of God," etc. i. 1. Again writing to the Romans concerning Israel, he says, " Whose are the fathers, and of whom as to the flesh Christ came," etc, ix. 5. Theophilus : "By patient continuance in well doing THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 325 seek for glory, honour, and immortality," etc. ii. 6-9. And he teaches to " render all things to all, honour to whora honour, fear to whom fear," etc. xiii. 7, 8. Church of Vienne and Lyons : " They hastened to Christ, showing in reality that the sufferings of this time are not to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed to us." vui. 18. Clement of Alexandria : " Behold, says Paul, the goodness and severity of God."' xi. 22. " Likewise also Paul in the epistle to the Roraans writes. We who are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer in it ?" vi. 2. TertuUian : " But I shall be able to call Christ alone God, as the same apostle says. Of whom Christ, who is God over all blessed for ever." ix. 4. " Writing to the Romans, Gentiles by nature doing the things which are of the law." ii. 14. " As also Paul says to the Roraans, And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also," etc. V. 3-5. Athenagoras : " Why should I care for sacrifices and holocausts of which God has no need ? He requires bloodless victims and a reasonable service." Rora. xii. 1 ; Legat. p. 13. Theophilus : " Upon thera wfll corae indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish." (Rora. ii. 6.) ad. Autol, p. 79. " Divine wisdom requires that we should render to all their dues, honour to whora honour, fear to whora fear, tribute to whom tribute ; and that we should owe no man anything, but to love one another." (Rom. xiii. 7, 8.) ad. Autol, p. 126. Clement of Alexandria : " Behold, therefore, says 326 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Paul tbe goodness and severity of God ; on those who fall severity, but to thee goodness, if thou continue in his goodness, that is, faith toward Christ." (Rom., xi. 22.) Pffid. p. 117. " Likewise also Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, writes : How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer therein ? Seeing that our old raan is crucified, that the body of sin may be destroyed, .... neither yield ye your members the instruments of unrighteous ness to iniquity." (Rom. vi. 2, 13.) Strom, iii. TertuUian : " As also Paul to the Romans, saying the Gentfles by nature do the things of the law." (Rom. ii. 14.) De Coron. 2, 6. " As also to the Romans Paul says. And not only so, but we glory in tribulation also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experi ence hope, and hope maketh not ashamed." (Rom. v. 3-9.) Scorpi. 2, 13. Eusebius : " The epistles of Paul are fourteen, aU weU known and beyond doubt." " The same apostle in the addresses at the close of the epistle to the Romans (xvi. 14), has among others made mention also of Herraas," etc. Athenagoras : " Why sacrifice to me, of which God has no need? It is needful to offer the bloodless victim, and to bring forward the reasonable service." xii. 1. Tatian: "This God we know from his acts, and ac knowledge the invisible things of his power, from what he has made." i. 20. No book was ever better attested by unimpeachable witnesses than Paul's epistle to the Romans. The testimony is so constant, uninterrupted, abundant. THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 327 and undisputed, that there scarcely seems a necessity for quoting raore. i For the reraaining epistles of Paul, my principal guides and authorities are Guericke and De Wette, the supematuralist and the rationalist. These two appear to me to have written, each from his own particular point of view, the most accurate and coraplete introduc tions to these epistles that have yet been published. De Wette is by no raeans an extreme rationalist. He had no syrapathy whatever with the extravagancies of Strauss, and had a real reverence for the Scriptures and for the Lord Jesus. He was rather a favourite author of the late Theodore Parker, who translated into EngUsh and published his ' Introduction to the Old Testaraent.' Guericke is an old-fashioned orthodox Lutheran of the most unexceptionable type. EPISTLE TO THE COEINTHIANS, FIRST AND SECOND. Paul carae to Corinth, on his second missionary jour ney, in the year 53 or 54, and remained there a year and a half It was a rich commercial city, specially de voted to the worship of Venus, corrupt and luxurious to a high degree even for a pagan city, yet distinguished also for learning and eloquence. The proconsul Gallio was quite indifferent to the movements of Paul who, supporting himself by tent-making in the establishment of PrisciUa and Aquila, zealously preached the Gospel with much opposition and disturbance, but also with great success (Acts xviii. 1-18). Whfle Paul was on his missionary journey through Phrygia and Galatia, Apollos, a learned and eloquent Jew of Alexandria, who 328 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. had been instracted by PrisciUa and Aquila at Ephesus (Acts xvui. 24-28), preached with great acceptance at Corinth ; and at the same time Judaizing teachers from .Jerusalem were there, who manifested bitter hostility to Paul, and caused dissensions in the church (Acts xviii 24-28 ; 1 Cor. ix. 2 ; 2 Cor. iu. 1, v. 12, xi. 4, 18, 22, xii. ] 1). To these troubles were added painful cases of immorality, occasioned by the gross corruptions of pa ganism stfll adhering to the recent Christian converts (1 Cor. V. 9). Such was the state of things at Corinth when Paul came to Ephesus frora Galatia in the year 56. He received information of the unhappy circumstances by persons from the faraily of Chloe (1 Cor. i. 1 1), and also by others sent specially to him by the Corinthians (1 Cor. xvL 17 ff.). He accordingly sent Timothy to thera (1 Cor. iv. 17), and afterwards this letter, appro priate not only to the Corinthians, but designed also (as was also the second letter) for all Christians in like circurastances (1 Cor. L 2 ; 2 Cor. i. 1). He first re proves thera for their dissensions, then rebukes their ira raoralities and vvant of discipline, and afterwards corrects their false doctrines, especially in regard to the resur rection. Frora Ephesus Paul passed into Mafledonia, learned something of the effect produced by his first letter from Titus (1 Cor. u. 12, vu., v. 5-10), and then wrote his second letter, to correct and deepen the impressions pro duced by the first. Both the letters are of a miscel laneous character, not adraitting of the rigid systematic analysis which can with so much advantage be applied to the epistle to the Romans ; but they are wonderfully THE POURTEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 329 eloquent, full of the most tender Christian feeling and practical wisdom, and admirably adapted to tbe instruc tion of Christian churches in all ages and nations, and especially to vindicate his own clairas to the genuine apostleship, which it would seem his enemies had called ui question. We may, however, give the following analysis (De Wette, p. 205) of the course of thought. 1. Opposition to the formation of parties in the church, and a defence of his own simple method of preaching the Gospel (i.-iv.). 2. Opposition to the improper connec tion of one of the niembers of the church with his step- raother, and warnings against licentious indulgence (v.). 3. Against Christians going to law with their fellow Christians before the pagan courts, and more warnings against licentiousness (vL). 4. Answer to the question respecting celibacy (vii.). 5. Instructions as to the proper course to be pursued by Christians in regard to heathen sacrifices, and a statement of his own principles and conduct in such matters (viii.-xL). 6. Reproof of some unbecoming practices in the church in regard to the presence of females at worship with their heads unveiled, and of great disorders at the celebration of the Lord's Supper (xL). 7. Instructions in respect to spiritual gifts, and the paramount obligations of Chris tian love (xii.-xiv.). 8. The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead (xv.). 9. Directions in respect to almsgiv ing, and closing salutations (xvi.). When Paul wrote the second epistle to the Corin thians he had already escaped from the dangers at Ephesus (2 Cor. i. 2 ; Acts xix. 23), and was now in Macedonia in company with Timothy (2 Cor. i. 1, 2, 330 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. ii. 13, viL 5, ix. 2 ; Acts xx. 1) ; and there could have been but a short time between the writing of the first epistle and the second. This second epistle was probably written in Macedonia near the close of A.D. 58, or the beginning of 59. It was occasioned by the extreme anxiety which the apostle felt in regard to the effect which might have been produced by his first epistle (2 Cor. u. 4, vii. 5 ff.). The influence had been for the most part good (2 Cor. u. 6-11, vu. 8-13, ix. 2), but the object of the writer had not yet been fully accomplished (2 Cor. vi. 14-18, xii 20, 21, xuL 11); his adversaries had even taken occasion from it to speak of him with contempt (2 Cor. i. 15-17, iii. 1, x. 9 ff.), so that he is obliged to warn them of severer measures which he wiU take if necessary. He also exhorts them to make a coUection for the poor. Titus, with two brethren, is sent to take charge of the collection and the delivery of the epistle (2 Cor. vui. 6-23, ix. 3-5) ; and the apostle him self proposes soon to follow (2 Cor. ix. 4, x. 11, xiu. 1), which he afterwards did (Acts xx. 2). The epistle is naturaUy di-rided into three parts. . 1. The expression of his anxieties occasioned by the troubles at Ephesus and the intelligence he had received from Corinth (L-vii.). 2. Directions in regard to the collections to be raade for the poor saints at Jerusalem (viii., ix.). 3. Earnest exhortations and warnings, and the necessary vindication of hiraself (x.-xuL). The witnesses for these two epistles are Clement of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp, the Church at Smyrna, Justin Martyr, Letter to Diognetus, Irenseus, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophflus, Clement of Alexandria, TertuUian, Origen, Jerome, Augustin, etc. The testi- THE POURTEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 331 mony is remarkably fuU and complete, and very few have ever pretended to impeach either the external or the internal evidence of the genuineness of these epistles. Clement of Rome, writing to the same Corinthians, says : " Take the epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul Certainly in the spirit he sent letters to you, conceming himself and Cephas and Apollos, because you were then at disagreement." 1 Cor. L 11-13. "Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord demonstrates to us perpetually the future resurrection, of which he made the Lord Jesus Christ the first fruits when he raised him from the dead." Polycarp : " Know we not that the saints -will judge the world ? So Paul teaches." 1 Cor. vi. 2. Irenseus : " And this the apostle in the epistle which is to the Corinthians raost plainly shows, saying, I would not that ye should be ignorant, brethren, that all our fathers were under the cloud." 1 Cor. x. 1 ff. "But what they say, Paul has openly said in the second to the Corinthians, in whom the God of this worid hath blinded the minds of them that believe not" 2 Cor. iv. 4. Athenagoras : " This corruptible and dissipated must put on incorruption." 1 Cor. xv. 54. " Each one will receive a just sentence, according to what he hath done in the body, whether it be good or bad." 2 Cor. v. 10. Better to Diognetus: "The apostle says, knowledge puffethup but charity edifieth." 1 Cor. iii. 1. Clement of Alexandria : " The blessed Paul in the first epistle to the Corinthians, . . . writing. Brethren, be not chfldren in understanding," etc. 1 Cor. xiv. 20. "Tbe apostle said in the second to thie Corinthians, for 332 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. to this day the same veil remains in the reading of the Old Testament." 2 Cor. iu. 14. TertuUian : " Paul in the first to the Corinthians mentions the deniers and doubters of the resurrection." The references are so full and explicit that it cannot be deemed necessary to multiply quotations. We add a few which refer- more particularly to the second epistle. Polycarp, ad Philip, c. 2 : " He that raised up Jesus from the dead will raise us up also if we do his will." 2 Cor. iv. 14, also ii. 6. " Providing for things honest both in the sight of God and man." 2 Cor. iv. 14, also ii. 4. "Let us arm ourselves with the weapons of righteousness." 2 Cor. vi. 7. Clement of Rome, Ep. i. ad Cor. c. 30 : " Let our praise be frora God and not from ourselves." 2 Cor. X. 17, 18, also c. 5. " Through zeal Paul received the reward of endurance, when he was many times in chains, was beaten, was stoned," etc, 2 Cor. xi. 24. Irenseus, Hser. iiL 7 : "Paul openly spake in the se cond to the Corinthians, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not." 2 Cor. iv. 4, also iv. 28. " For also the apostle says in the second epistle to the Corinthians, For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, both in thera that are saved and in them that perish ; to some indeed a savour of death unto death, to some a savour of life unto life." 2 Cor. U. 15, 16. Theophilus, ad Autol iii. : " You suffer fools gladly when you are wise." 2 Cor. xi. 19. Clement of Alexandria, Strom, iv. : " The apostle speaks of the savour of knowledge in the second epistle to the Corinthians." 2 Cor. u. 14. THE FOURTEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 333 TertuUian, De Pud. c. 13 : " They really suppose that Paul in the second epistle to the Corinthians gives pardon to the same fornicator whora in his first epistle he had directed to be delivered to Satan for the de struction of the flesh." 2 Cor. il 6-11. Epistle to Biogndus : " They are in the flesh but live not according to the flesh." " They are poor, yet raake many rich." " They have nothing, yet they abound in all things." " They are cursed and they bless." " They are spitefully treated and they honour." "Doing good, they are punished as evil." " When they are punished they rejoice as those who are raade alive." 2 Cor. v. 3-10. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. Galatia, or Gallogrsecia, was a small territory of Asia Minor, bounded by Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, Phrygia, and Lycaonia. It was occupied by Celtic or German emigrants about the year 250 B.C., and Jerome in forms us that they retained in some measure their German speech to a very late period. It was subjugated by the Romans in the year 188 B.C., and became a Roman pro vince in the year 26. There were Jews in the province, especially in the coraraercial cities, where they had enjoyed the special protection of the Eraperor Augustus. Paul was the founder of the churches there (Gal i. 3, iv. 13, 19). He raade two raissionaiy journeys among the ' Galatians (Acts xvi. 6, xviu. 23). They were a strong, rough, impulsive people, and the churches con sisted mainly, though not entirely, of Gentiles (Gal. iv. 8, V. 2, vi. 12). After Paul's departure Judaizing teachers had come 334 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. among the Galatians (Acts xv. i. 5 ; Gal. ii. 12), who underrated the character and labours of Paul (L 1, 11), disputed his doctrine, and insisted upon the necessity of circuracision and a compliance with the Jewish laws (Gal. V. 2 ff. 11 ff.), so that the people were very rauch disturbed and raisled (Gal. i. 6, iii. 1, iv. 9-21, v. 3 ff.). It was these disturbances and perversions which gave occasion to Paul's epistle. The epistle was written either at Troy or Corinth (Acts xvi. 3, xviii. 11), the time not quite certain, but about the year 55 or 56 after Christ. Contrary to his usual custora, he wrPte the epistle with his own hand, without the assistance of an amanuensis (Gal. vi. 11). The epistle maybe arranged in two divisions. 1. The apostle's assertion of his o-wn authority and dignity as a teacher of Christianity (L, ii.). 2. A denial of the neces sity of the Mosaic law, and a vindication of the glorious freedom of the Gospel (iii.-v.), and an exhortation that this freedora should hot be abused to licentiousness, con cluding with ethical precepts and warnings (vi.). The genuineness of the epistle has never been seriously ques tioned, and it is perfectly weU sustained both by internal evidence and external testiraony. Witnesses for Galatians. Cleraent of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenseus, Tatian, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, TertuUian, Eusebius, Jerome, Augustin. Specimens of Testimony. Irenseus : " And again in the epistle which is to the Galatians Paul says, But when the fulness of time had corae God sent bis Son, made of a woman, made under the law," etc. Gal. iy. 4, 5. " But also the Apostle Paul saying. For if ye THE POURTEEN EPISTLES OP PAUL. 335 served those who were not gods, but now knowing God, nay, being known by God." Gal. iv. 3, 9. " But also in that which is to thfe Galatians he speaks thus, What then is the law of works ? It was added until the seed should come," etc. Gal. iii. 19. Clement of Alexand.ria : " Wherefore Paul also, writing to the Galatians, ' says. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again till Christ be formed in you." TertuUian : " We also confess then the principal epistle against Judaisra which teaches the Galatians." " But of this no raore, if it be the same Paul who also in another place enumerates heresies among the works of the flesh, writing to the Galatians." Judin Martyr : " Be as I am, for I am as ye are." Gal iv. 12. Clement of Rome : " Who gave himself for our sins, according to the will of God and our Father." Gal. i. 4. Ignatius : " An apostle not of men nor by men, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him frora the dead." Gal. i. 1. " Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law." Gal V. 4. THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. The relations of the Apostle Paul to the church at Ephesus were peculiarly tender and interesting. The 19th and 20th chapters"of the book of Acts should be carefully read in connection with this epistle. It was written while Paul was a prisoner at Rome, about A.D. 61 or 62. (See Acts xxviiL 30, 31 ; and Eph. iiL 1, iv. 1, vi. 20.) The peculiar circumstances under which 336 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. he wrote, and his deep interest in the doctrinal purity of that church, as evinced in his address to the Ephesian elders assembled at Miletus (Acts xx. 28-32), led him to a dograatic discussion of the peculiar tenets of the religion of Christ, more characteristic of this epistle, perhaps, than of any other except the epistle to the Romans. It naturally divides itself into two parts of three chapters each. In the first part (i. u. iu.), as might be expected, the dogmatic or theological element predominates, and in the second (iv. v. vi.), the ethical or hortatory. He gives great prominence to the doctrine of predestination, and insists with rauch emphasis on the idea that Christ is the sufficient and the only Saviour of lost raan, and' the Saviour equally and in the same way of both Jew and Gentile ; in this respect particularly the letter bearing a strong resemblance to the epistle to the Romans. The epistle abundantly asserts itself to be the composition of Paul, and the composition of Paul addressed to the Ephesians (Eph. i. 1, iii. 1), and to this both the internal evidence and the testimony of the ancients exactly corresponds. Witnesses for the Epistle to the Ephesians. Clement of Rorae, Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenseus, Theo philus, Clement of Alexandria, TertuUian, Origen, Epiphanius, Augustin, Jerome, Eusebius. Specimen of Testimony. Irenseus : " As the blessed Paul says in the epistle to the Ephesians, that we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." Eph, V. 30. " And this also Paul says, for whatsoever doth make raanifest is light." Eph. v. 13. Polycarp : " As it is said in these Scriptures, Be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OP PAUL. 337 wrath." Eph. iv. 26. " Knowing that ye are saved by grace, not of works." Eph. ii. 8. Clement of Alexandria : " Wherefore, writing to the Ephesians, he revealed most openly that which was sought, speaking in this manner, Until we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of God, unto a perfect man," etc. Eph. iv. 13, 14. " Wherefore, also, in the epistle to the Ephesians he writes, Be subject one to another in the fear of God." Eph. v. 21. TertuUian : " Here I pass by concerning the other epistle which we have, written to the Ephesians." " In deed in the truth of the church we have that epistle sent to the Ephesians." Origen : " But also the apostle, in the epistle to the Ephesians, uses the same language when he says, Who chose us before the foundation of the world." Eph. i. 4. Ignatius : " Let no one of you be found a deserter. Let your baptisra remain as weapons, faith as a helmet, love as a spear, patient continuance as the whole armour." Eph. vL 13, 17. "As being stones of the temple of the Father, prepared for the habitation of God the Father." Eph. ii. 20-22. Hermas : " For it would become you as the servants of God to walk in the truth, and not to join an evil conscience with the spirit of truth, and not to make grief for the true and Holy Spirit of God." iv. 30. Clement of Rome : " Why should there be among you contentions, wrath, dissensions, schisms and war? Have we not one God and one Christ ? And is not one spirit of grace poured out upon us ? And is there not one calling in Christ ?" Eph. iv. 4. z 338 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. Phflippi was the first city in Europe where Paul preached the Gospel and established a Christian church. A full account of this important event, of the difficulties which the apostle encountered, of the success which attended his efforts, of the shameful abuses which he suffered, and of his dignified assertion of his own rights as a Roman citizen, and the tardy but ultimately full concession of these rights by the magistrates ; and a brief notice of a second visit there, is found in Acts xvi. and XX. 2-6. There was a very tender friendship be tween the apostle and the Philippian Christians ; they had been liberal to him beyond what he desired or they could really afford (Phil iv. 15, 16; 2 Cor. viu. 1-6); and the occasion of his writing the epistle was the generosity of his Philippian friends in sending Epaphro ditus all the way to Rome with supplies for his wants while he was a prisoner there. Phil. iv. 18. It appears to have been written about the middle of the year 63 after Christ. After an affectionate introduction (i. 1-11), and an account of his condition in Rome and the opposition he had encountered from Judaizing teachers (i. 12-26), he exhorts them to union and humflity (i. 27-iL 16), and gives them information in respect to Timothy and the sickness and recovery of Epaphroditus (ii. 17-30). He then refers again to the opposition which he had en countered from Jewish teachers, and the attitude of his own mind in respect to their doctrines (iii. 1-21), and concludes with affectionate exhortations and salutations (iv.). The epistle affirms itself to be the writing of Paul THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 339 to the Philippians (Phil. i. 1), and to this all internal evidence and external testimony corresponds. Witnesses to Epistle to Philippians, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Letter to Diognetus, Letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyons, Irenseus, Theophilus, Cleraent of Alexandria, TertuUian, Cyprian, Origen, Eusebius, Augustin, Jerorae. ^Specimen of Testimony. Polycarp (writing to the Philippians) : " Of Paul . . . who also being absent wrote letters to you, into which if ye look intently, ye wiU be able to be built up into the faith given to you." "You, among whom the blessed Paul laboured, who are praised in the beginning of his epistle ; for of you he glories in all the churches which alone then knew God." Phfl. L 5 ff. Irenseus : " As also Paul says to the Philippians, I am fuU, the things being received from Epaphroditus which were sent by you, an odour of sweetness, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God." Phil. iv. 18. Clement of Alexandria : " Paul also confessing con ceming himself. Not as though I had already attained or were already perfect," etc. Phfl. iii. 12-14. Church of Vienne and Lyons: " Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God." Phil iL 6. TertuUian : " Paul himself writes to the Philippians, If by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead" etc. Phil iU. 11 ff. Cyprian : " Also Paul to the Phflippians, Who being in the form of God," etc. Phil ii. 6-11. Clement of Rome : " You see, men beloved, what an example is given to us. For if the Lord so humbled 340 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. hiraself, what shall we do who corae under the yoke of his grace ?" Phil iL 5 ff. Ignatius : " I exhort you to do nothing by contention, but according to the discipline of Christ." Phil. ii. 3. Irenseus : " Conceming which resurrection the apos tle, in that which is to the Philippians says. Being raade conformable to his death, if by any raeans I raay attain to the resurrection which is from the dead." Theophilus : " That indeed now these things are true and useful and just and lovely to all men, is very plain." Phfl. iv. 8. EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. Colosse was a city of Asia Minor, near Laodicea and Hierapolis, and in the sarae region with the seven churches to which the Apocalypse was directed. Paul had not been there personally (Col iL 1), though he had twice passed through that country (Acts xvi. 6 ; x-viii. 23), but there were raembers of that church who were very dear to hira (Col. i. 7 ff., Philera.) ; and at the tirae of his writing this epistle, about A.D. 61 or 62, Epaphras, the teacher of the church, was with him (Col. iv. 12; Philera. 23) while a prisoner at Rome. This visit of Epaphras, and the intelligence which he gave to Paul respecting the church at Colosse, afforded the occasion of his writing this letter and sending it on with the letter to Phflemon by Tychichus and Onesimus (Col. iv. 7-9 ; Phflera. 23). After an introduction of thanksgiving and intercession (i. 1-12), he testifies to the Colossians the exalted dignity of the Redeemer and the benefits of the rederaption received through hira (L 13-23), and affirms that he THE FOURTEEN EPISTLES OP PAUL. 341 himself rejoices to suffer for their salvation (i. 24-29), in order the more effectually to warn them against those who by worldly craft would seduce them from Christ (ii. 1-15), for it is his chief object in writing to this church, for whose love and sympathy he felt deeply grateful, to protect thera against certain false teachers, who combined bigoted adherence to certain Jewish principles with severe asceticism and high pretensions to superior and mysterious vrisdom (ii. 16-23). The last half of the epistle is taken up with eloquent and earnest exhortations to holiness of life (iii., iv.). In regard to this epistle also internal evidence and external testimony fully agree. Witnesses for Epidle to the Colossians. Cleraent of Rome, Justin Martyr, Irenseus, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria, TertuUian, Origen, Eusebius, Augustin, Jerorae. Specimen of Testimony. Irenceus iii. 14 : " Aad again in the epistle which is to the Colossians, he (Paul) says, Luke the beloved physician saluteth you." Col. iv. 14. " And on this account the apostle in the epistle which is to the Oolos.sians says. And you that were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconcfled in the body of his flesh through his death to present you holy and pure and without fault in his sight." Col. L 21, 22. Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Ttyph. p. 310: "He was made flesh frora the virgin's womb, the first born of all creatures." " Knowing him to be the first begotten of God, and also of all creatures." " The first born of every creature." Col. i. 15. Clement of Rome : " Ye see, beloved, . . . unless we 342 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. walk worthy of him, and do those things which are honourable and well pleasing in his sight with aU the heart." Col L 10. Theophilus, ad Autol. p. 100 : " He begat this word the first born of every creature." Col. i. 15. Clement of Alexandria, Strom, i. : " In the epistle to the Colossians, he writes warning every man and teach ing in all wisdora that we raay present every man perfect in Christ." Col. i. 28. Strom, vi. : " Likewise he speaks to the Colossians who were converted from among the Greeks, Beware lest any raan spoil you through philoso phy," etc. Col. il 8. TertuUian, De Praes. Haer. c. 7 : " The apostle vmting to the Colossians, See lest any one circum5!efi!^~5;ou by philosophy and vain seduction after the tradition of raen," etc. Col ii. 8. De Resurrec||Pvarnis. c. 23 : "Indeed the apostle writing totbe/'^- -'¦sians teaches tkUi we were sometime dead, alienatps^lXfl^nemies of the Lord in our mind, when we waike- x "^ ¦ 3^^ works ; thence buried in the baptism f 'v'sS^- .Aj'^l'him, and rising again with him by faiil!r'^_ ^^^^n)~««glcj/of God, who raised hira from the deaQi- - And when ye were dead in sins in the circumcision of your flesh, he hath quickened you together with him," etc. Col iL 11-13. There can be no nee"d of tracing the quotations down any further. The testiraony to this book, as to every other thus far, is uniform and uncontradicted from the beginning to our own day, or at least to the times of modern unhistorical criticism. THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 343 EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS — I. AND II. Thessalonica, situated on a bay near the site of the ancient Therme, was a large and populous coraraercial city, the capital of one of the four districts into which the Roraans divided the country of Macedonia. It received its name from its founder, Thesalonica, the wife of Cassander. Paul visited the city in company with Silas and Timothy, and in a short time gained many adherents, especially among the proselytes to the Jewish religion ; but was soon compelled to leave on account of disturbances excited by the Jews (Acts xvii. 1-9). From thence he went to Beroea, and driven also from that city he repaired to Athens, leaving his two companions behind with directions to follow him speedily (Acts xvii. 10-15). He then went to Corinth, where Timothy and Silas rejoined him (Acts xviii. 5) ; and at a later period he made another journey to Macedonia and probably -risited Thessalonica. These two are the earliest of Paul's epistles which we have, as the first was written as early as A.D. 52 or 53, and the second soon after, during his residence in Corinth (2 Thess. iu. 2 ; Acts xyiii. 12 ff.). Full of anxiety for the Thessalonians, he had sent Tiraothy frora Athens to inquire after thera, and had received information by him (Thess. i. 1 ; u. 17 ff. ; iu. 1-6), and had twice endeavoured himself to return. The church was in circurastances of affliction, and needed encouragement and confirmation and further develop ment (iii. 2-13) ; though it was strong in the faith and alive in love (iu. 6-9 ; iv.- 10). They had faults, for which the apostie had verbally reproved them (iv. 3-6, 11 12 ; V. 15), and were in particular need of information 344 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. in regard to what would be the future of those who were already dead at the final coming of Christ (iv. 13 — v. 11). The epistle consists of two parts, to wit : 1. The expression of the apostle's affection for the Thessalonian church, a notice of their circurastances, his reception among thera, his care for them, and the com fort they gave him. i.-iii. 2. Ethical exhortations, comforting assurances in re gard to those who had died (x.), and exhortations to be always ready for death and the coming of Christ, with concluding salutations (v.). TESTIMONIES TO I. THESSALONIANS. Clement of Rome, 1 Epistle ad Cor. c. 38 : " We ought in everything to give thanks unto him." 1 Thess. v. 18. " Wherefore let our whole body be preserved in Christ Jesus." 1 Thess. v. 23. Ignatius, ad Polyc. 2, 1 : " Be diligent in increasing prayers." Thess. v. 17. Ad Ephes. 2, 10 : " And also pray without ceasing for other men." Polycarp, ad Philip. 2, 4 : " Without ceasing interceding for all," JfeicZ. c. 2 :" Abstaining from aU evil." v. 22. Irenseus, Haer. -v. 6 : " And on this account the apostle, in the first epistle to the Thessalonians, speaking thus. May the God of peace sanctify you wholly, and 'may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 23, v. 80). This also the apostle says. When they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them." V. 3. THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OP PAUL. 345 Clement of Alexandria, Paed. i. p. 88 : "But this also the blessed Paul most plainly signified, saying. When we might have been burdensome as the apostles of Christ, we were gentle in the midst of you, even as a nurse cherisheth her chfldren." ii. 7. Strom, i. p. 296 : " Prove all things, says the apostle, and hold fast that which is good." v. 21. TertuUian, De Resur. Cam. c. 24 : " Learn with the Thessalonians, for we read. How ye turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus." i. 7, 10. " And in the epistle itself, to the Thessalonians, he suggests. Of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you ; for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." v. 1, 2. The second epistle to the Thessalonians was written especially to correct a misunderstanding which had arisen out of the first. 1 Thess. iv. 17. In speaking of the day of judgment he had said, Then we who are alive and remain, dc. Frora this some had inferred that he meant to teach that Christ would corae to judgment during the lifetirae of that generation. In 2 Thess. ii., he positively denies that he entertains any such idea, or had given any such instruction. He affirras that many important events were to occur before the second coming of the Lord, and they might occupy a long time. He fixes no tirae, and inasmuch as the tirae is entirely un certain, he uses the first person plural, as a convenient indefinite designation of Christians, at whatever tirae they might meet the Lord at his coming. So Peter labours very earnestly to show the Christians of his 346 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. time, that without any violation of the divine promise, a long tirae, as men view tirae, might yet interve&e before the final coming of the Lord. 2 Pet. in. What ever might have been the current opinion on this sub ject, among private Christians, the inspired teachers of the New Testament not only did not teach the doctrine of the immediate coming of the Lord, but they earnestly, emphatically, and repeatedly taught the direct contrary. These two chapters, 2 Thess. ii., and 2 Pet. iii., are per fectly explicit on this point ; and the same idea is suffi ciently indicated in other passages, such as Acts i. 7 ; John xxi. 21-23 ; Mark xni. 32, etc. The second epistle to the Thessalonians consists : 1. Of thanksgivings, prayers and approval of the Thessalonians, especially in reference to their praise worthy conduct under suffering. 2. A correction of their mistaken notion that the second advent of Christ was immediately to occur, and warning them that this event must be preceded by a great apostacy, requiring a considerable interval of tirae. 3. Admonitions and exhortations appropriate to their condition; concluding with a remarkable stateraent of the raanner in which he authenticated all his epistles. TESTIMONIALS TO SECOND EPISTLE TO THE THESSA LONIANS. Polycarp, ad Phil. 2, 11 : " Yet esteera not such as enemies, but as erring members recall thera, that ye may save your whole body." 2 Thess. iii. 15. " Among whom the blessed Paul laboured, who are in the beginning of THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 347 his epistle, of you there is glorying in all the churches, wliich then alone knew God." 2 Thess. i. 5. Judin Martyr, Dial. p. 336 : " When also the man of the apostacy, speaking proud things against the Most High, will dare upon the earth lawless things against us Christians." 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4. Irenseus, Haer. v. 7 : " And again, in the second to the Thessalonians, speaking concerning antichrist, And then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus Christ will slay with the spirit of his mouth, and the presence of his advent will destroy him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, in aU power of signs and lying wonders." 2 Thess. iL 8. Ibid. V. 25 : " Concerning whom the apostle, in the epistle which is the second to the Thessalonians, thus speaks. Unless there come a falling away first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who op- poseth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or is worshipped, so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God." 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4. Clement of Alexandria, Strom, v. p. 554 : " The apostle says there is not knowledge in all ; but pray ye that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, for all men have not faith." 2 Thess. iii. 2. TertuUian, De Res. Car. u. 24 : " And in the second epistle to the Thessalonians, with a more correct solici tude to the same. But I beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto hira, that ye be not soon shaken in your mind or troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, to wit, of false prophets, nor by epistle, to wit, of false aposties, as if by us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand." 348 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. 2 Thess. il 1-3. ScorpL p. 498: "But Paul the apostle, concerning the first persecutor, who first shed the blood of the church, and afterwards changing the sword for the pen . . . says. So that we ourselves may glory in you in the churches of God, for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations which ye endure, a token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of his kingdom, for which ye also suffer." 2 Thess. i. 4, 5. THE PIEST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY. The two epistles to Timothy and the epistle to Titus are called pastoral epistles, because in them Paul gives directions to these two helpers of his, as to how they should conduct theraselves as the shepherds and the patterns of the flock over which they were placed. Tiraothy was a native of the city of Lystra in Lycaonia in Asia Minor, the son of a Greek father . and Jewish raother. He was received into the church by Paul, becarae his companion and feUow-labourer in Macedonia and Achaia, and was his fellow-prisoner at Rome. Acts xvii-xx. It is not easy to deterraine the precise date of the first epistle to Timothy, nor is this necessary to an un derstanding of its contents or the establishment of its genuineness. It is quite probable that it was written from Macedonia, about A.D. 63 or 64, and not impossible that it might have been written from Laodicea, according to the old superscription. Paul had departed from Ephesus for the purpose of going to Macedonia, with the intention of speedfly re-^ THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OP PAUL. 349 turning ; and leaving Tiraothy mean whfle in charge of the Ephesian church, writes to him these directions (1 Tim. L 3 ; iii. 13). The epistle begins with personal reminiscences and affectionate talk with Timothy (L), proceeds to instructions in regard to public worship (ii.), and the qualifications of church officers (AL). He then foretells the coming in of false teachers and various corruptions, and instructs Timpthy in regard to the course he was to pursue when he had these difficulties to encounter, and concludes as usual with the grace be with thee (iv.-vL). TESTIMONIALS TO THE PIEST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY. Polycarp, ad Philip. 2, 12 : "Pray for all the saints, pray also for kings and princes and all that are in au thority." 1 Tim. ii. 1, 2. Ibid. 2, 4 : " The love of money is the beginning of all evils. But knowing that we brought nothing into this world and can carry nothing out, let us arm our selves with the weapons of righteousness." 1 Tim. vi. 7, 10. Epistle to Biogndus : " Being reckoned faithful by him they knew the mysteries of the Father. On which account he sent the Word that he might appear to the world ; who was despised by the people, preached by apostles, believed on by the Gentiles." 1 Tim. iu. 16. Epistle of the Churches at Vienne and Lyons : " But overwhelmingly their whole fury fell upon Attains, a native of Pergamus, who had always been the pillar and stay of the faithful there." 1 Tim. iii. 15, compare Rev. Ui. 12. 350 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. "Alcibiades, one of the martyrs, led a squalid and ascetic life, accepting no food but bread and water only up to that time. When he was put in prison he wished to retain the same mode of Uving; but after the first conflict in the amphitheatre it was revealed to Attains that Alcibiades was not doing right and set an evfl example for others, in that he did not use the creatures of God. And Alcibiades being persuaded then began to use all kinds of food promiscuously and gave thanks to I God." ITira. iv. 3, 4. - Irenseus, Haer. i. 1 : " And sorae opposing the truth bring in false words and vain genealogies, which, as the apostle says, minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith." 1 Tim. i. 4. Ibid. ii. 4 : " And well Paul says, novelties of words of false science." 1 Tim. vi. 20. Athenagoras, Legat. pro Christ, p. 15 : " For God is all things to himself, light inaccessible, universe perfect, spirit, power, word." 1 Tim. vi. 16. Theophilus, Ad Autol. iii. : "And also that we should be subject to magistrates and powers, and pray for them, our divine word coraraands in order that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life." 1 Tim. ii. 1, 2 ; see Tit. iu. 1. Clement of Alexandria, Strom, ii. p. 383 : " Con cerning which the apostle writing says, 0, Timothy, keep that which is committed to thee, avoiding profane novelties of words and oppositions of science falsely so called, which some professing have erred concerning the faith. By this word are those heretics reproved who set aside the epistle to Timothy." 1 Tira. -vi. 20, 21. Ibid. ii. p. 464 : " Whence also the apostle, I will, says he, that the younger woraen maxry, bear chfldren. THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OP PAUL. 351 guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully, for sorae are already turned aside to Satan." 1 Tim. v. 14, 15. Admon. ad Gent.: "Godliness is profitable to all things, says Paul, having the promise of the present life and of the future." I Tim. iv. 8. TertuUian, De Praescr. Haer. 2, 25 : " And Paul to Timothy uses this word, O Tiraothy, keep that which is committed to thee." 1 Tim. vi. 20. De Pudicit. 2, 13 :•" Plainly the sarae apostle delivers to Satan Hyraenseus and Alexander that they may learn not to blaspheme, as he writes to Timothy." 1 Tim. i. 20. \ Jerome, Comment, in Epist. Tit. : " Speaking , of Marcion and BasiUdes and all heretics, Jerome says, that rejecting gospels and epistles he wonders how they dare assume to themselves the Christian name, for, to be silent conceming other epistles, from which they erase whatever they see contrary to their own dogmas, they reject some entire epistles, as Timothy, Hebrews, Titus, which we are now undertaking to explain. Indeed if they gave any reasons why they suppose these epistles not to be the apostle's, we should endeavour to reply and perhaps satisfy the reader. But now they pronounce with heretic authority, and say, this epistle is Paul's, and this is not." THE SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY. This epistle Paul writes from Rorae, where he is im prisoned, inviting Timothy, who is at Ephesus, to come to him and bring Mark with him (2 Tim. i. 8, 12, 16 ; 352 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. iv. 5, 9, 11, 16, 19, 21). The date of it is shortly before the apostle's martyrdom, probably A.D. 65 or 66. He expresses his affection for Timothy, and calls to mind various interesting personal incidents (i.), exhorts to purity of life and fortitude under affliction (ii.), waims of corruptions and false teachers, and expresses his own calraness and happiness in view of his approaching mar tyrdom (iv.). ifestimonies to the Second Epistle to Timothy. Barna bas, lEpis. 7 : "If the Son of God, -who is the Lord, and wfll) judge the quick and dead, suffered," etc. 2 Tim. iv. fnatius, ad Ephes. ii. 2 : " But also Crocus, who is wo/thy. of God and of you, whom I received as a proof of /your love, refreshed me in all things ; and in like ifanner will the Father of Jesus Christ refresh hira." '2 Tim. L 16, 18. "You have refreshed me in all things as Jesus Christ refreshed you. You have loved me both absent and present ; the Lord will reward you." 2 Tim. i. 16, 18. Ad Polyc. c. 6: "Please him for whora you are soldiers, and from whom you receive wages." 2 Tim, U. 4. Polycarp, Ep. ad Phflip : " As he hath promised us that he will raise us frora the dead, and that, if we walk Worthy of him we shall reign with him, provided that we beUeve." 2 Tim. iL 11, 12. Irenseus, Haer. iii 3 : " The blessed apostle, therefore, founding and building up the church, gave' over the pastorship to Linus for the administering of the church. Of this Linus Paul makes raention in his epistles which are to Timothy." 2 Tim. iv. 21. Ibid., v. 20 : " Ever leaming and never finding the truth." 2 Tim. iii. 7. THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OP PAUL. 353 Clement of Alexandria, Strom, iii. p. 448 : " For we know what the raost excellent Paul teaches respecting women deacons in his second epistle to Timothy." Ibid. i. p. 270 : " Thou therefore be strong, also says Paul, in the grace which is in Christ Jesus, and what thou hast heard from me among many -witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. And again, Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be asharaed, rightly handling the word of truth." 2 Tira. ii. 1, 2, 15. Admon. ad Gentil. p. 56 : " The apostle knovring this teaching to be really divine, says. Thou, 0 Timothy, from a child hast known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith in Christ." 2 Tim. iiL 15. TertuUian, Scorpiac. c. 13 : " You see how he de scribes the felicity of martyrdom Exulting he writes to Tiraothy, For I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I -have finished my course, I have kept the faith, there remains for me a crown which the Lord will give me in that day." 2 Tim. iv. 6-8. Origen, Comment, in Matt. iii. p. 916: "Also what he says as Jannes and Mambres withstood Moses ; this is not found in the public Scriptures, but in a secret book which is entitled. The Book of Jannes and Mam bres." 1 Tim. iii. 8. Eusebius, ' Eccl Hist.' iii. 4 : " Linus whora he (Paul) has mentioned in his second epistle to Timothy." ' Eccl. Hist.' ii. 22 : " Whfle he (Paul) was a prisoner at Rome, he wrote his second epistle to Timothy in which he both mentions his first defence and his im- 2 A 354 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. pending death. Hear on these points his own testiraony respecting- hiraself. ' In my former defence no one was present with rae, but all deserted rae. May it not be laid to their charge. But the Lord was with me and strengthened me, that through me the preaching of the Gospel might be fulfilled and all the nations might hear it. And I was rescued out of the lion's mouth.' He plainly intimates in these words, 'On the former occasion he was rescued from the lion's mouth, that the preaching of the Gospel raight be accoraplished,' that it was Nero to whom he referred by this expression, as is probable on account of his cruelty. Therefore he did not subsequently subjoin any such expressions as 'he will rescue me from the Uon's mouth,' for he saw iu spirit how near his approaching death was. Hence after the expression, ' I was rescued from the Uon's mouth,' this also, ' the Lord vrill rescue me from every evil work, and will save rae unto his heavenly kingdom,' indicating the martyrdom that he would soon suffer ; which he more clearly expressed in the same epistle, 'for I am already poured out, and the time of my departure is at hand.' And indeed in this second epistle to Timothy, he shows that Luke alone was with hira when he wrote, but at his forraer defence not even he." 2Tim. iv. 16, 18; vL 8, 11. We see in all these testiraonies, when the witnesses quote passages at large, that their New Testament books not only had the same names which we now have, but precisely the sarae contents, the ancient and the modern being identical throughout. THE FOURTEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 355 EPISTLE TO TITUS. Titus, a Greek by birth, was an assistant of the Apostle Paul was -with him on his journey to Jerusalem (Gal i. 1-3) ; fulfilled commissions for him in Corinth (2 Cor. vu. 6-4 ; viiL 6-23 ; xiL 18), and was now left in Crete to attend to ecclesiastical duties in that island (Tit. i. 5 ff.). The object of this epistle is to give him instructions in respect to the discharge of those duties'. 1. Instructions in regard to the appointment of elders and the treatment of false teachers (L). 2. The guiding of the congregation in reference to the different ranks in society (u.). 3. Ethical principles of a general character, warning in regard to controversies, and personal notices (iii-). The epistle was probably written between the first and second epistle to Timothy. Tedimonies to Titus. Clement of Rome, First Epistle to Cor. ii. 2 : "Be ready to every good work." Tit. iii. 1. Ignatius, ad Trail c. 3 : "Whose very behaviour (habit) (Karaarrifia) is a great discipline." Tit. ii. 3 is the only passage in the New Testament where this Greek word occurs. Irenseus, Hser. in. 3 : "As the blessed Paul also says, A man that is a heretic after the first a.nd second admonition, reject ; knowing that he who is such is perverted and condemned of himself" Tit. iii. 10,11. V. 15 : " Jesus said to him. Go to Siloam and wash, at the same time restoring to him the clay ointraent (plasmationem), and that which is the regeneration by washino-." Tit. iiL 5. L 16: "As raany as stand off from the church and give heed to these old wives' fables 356 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. are truly conderaned of themselves, whora the Apostle Paul coraraands us after the first and second admonition to reject" Tit. iu. 10, 11. Theophilus, ad Autol. ill p. 122 : "But we have a lawgiver who is truly God, who teaches us to live a righteous, godly and honourable life." Tit. iL 11, 12. il p. 95 : " Men about to receive repentance and re mission of sins all come to the truth by water and the washing of regeneration, and being regenerated receive blessing from God." Tit. iii. 5, 6. Clement of Alexandria, Strom, i. p. 299 : " Epime- nides, a Cretan, a Greek prophet whom Paul knew, of whom he makes mention in the epistle to Titus, speaking thus, One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow belUes." Tit i. 12. Adraon. ad Gent. p. 6 : " But now, as the divine apostle of the Lord said. The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world, looking for that blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" Tit. iL 11-13. TertuUian, De. Prses. Hser : " And Paul suggests that a man who is a heretic should be rejected after the nrst adraonition, because that such a one is perverse and in fault, and is condemned of himself' Tit. iu. 10, 11. TertuUian here refers to the epistle to the Galatians as if the passage were to be found there ; but it is only one of the numerous instances of quotations merely from memory, and without any solicitude for literal THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 357 accuracy, which are so common with the fathers, and should always be taken into the account when we are reading them. EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. This letter was addressed not only to Phflemon, but also to the church which met at his house (1, 2). It belongs to A.D. 61 or 62. Philemon was a wealthy citizen of Colosse, a relative of Apphia and Archippus (perhaps husband and father), who had been converted to Christianity by the apostle Paul (13, 19). He was a generous believer, full of faith and good works (4, 7), and tbe apostle had entire confidence in him (14, 22). Onesimus, an fll-conditioned servant of his, had robbed him and then fled to Rome (10, 11, 18, 19), where he had met with the Apostle Paul, had by him been con verted to Christ, and was much beloved by the apostle (12, 13). Wishing to return to his horae the apostle sends him vrith this wonderfully affectionate and beau tiful letter, to be received by Phileraon no longer as a slave, but as a friend, as a brother beloved (16) ; for so much the apostle required ; and he had confidence in Phileraon that he would do not only this, but even raore than he had asked (21). The whole transaction was voluntary (19), spontaneous, joyous in regard to all three ; there was no need of applying to the police or calling out the militia, or putting a chain around the court-house, or doing any of those violent and disgraceful things, which made some of our American cities in- Famous when fugitive slaves were to be returned to their southern masters. Of all the shameful travesties of Scripture, there never was one raore shameful and 358 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. ridiculous than that which put the story of Paul and Onesimus on a parallel with the transactions under the Satanic fugitive slave law of America. Testimonies to the Epistle to Philemon. Ignatius, ad Ephes. c. 2 ; Magnes. c. 12 ; Polyc. c. 6 : "I would enjoy you perpetually if only I may be worthy." " I would enjoy you in all things, if indeed I may be worthy." " I would enjoy you perpetually." Phil. 20. TertuUian,' ad Marc. v. 42 : "Its bre^rity gave to this epistle alone the privilege of escaping the falsifying hands of Marcion." Epiphanius, User. xiii. 9 : " Marcion receives ten epistles of this holy apostle, . . . the ninth being that to Philemon." Origen, Homil, in Jerem. 19 : " Which Paul also knowing said to Philemon in regard to Onesimus, in his epistle to Philemon, that thy benefit should not be of necessity, but willingly." Phfl. 14. Matth. Com. tract. 34 : '' As Paul says to Philemon, For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother." Phil. 7. Ibid. tract. 3 : " But concerning Paul it is said to Philemon, being such an one as Paul the aged." Phil. 9. Jerome, Comment. Epist. ad Phil. : Jerorae is speak ing of those who would exclude the epistle to Philemon from the canon on the ground that it is simply a private letter, treating' of personal affairs, and not a public doctrinal treatise, and says, if epistles containing allusions to private affairs are to be judged not to be apostolic, not to belong to Paul, then we must reject Roraans, Timothy, Galatians, Corinthians, and others ; but if we receive these, there is no ground for rejecting Philemon. THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 359 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. « It is the purpose of the epistle to the Hebrews to prove to the Hebrew Christians, that the new dispen sation is the reality and perfection of that divine reve lation of which the old dispensation was but the type and the imperfect beginning. It is written with great care and in a style of reraarkable correctness. The name of the author is not attached to it. If Paul were the writer there is good reason for both these striking facts. Hi^ name and his doctrinal peculiarities were not in good odour among the Hebrews ; and therefore, as a wise man, he would not needlessly parade his name before their eyes, and would exercise all possible care in the stateraent of his doctrines. The learned and candid Roman Catholic Professor Hug concludes his laborious investigation of this subject with the following emphatic declaration: "The more intimately I become acquainted with the writings of the apostle (Paul), the more I am disposed to regard the epistle to the Hebrews as his masterpiece. It bears the seal of the completion, as the epistles to the Thessalonians do that of the commencement, of his Uterary career.'' The question of authorship is and must be, as we have l)efore stated, raainly a question of testimony, of external evidence ; and, as we shall see in the exhibition of the testimony, if Paul is supposed not to be the author, the mention of any other name in connection with the authorship is mere guess work, without any solid foot hold whatever. The author first sets forth the connection between the old revelations and the new, and the infinite superiority 360 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. of the Son of God, the author of the new revelation. over the prophets and even the angels who were the heralds of the old (i. ii.). He then proceeds to demon strate the superiority of Christ to Moses, the one merely the servant, the other the Son, the rightful and only inheritor (ill). Christ also as high priest is superior to the high priest of the old covenant, being a regal priest after the order of Melchisedek, having a perpetual priest hood, and a priesthood of the realities and not of the mere type and images of the heavenly things (iv.-x.). Then follow practical exhortations, earnest warnings, illustrations of faith from Old Testament examples, and allusions to personal circumstances and feeUngs. The date of the epistle and the place pf writing it is impos sible now to ascertain. The old inscription at the close says it was written in Italy and forwarded by Timothy ; and nobody now knows anything more on this subject than the writer of this inscription. From the very earliest times, by the very first of the apostoUc fathers, the personal friends of the apostles themselves, this epistle has been quoted and appealed to as an undoubted portion of Holy Scripture, though we do not find the name of the author mentioned till we corae to Pantaenus, the celebrated principal of the theological school at Alex andria, about A.D. 180, who unhesitatingly ascribes it to Paul ; and frora that time the writers in the Eastern church alraost without exception accept Paul as the author; while in the Western church there was more hesitation and doubt as to the author, though none in resp^ect to its canonicity and authority ; tfll we come to Jerome and Augustin, from which time it was universally received in the church as a genuine and scriptural epistle THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 361 of the apostle Paul. Individual doubters as to the author have often shown themselves, and in modern times they have become numerous, but the great body of the be lievers have always recognized in it the hand of Paul the great apostle. All the ancient catalogues of any authority assign fourteen epistles to Paul, which neces sarily includes Hebrews, for without this there are but thirteen. There is certainly no decided internal evi dence against the authorship of Paul, while there is very much in its favour ; whfle of the external evidence, the testimony, it is ten to one, ninety-nine to a hundred, in favour of Paul. In consequence of the controversies on the subject, it will be expedient to give these testimonies a little more at large than we have done in some other cases, though after all our limits will allow us to give but a very small portion of the whole The ancients knew no other author than Paul ; if Paul were not the writer we find nothing in thera on the subject. Clement of Rome : In regard to the testiraony of this writer respecting the epistle to the Hebrews, let us first attend to the following statement by Jerome (Cat. Script. Eccl. c. 15). " Clement, in behalf of the Roman church, wrote a very valuable epistle to the church of the Corinthians, which in some places is publicly read, and which seems to me to correspond in character very much to the epistle to the Hebrews, which is circulated under the name of Paul. He takes many things from that epistle ; not only in meaning but in the words themselves there is a great similitude between them." The following extracts from this epistle of Cleraent, fully justify these statements of Jerome, and strongly corroborate the canonical authority of the epistle to the 362 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Hebrews. We select but a very few out of the whole number. " By him would God have us to taste the knowledge of immortality ; who, being the brightness of his glory, is by so rauch greater than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For so it is written, Who raaketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. But to his Son, thus saith the Lord, Thou art my Son, to-day have I' begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession. And again he saith unto him. Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy foot stool" (Heb. i.). " Thus has the humility and godly fear of these great and excellent raen, recorded in the Scriptures, through obedience, made not only us, but also the generations before us, better ; even as many as have received his holy oracles with fear and truth. Haying therefore so many, and such great and glorious examples, let us re turn to that peace, which was the mark that frora the beginning was set before us : let us look up to the Father and Creator of the whole world ; and let us hold fast to his glorious and exceeding gifts and benefits of peace." (Heb. xii.). " Let us receive correction, at which no man ought to repine. Beloved, the reproof and the correction which we exercise towards one another is good, and exceedingly profitable ; for it unites us the more closely to the wiU of God. For so says the Holy Scripture, The Lord corrected rae, but he did not deliver rae over unto death. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OP PAUL. 363 every son whom he receiveth. Let us be followers of those who went about in goat-skins and sheep-skins, preaching the coming of Christ." (Heb. xi.). " All things are open before hira ; nor can any thing be hid frora his counsel. For he is the searcher of the thoughts and counsels of the heart ; whose breath is in us, and when he pleases he can take it frora us." (Heb. iv.). " Moses was called faithful in all God's house ; and by his conduct the Lord punished Israel by stripes aud plagues." (Heb. iii.). " Having therefore this hope, let us hold fast to him who is faithful in all his promises, and righteous in all his judgments ; who has comraanded us not to lie, how much more wfll he not himself lie ? For nothing is impossible with God, but to lie." (Heb. vL). Justin Martyr, Dial. p. 341 : " This is he who is according to the order of Melchisedec king of Salem, being an eternal priest of the Most High." (Heb. v. 9, 10 ; vi. 20 ; vu. 12). (p. 323) : " Eternal priest of God, and king, and Christ." Apol. i. : " But he is also called an angel and apostle." Heb. iii. 1. This is the only passage in the whole Bible where Christ is called an apostle. Irenseus, Hser. ii. 30 : " He alone is God who made all things, the only omnipotent, the only Father, building and making all things, both visible and invisible, both sensible and senseless, both celestial and terrestrial, by the word of his power." (Heb. i. 3). v. 5 : " Enoch having pleased God was translated in the body, fore showing the translation of the saints." (Heb. ii. 5). element of Alexandria, Strom, vi. p. 645 : " For Paul 364 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. also — writing to the Hebrews — and ye again have need that I should teach you what be the first principles of the oracles of God, and have become as those who have need of milk and not of strong meat." (Heb. v. 12). Ibid. ii. p. 420 : " But we desire that each one of you should show the sarae diligence to the full assurance of hope, until made a high priest after the order of Mel chisedec ; the like things says the all virtuous wisdom to the apostle Paul." (Heb. viL) TertuUian, De Pudic. c. 20 : " Therefore admonishing the disciples that leaving the first principles they should go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from works of the dead, for it is impossible, he says, that those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift, and participated in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the sweet word of God, when they fall away, that they should be'recalled to penitence, they having crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame." (Heb. vi. 1-6). Origen, Epist. ad Afr. : " The author of the epistle to the Hebrews says. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were slain with the sword." - Heb. xi. 37. Com. in Joan. ii. : "And Paul himself says in the epistle to the Hebrews, In these last days he hath spoken to us by his Son, whora he hath made heir of all things, by whora also he made the world." Heb. i. 2. Com. in Epist. Rom. vii. : "Angels themselves also, if you look to the sentiment of Paul, what he says, that they are ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those who shall be the heirs of salvation." Heb. i. 7, 14. Com. in Joan. xx. : " When also it is written in the epistle to the Hebrews, But solid food is for them who are perfect." THE FOUETEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 365 Heb. V. 14. De Orat. : " But these are his very words in the epistle to the Hebrews, But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" Heb. ix. 26. In Num. Hom. 2 : " But Paul also himself, writing to the Hebrews says. Ye have not corae to the tangible raountain and the burning fire, but ye have corae to mount Zion." Heb. xiL 13. Athanasius, 0pp. i. p. 266 : " For also the blessed Paul in the epistle to the Hebrews said, By faith we understand that the worlds were made by the word of God." Heb. xi. 3. Ibid. p. 265 : " And also the apostle said, God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he . made the world." Heb. i. 1, 2. Epiphanius, Hser. 70 : " Which the apostle indicates in these words, For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight : but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." Heb. iv. 12, 13. "And then also con cerning those who have an honourable marriage he says, Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed unde filed: but whoremongers and adulterers God wfll judge." Heb. xiu. 4. Hser. 69: "But they (the Arians) repudiate this epistle to the Hebrews and reject it from the apostolic writings." 386 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Theodoret, Interpret. Epist. ad Heb.: "They who are afflicted with the Arian disease do nothing that is surprising if they rage against the apostolic epistles, and separate the epistle to the Hebrews from the rest and call it spurious." Jerome, Epist. ad Dard. : " The epistle which is inscribed to the Hebrews is received as the work of the apostle Paul, not only by the churches of the East, but by all the ecclesiastical writers in the Greek language," In Matt. i. 26 : " For also Paul, in his epistle which is written to the Hebrews, though many of the Latins have doubts concerning it." Coraraent. in Isaiara. iii. 6 : "Whence also Paul, in the epistle to the Hebrews, which the Latin custom does not receive, says. Are they" not all ministering spirits ?" As Eusebius is so important a witness, and he collected and examined most of the testimonies which existed in his own tirae', it will be of decided utility, in regard to the books of which he expresses any doubt, to place in one view his own testimony and that which he collects from others. 1 therefore here place by itself a portion of the testimonies coUeded by Eusebius in regard to the epistle to the Hebrews. ' Eccl. Hist.' V. 26 : " Besides the works and epistles of Irenseus, above mentioned, there is ... a book also of various disputations, in which he mentions the epistle to the Hebrews," etc. ' Eccl. Hist' vi. 14 : " The epistie to the Hebrews he (Clement of Alexandria) asserts was written by Paul to the Hebrews, in the Hebrew tongue ; but that it was carefully translated by Luke, and published among the Greeks. Whence, also, one finds the same character of THE FOURTEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL. 367 style and of phraseology in the epistle as in the Acts. But it is probable that the title, Paul the Apostle, was not prefixed to it. For as he wrote to the Hebrews, who had imbibed prejudices against him, and suspected him, he wisely guards against diverting them from the perusal, by giving his name." A little after this he observes : " But now as the blessed presbyter used to say, ' Since the Lord, who was the apostle of the Almighty, was sent to the Hebrews, Paul, by reason of his inferiority, as if sent to the Gentiles, did not sub scribe himself an apostle of the Hebrews ; both out of reverence for the Lord, and because he wrote of his abundance to the Hebrews, as a herald and apostle of the Gentfles.' " ' Eccl. Hist.' vi. 41 : " Dionysius of Alexandria says. There were some who took the spoiling of their goods joyfully, like those of whom the apostle Paul testifies." Heb. X. 39. ' Eccl. Hist.' iii. 38 : " We raay mention as an in stance what Ignatius has said in the epistles we have cited, and Clement of Rome in that universally received by all, which he wrote in the name of the church at Rome to that of Corinth. In which, after giving many sentiments taken from the epistle to the Hebrews, and also literally quoting the words, he most clearly shows that this work is by no means a late production. Whence it is probable that this was also numbered with the other writings of the apostles. For as Paul had ad dressed the Hebrews in the language of his country, some say that the evangelist Luke, others that Clement, translated the epistle. Which also appears more like the truth, as the epistle of Clement and that to the 368 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Hebrews preserve the same features of style and phraseology, and because the sentiments in both these works are not very different." ' Eccl. Hist.' ii. 17 ; Eusebius is quoting from an account of the ascetics in Egypt by Philo, and says : " After other raatters, he adds : ' The whole time between the morning and evening, is a constant exercise; for as tjiey are engaged with the sacred Scriptures, they reason and comment upon them, explaining the philosophy of their country in an allegorical manner. For they con sider the verbal interpretation as signs indicative of a secret sense coraraunicated in obscure intiraations. They have also coraraentaries of ancient men, who, as the founders of the sect, have left many monuments of their doctrine in allegorical representations, which they use as certain models, imitating the manner of the original institution.' These facts appear to have been stated by a man who, at least, has paid attention to those that have expounded the sacred writings. But it is highly probable that the ancient commentaries which he says they have, are the very gospels and writings of the apostles, and probably some expositions of the ancient prophets, such as are contained in the epistle to the Hebrews and many others of St. Paul's epistles." 369 CHAPTER XI. THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES AND THE COMPARISON OF THE APOCRYPHAL EPISTLES WITH THE CANONICAL. THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. The seven catholic epistles, which in the coraraon edition of the Testament iraraediately follow the four teen epistles of Paul, though in the earlier manuscripts they precede instead of foUow Paul, are so called be cause, with a single exception, and that the shortest one, the third of John, they are not addressed to any par ticular church or person, but have a general direction, and by some of the ancients they are called evangelical or circular letters (Oecumenius, Proleg. in Ep. Jac). In general they have always formed a part • of the canon of the New Testament. Any partial exception to this rule will be adverted to in the notices of the separate books. EPISTLE OF JAMES. In the historical books of the New Testament we read of James the son of Zebedee, one of the twelve apos tles of our Lord, who very early suffered raartyrdom 2'B 370 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. (Acts xii.) ; of Jaraes the son of Alpheus, and of James the brother of our Lord. The last two are supposed by raany to ' be identical, and it is not easy, either from the statements of Scripture or the testiraony of the early ecclesiastical historians, to decide positively whether they are so or not. Frora the best exaraination which I have been able to make, it is ray opinion that James the brother of the Lord is a different person from James the son of Alpheus, and that it was the idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary which induced many of the early church fathers to identify the two. James, the brother of our Lord, was, as I think, a younger son of Mary the mother of Jesus. He is, the one mentioned in Acts xu. 17, xv. 13, xxi. 18 ; Gal ii. 9 ; Matt. xiii. 55 ; Mark vi. 3 ; and it was he who presided so long and so honourably over the church at Jerusalem, tiU he raet with a violent death at the hands ofa mob, as related by Josephus (' Antiq.' xx. 8:1) and by Euse bius (' Eccl Hist' il 23) ; and that this is the Jaraes who -wrote the epistle. There are no data for fixing the tirae of its coraposition. It raay have been as early as A.D. 45 or as late as 62, but the earlier date is the raore probable. It is the object of the epistle to exhort to steadfastness in the Christian profession, to rebuke certain faults which began to be prevalent in the Christian churches composed principally of Jews, and particularly to guard against the abuses of the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. This last characteristic favours the idea of the later date of the epistle. It was addressed particularly to Jewish Christians living out of Palestine (James i. 1, iL 21) ; and it is not at all systematic in its arrange- * THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 371 ment, but impulsive and miscellaneous. It contemplates the afflicted and oppressed condition of the Hebrew Christians, and warns against the mistake of those who are hearers of the word only without practical obedience (i.) ; rebukes a manifest partiality for rich raen in the congregations (ii.) ; shows the necessity of good works as the fruit and the evidence of faith (iii.-iv.); gives a reproof of oppressive rich men, exhortation to steadfast ness under persecution, warning against extra judicial oaths, and directions for the care of the sick (v.). The epistle was received as genuine Scripture in the Syrian Peschito, and is quoted by the Syrian saint, Ephraera, as the work of our Lord's brother. It was read by the apostolic fathers, Cleraent of Rorae and Irenseus ; it is expressly raentioned by Origen, doubt fully received by Eusebius, and rejected by Theodore of Mopsuestia. During the fourth century it obtained full canonical authority both in the Greek and Latin churches. All this wfll clearly appear in the quotations which follow. TESTIMONIES TO THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. Ephraem Syr., 0pp. Grsec. iiL 51: "James, the brother of our Lord, says. Howl and weep." James, V. 1. Clement of Rome, 1 Epist. ad Cor. c. 30 : " For God, he says, resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." James iv. 6. c. 38: "Let the wise raan show his wisdom not in words but in good works." James ui. 13. c. 17 : "Abraham had a great testiraony and was called the friend of God." Jaraes ii. 23. c. 10 : 372 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. " Abraham, who was called God's friend, was in like manner found faithful, inasrauch as he obeyed the com mands of God." James il 23. c. 31 : " On what account was our father Abraham blessed? Was it not that through faith he wrought righteousness and truth ?" James ii. 2. c. 23 : " Far be from us that Scripture which says. Miserable are the double-minded and those who are doubtful of soul" James i. 8. Shepherd of Hermas, Simil. v. 4 : " Whoever is the servant of God and has the Lord in his heart, he seeks wisdom from him and obtains it Let them not hesitate to seek of the Lord, for the Lord is of goodness so profound, that to those seeking from him he gives all things without interruption." James i. 5. Coraraand. xii. 5 : " The devil can wrestle but he can not conquer ; for if you resist hira he wUl flee from you in confusion." Jaraes iv. 7. Ibid. 5 : " Rather fear the Lord, who is able both to save and to destroy." Jaraes iv. 12. Vision, iii. 9 : " See to it, therefore, ye who glory in your riches, lest they groan who are in want, and their groaning ascend to the Lord, and ye be shut out with your goods beyond the gate of the tower." Jaraes v. 1-4. Irenseus, ad Hser. iv. 16 : " He shows that Abraham himself was justified without circumcision and without the observance of the Sabbath. Abraham believed God and it was counted to hira for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God." James ii. 23. 13 : " Abraham was raade the friend of God." Athanasius, ad Serap. 1 : " But with God, says Jaraes, there is no variableness neither shadow of turning." James i. 17. Cont. Arium. Or. 3: "As James the THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 373 ipostle taught, saying. Of his own wiU begat he us with the word of truth." Jaraes i. 18. Clement of Alexandria, Strom, iii. : "And so he called him (Abrahara) His friend." Jaraes ii. 23. Ibid.: "But the Scripture says to thera, God re sisteth the proud and giveth grace to the hurable." James ii. 6. TertuUian, De Orat. c. 8 : "But far be it from the Lord that he should seem to tempt, as if he were ignorant of his faith." James i. 13. "Whence was Abraham reputed the friend of God, if not frora equity and righteousness of natural law ?" James ii. 23. Origen, Comraent. in John xix. : " For if it raay even be called faith, yet it may be without works, but faith of this kind is dead, as we read in the epistle which is circulated under the name of James." Comment, in Ep. ad Rom. iv. : " Hear also James, the brother of the Lord, when he says. He who wfll be the friend of this world is the enemy of God." Jaraes iv. 4. Ibid. : " And finally James the apostle says this. Resist the devil and he wfll flee from you; draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you." James iv. 7, 8. Ibid. : " So also Jaraes the apostle says. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." James i. 17. In Psalm 30 : " And in James, as the body without the spirit is dead." In Ps. 36 : " For it is an apostle who says, in many things we all offend, and if any man offend not in word, he is a perfect man." James iu. 2. Select Exod. : " Wherefore it is said, God is not tempted of e-vfl."Epiphanius, Hser. xxxi. : " And, again, St James 374 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. speaks concerning such teaching, that it is not the wisdom that cometh from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. But the -wisdom which is frora above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits," etc. James iii. 17. Ibid. Ixxvii. : " According as it is "written. Pure religion before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." i. 27. Jerome, Catal. Script. Eccl. c. 2 : " James, who is caUed the brother of the Lord, and by surname the Just, . . . after the Passion of the Lord was ordained by the apostles bishop of Jerusalem, vrrote only one epistle, which is of the seven catholic epistles." As Eusebius expresses some doubts as to the epistle of Jaraes, we here present in one riew both his own testiraony and that which he has selected frora others, as we have done in regard to the epistle to the Hebrews, and for the sarae reason. (Kirchhofer, p. 264-66, 62.) In Psalra : " For the holy apostle says. Is any afflicted araong you, let him pray ; is any merry, let him sing praises." Dem. Evang. iii. 5 : " Afterwards Jaraes, the brother of our Lord, who was of those that formerly dwelt at Jerusalem, and was called the Just, on account of the excellence of his virtue, being interrogated by the high priest and the magistrates of the Jewish nation as to what opinion he had concerning Christ, when he answered plainly, that he was the Son of God, they put him to death by stoning." 'Eccl Hist' L 12, from Clement of Alexandria : "The names of our Saviour's apostles are sufficiently ob-vious THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 375 to every one, from his Gospels ; but of the seventy disciples, no catalogue is given anywhere. Barnabas indeed is said to have been one of thera, of whora there is distinguished notice in the Acts of the Apostles, and also in St. Paul's epistle to the Galatians. Sosthenes, who sent letters with Paul to the Corinthians, is said to have been one of these. Clement— in the fifth of his Hypotyposes or Institutions, in which he also raentions Cephas, of whom Paul also says, that he came to Antioch, ' and that he withstood hira to his face ' — says, that one who had the same name vrith Peter the apostle was one of the seventy ; and that Matthias,- who was numbered with the apostles in place of Judas, and he who had been honoured to be a candidate with him, is also said to have been deemed worthy of the sarae calling with the seventy. They also say that Thaddeus was one of thera, concerning whora I shall presently relate a narrative that has corae do-wn to us. Moreover, if any one observe with attention, he will find raore dis ciples of our Saviour than the seventy, on the testimony of Paul who says, that ' he appeared after his resurrec tion, first to Cephas, then to the twelve, and after these to five hundred brethen at once.' Of whom, he says, 'sorae are fallen asleep,' but the greater part were living at the tirae he wrote. Afterwards, he says, he appeared to Jaraes ; he, however, was not merely one of these disciples of our Saviour, but he was one of his brethren. Lastly, when beside these, there stfll was a considerable number who were apostles in imitation of the twelve, such as Paul himself was, he adds, saying ' afterwards he appeared to all the apostles.' " ' Eccl. Hist.' u. 1 : Then also James, called the brother 376 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. of our Lord, because he' is also called the son of Joseph. For Joseph was esteemed the father of Christ, because the Virgin being betrothed to him, " she was found with child by the Holy Ghost before they came to gether," as the narrative of the holy Gospels shows. This James, therefore, whom the ancients, on account of the excellence of his virtue, surnaraed the Just, was the first that received the episcopate of the church at Jerusalera. But Clement, in the sixth book of his ' Institutions,' represents it thus : " Peter, and James, and John, after the ascension of our Saviour, though they had been preferred by our Lord, did not contend for the honour, but chose James the Just as bishop of Jeru salem." And the same author, in the seventh book of the' same work, writes thus : " The Lord imparted the gift of knowledge to James the Just, to John and Peter after his resurrection ; these delivered it to the rest of the apostles, and they to the seventy, of whom Barnabas was one. There were, however, two Jameses ; one called the Just, who was thrown frora a wing of the Temple, and beaten to death vrith a fuller's club, and another, who was beheaded. Paul also makes mention of the Just in his epistles. " But other of the apostles," says he, " saw I none, save James the brother of our Lord." ' Eccl Hist' iL 23. After giving from the ancients a minute account of the acts and martyrdom of James, he concludes as follows : " These accounts are given re specting James, who is said to have written the first of the epistles general (catholic), but it is to be observed that some consider it spurious. Not many indeed of the ancients have mentioned it, and not even that called THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 377 the epistle of Jude, which is also one ef the seven called catholic epistles. Nevertheless we know that these, with the rest, are publicly used in most of the churches." THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PETEE. Peter was among the first, and most zealous of the twelve apostles of Christ (John i. 43-45 ; Matt. iv. 18, xriii. 2) ; and after the resurrection took a leading part in the forraation and guidance of the Christian Church, being the first to form a church out of the Jewish com munity, and the first to admit the Gentiles also without requiring of them circuracision (Acts L-xL). After his miraculous deliverance from prison by the help of the angel, he left Jerusalera (Acts xiL), and does not appear again until the council was called at Jerusalem to consider the case of the Gentile converts (Acts xv.), where he decidedly took the liberal side. We are in- fprmed by the Apostle Paul that he afterwards at Antioch yielded again for a while to his Jewish pre judices, and brought upon himself in consequence a sharp rebuke (Col. il). He was the apostle to the Jews mainly, as Paul was to the Gentiles. His field of labour was principally in the East, he directs his epistle to the Christians of the East (1 Pet. i. 1), and dates it from Babylon, the old Chaldean metropolis. (1 Pet. v. 13). There is no reason for understanding the word Babylon here in any other than its literal sense. It is only the anxiety of some to give Peter a long residence at Rome, that ever iraagined here a spiritual Babylon, that is Rome. It is sufficiently attested by Christian antiquity that 378 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Peter visited Rome, preached there, and there suffered martyrdom ; but that he ever made any long stay in that city, or ever- saw it tfll quite the latter part of his life, does not appear. Indeed, a careful inspection of the narrative in Acts, and of the epistles of Paul to the Romans, leads us inevitably to the conclusion that he did not visit Rome till after that epistle was -written. This whole subject is very ably and satisfactorfly dis cussed by Professor Tholuck in the introduction to his comraentary on Romans. There are no sufficient data for assigning the date of this epistle. It was probably written after Peter's first missionary tour through the East, and before Paul to the Romans, perhaps as early as A.D. 55 or 58. The epistle is full of Christian love and sympathy, wholly of a practical nature, and so miscellaneous in its character as scarcely to be susceptible of a logical analysis, nor is such an analysis necessary to guide the reader in the study of it. After a reference to the blessed future which awaits the true Christian, (L 3-12), he exhorts believers to a pure and holy life worthy of their calUng (i. 14, ii. 12), especially to an observance of all their civfl, social, and domestic duties (ii. 13, iii. 12) ; and in view of the sufferings and death of Christ to bear patiently the slanders and persecutions to which they were subjected (iii. 13, iv. 19). Finally, particular exhortations to elders and private Christians (v. 1-9), together vrith concluding greetings (v. 10-14). The genuineness of the epistle has always been ad mitted, and the testimonies to it are uniform from the very beginning. THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 379 TESTIMONIES TO I. PETER. Clement of Rome : " Love hideth a multitude of sins." 1 Pet. iv. 8. Pador Hermas, Vis. x. 2 : " Cast your cares on the Lord and he will direct them." 1 Pet. v. 9. Polycarp, Ad PhiUp. c. 1 : " In whom, not seeing, ye believe, and believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and frill of glory." 1 Pet i. 8. Ibid:, c. 2 : " Wherefore girding up your loins, serve God in fear and truth, believing in him whp raised up our ' Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and gave him glory and a seat at his right hand." Pet. i. 13, 21. Ibid. c. 10: " Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that you may have praise for your good works, 'and the Lord be not blasphemed." 1 Pet. ii. 12, Ibid. c. 8 : " Let us therefore unwaveringly persevere in our hope and in the earnest of our righteousness, which is Christ Jesus, who bore our sins in his own body on the tree, who did' not sin neither was gufle found in his' mouth, but on our account, and that we might live in him, endured all things ; wherefore let us be imitators of his patience, and if we suffer on account of his narae, we glorify hira." 1 Pet. ii. 21-24. Ibid. c. 2 : " Not rendering evil for e-ril nor cursing for cursing." 1 Pet. iii. 9. "Who coraes the judge of quick and dead." 1 Pet iv. 5. c. 7 : " Watching unto prayer." 1 Pet. iv. 7. c. 10 : " Be ye all - subject one to another." 1 Pet. V. 5. Eusebius, ' Bed. Hist' iv. 14 : " Polycarp, indeed, in his epistle to the Philippians, which is extant, uses tes timonies from the first epistle to Peter." 380 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Papias, Eusebius ' Eccl. Hist.' iii. 39 : " Papias uses testimonies taken from the first epistle of Peter." Letter to Diognetus : " He gave his own son a ransom for us, the just for the unjust." 1 Pet. ui. 13. Letters of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, Euseb. ' Eccl Hist.' V. 2 : " They humbled themselves under the mighty hand by which they are now powerfully exalted." 1 Pet v. 6. Irenseus, iv. 9 : " Peter says in his epistle, whom not seeing ye love, in whom, not seeing hira now, ye beUeve, and rejoice withjoy unspeakable." 1 Pet. i. 8. 16 : " On this account Peter says. Have not your liberty as a cloak of maliciousness." 1 Pet. ii. 16. Clement of Alexandria, Strom, iv : " But if ye suffer for righteousness sake, says Peter, happy are ye, and iSe nPt afraid of their terror, neither be troubled ; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear. Having a good conscience ; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evil-doers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better, if the wfll of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing, than for evil-doing." 1 Pet. ui. 14-17. Paed. i. : " And so Peter also says. Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby ; if so be ye have tasted that Christ is the Lord." 1 Pet. ii. 1-3. TertuUian^ Scorpiac. c. 12 : " Indeed Peter says to them of Pontus, How great is the glory, if ye bear it, when ye are punished not as delinquents. For this is THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 381 ^race and in this ye were called." 1 Pet. i. 21. c. 14 : ¦' Peter says the king is to be honoured." Origen, Comraent. in Matt xv. : " From the first epistle of Peter — Peter says, in whom, that is Christ, though now ye see him not, yet believing ye rejoice." 1 Pet i. 8. De Princip. 2 : " They do not read what is written concerning the hope of those who were taken off by the . flood, concerning which hope Peter says in his first epistle, Christ indeed was put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometirae were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a pre paring, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water." 1 Pet. ui. 18-20. On Psalm third Origen again quotes the same passage at length. Comment, in Joan. vL : "And concerning that joumey in Jthe spirit to the prison, in the catholic epistle, with Peter, put to death he says in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit." Cyprian, De Bon. Pat. : " Peter also, on whom in the estiraation of the Lord the church is founded, declares in his epistle, Christ also suffered for us, learihg us an example, that we should follow his steps : who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth : who, when he was reviled, reviled not again ; when he suffered, he threatened not; but comraitted himself to him that judgeth righteously." 1 Pet. ii. 21-23. Epist 58: " Peter also the apostle taught that persecutions would be experienced, in order that we might be proved — for he states in his epistle saying, Beloved, think it not 382 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. strange, conceming the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you ; but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's suffer ings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ happy are ye ; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. On their part he is e'ril spoken of, but on your part he is glorified." 1 Pet. iv, 12-14. Eusebius, 'Eccl. Hist.' iu. 4: "And also in what prorinces Peter, preaching Christ to those of the circum cision, delivered to them the doctrine of the new cove nant, may be clearly ascertained from that epistle which, as I have said, is by all and -without controversy ascribed to hira, which he vnites to those of the Hebrews who are dispersed through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia." Athanasius, Epist. ad Scrap.: "Peter also writes, Receiring the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should corae unto you. Searching what, or what raanner of time the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the suffer ings of Christ and the glory that should follow." 1 Pet. i. 9-11. Epiphanius, rii. : " For says the Scripture, Christ suf fered for us in the flesh ; and again. Being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit." 1 Pet. iv. 1, iu. 18. Jerome, Catal Script. 1 : " Simon Peter wrote two epistles, which are called cathoUc, of which the second THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 383 ¦s by many doubted, on account of its diversity in style From the first." Epist. 120 : "And finally the two epistles which are called Peter's are diverse in style and character and the structure of words ; from which we may understand that he made use of different interpreters, according to the exigencies in different circumstances." Ibid. 'Eccl. Hist.' V. 1: "A wonderful interposition of God was then exhibited, and the boundless mercy of Christ clearly displayed, a thing that had rarely hap pened among the brethren, but by no raeans beyond the reach of the skill of Christ. For those that had fallen from the faith on the first seizure were' also themselves imprisoned, and shared In the sufferings of the rest. This renunciation did them no good at this time, but those that confessed what they really were, were ira- prisoned as Christians, no other charge being alleged against them. But these, at last, were confined as murderers and guilty culprits, and were punished with twice the severity of the rest. The forraer, indeed, were refreshed by the joy of martyrdom, the hope of the pro mises, the love of Christ, and the spirit of the Father ; but the latter were sadly tormented by their own con science. So that the difference was obvious to all in their very countenances when they were led forth. For the one went on joyful, much glory and grace being mixed in their faces, so that their bonds seeraed to form noble ornaments ; and, like those ofa bride, adorned with various golden bracelets, and impreignated with the sweet odour of Christ, they appeared to some anointed with earthly perfumes. But the others, with downcast look, dejected, sad, and covered with every kind of 384 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. shame, in addition to this, were reproached by the heathen as raean and cowardly, bearing the charge of murderers, and losing the honourable, glorious, and life-giving appellation of Christians. The rest, however, seeing these effects, were so rauch the more confirmed, and those that were taken immediately, confessed, not even adraitting the thought suggested by diabolical objections." Introducing some further remarks they again proceed : "After these things their martyr dom was finally distributed into various kinds ; for . platting and constituting one crown of various colours and all kinds of flowers, they offer it to the Father. It was right, indeed, that these noble wre.'itlers, who had sustained a diversified contest, and come off with a glorious victory, should bear away the great crown of immortaUty." 1 Peter iv. 13-16. THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER. This epistle clairas raost distinctly to have been written by the Apostle Peter, the author of the fust epistle, and that too in near view of death, the death of a martyr (i. 1, 14-18, iii 1, 13). The whole tone and bearing of the epistle are in exact accordance with this claim. Its sentiraent is elevated, pure, sweet, Christ-like, most admirably appropriate to the position claimed, and scarcely equalled in the Bible itself except by the address of Paul l!0 Timothy in Uke circurastances. Read the words i. 13-18 : " Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remerabrance ; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 385 shewed rae. Moreover I will endeavour that ye raay be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and comiitg of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received frora God the Father honour and glory, when there carae such a voice to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount." And compare the utterances of Paul, 2 Tim. iv. 6-8. To rae it seems utterly impossible that a man who was practising a deliberate and conscious imposture could feel or give utterance to sentiments like these. The 'internal evidence of genuineness, from this source alone, is morally irresistible. The internal evidence also, frora the peculiar use pf single words in the two epistles, is thoroughly convincing. Though both epistles are very short, yet there are striking peculiarities of language the same in both, which occur nowhere else, or but very seldom in all the New Testament. E'or exaraple, the word avodeai'i (apothesis) is found in 1 Pet. iii. 21 and 2 Pet. i. l4, in tbe same sense, and nowhere else in all the New Testament. So the word aperi] (arete) occurs in 1 Pet. ii. 9 and 2 Pet i. 3, 5, and but once besides in all the New Testament. The word aa-irCko';^ (aspilos), 1 Pet. I 19 and 2 Pet. iii. 14, and only twice besides in all the New Testament. Again, the word avaa-rpocfyrj (anastrophe) occurs six times in the first of Peter, twice in the second of Peter, and only once besides in each of the following epistles, to wit, James, 1 Tim., Eph., 2 c 386 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. and Gal. In ordinary cases these facts alone would be deemed sufficient to establish the identity of authorship. As to the difference of style of which Jerome speaks, it is only such a difference and exactly such a difference as we should expect in an apostle in the full vigour of his life and apostleship, and the same apostle at the close of his career, and in the daily expectation of martyrdom, and the same difference which we find between the second of Timothy and the epistle to the Romans. Several causes contributed to render its reception in the ancient churches later than that of the first epistle. 1. It was addressed mainly to obscure churches, remote from the great lines of coraraunication, in a region strongly suspected of heresy (Euseb. ' Eccl. Hist' vi. 20), and so near the time of the apostle's death that it did not have the advantage of his personal presence and authority. 2. It related to a state of things which was not fully developed till some time after the epistle was written. That which in the epistle of Jude is history, is in 2 Pet. ii. prediction ; in Peter the verbs are in the future tense, in Jude they are in the past tense ; Peter utters the prophecy and Jude records the fulfilment of the prophecy. This one fact of itself is decisive of the re lation as to time between Jude and 2 Peter. Compare 2 Pet il 1-3 and Jude 4, 8, 10-13, 16, 19, 22, 23. The time of writing was near the apostle's death, the place wholly uncertain, as there are no data to fix it. The course of thought is as follows : — The apostle, after a brief introduction and an ethical THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 387 exhortation, speaks of the certainty of the Christian doctrine and its confirmation, especially by the trans figuration of Christ on the mountain and- the divine voice, which he had seen and heard, and also by the prophecies of the Old Testament (i.). He then speaks of the teachers pf error who would afterwards arise (il). He then gives assurance that notwithstanding the vain talk of those " whose great principle it is that all things continue as they were, and who scorn the notion of the great God ever coming to touch the orderly mechanism of the universe " — the time will come for a miraculous dissolution and reconstruction of the whole present systera of things ; though, since one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, we have no ground for affirming anything as to the nearness or reraoteness of 'that great event, thus joining with the Apostle Paul (2 Thess. ii.) in rebuking those presumptuous teachers, not divinely inspired, who even in that age insisted on the immediate advent of Christ as necessary to the fulfilment of prophecy. TESTIMONIES TO II. PETEE. Clement of Rome, ad Cor. i. 7, 11 : "Noah preached repentance, and as many as hearkened to him were saved. Noah,, being proved to be faithful, did by his ministry preach regeneration to the world; and the Lord saved by him all the living creatures that went with one accord together into the ark. By hospitality and godliness was Lot saved out of Sodom, when all the country round about was destroyed by fire and brim stone ; the Lord thereby making it manifest that he 388 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. will not forsake those that trust in him, but will bring the disobedient to punishment and correction. For his wife, who went out_with him, being ofa different mind, and not continuing in the same obedience, was for that reason set forth for an example, being turned into a pillar of salt unto this day." 2 Pet. ii. 5 ff. Shepher.d of Hermas, Vis. iii. 7 : " There are those who believed, but by their hesitation forsook the true way." 2 Pet. ii. 15. iv. 3 : "Ye are they who escape from this worid." 2 Pet. ii. 20. Judin Martyr, Dial. p. 303 : " We know the saying, one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, pertaining to this." 2 Pet. iii. 8. Theophilus, ad Autol. ii. : " But men of God, full of the Holy Spirit, and inspired by God, were appointed prophets, and were taught of God, holy and righteous." 2 Pet I 10. Origen, Coraraent. in Epist. ad Rom. viii. : " And Peter says in his epistle, Grace and peace be multiplied unto you in the knowledge of God ; and again. As good stewards of the manifold grace of God." 2 Pet. L 2; 1 Pet. iv . 10. Hora. in Levit. iv. : "And again Peter says. Ye are made partakers of the divine nature." 2 Pet. i. 4. Horn', in Num. xiii. : " As the Scripture also says in the passage, The dumb animal, speaking witji a human voice, relDiiked the madness of the prophet." 2 Pet. ii. 16. Hom. in Exod. xii: "For I know it is written, Of whom any one is overcome, of the same is he brought, into bondage." 2 Pet. il 19. Dial. de rect. Fide. ii. : " But the apostle is mentioned by Peter, According to the wisdora, he says, given to my brother Paul." 2 Pet iii. 15. THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 389 Firmilianus, Ep. ad Cyp. 75 : "Defaming the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, .... who in their epistles execrated the heretics, and admonished us to avoid them." 2 Pet. ii. Athanasius, Dial de Sac. Trin. i. : "And it is written in the Catholic epistles. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that ye may be made partakers of the divine nature." 2 Pet. i. 4. Cont. Arian. Orat. ii. : " And this is what Peter says. That ye raay be made .partakers of the divine nature." 2 Pet i. 4. Epiphanius, Hser. Ixvi. : " Which Peter indicates in his epistle by these words, Giving heed to the prophetic word as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts." 2 Pet. I 19. Jerome : See testiraonies to 1 Peter. Mdito : " At another time there was a flood of water, and the just were preserved in an ark of wood by the ordinance of God. So also it will be at the last time ; there will be a flood of fire, and the earth shall be burned up and the just shall be delivered frora the fray, like their fellows in the ai»k frora the waters of the deluge." 2 Pet. in. 5, 6, 10-12. Home's Introd. iv. p. 606, tenth edition. THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN. There is no reasonable doubt, there never has been any, that the first epistle ascribed to John in the New Testament is a genuine production of that apostle and evangelist. The internal evidence is conclusive, and 390 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. the external testimony unanimous and uncontradicted. If we have eridence that the Tusculan Questions belong to Cicero, we have evidence still stronger (if possible) that this epistle belongs to the bosom friend of Jesus. It is true that the passage, v. 7, is not found in any of the early Greek msinuscripts of the New Testament, and we may admit it to be an interpolation without any prejudice to the integrity of the epistle. There is no internal evidence against the passage ; it is quite in place where it stands ; it is quite in the style and manner of John ; but there is a lack of external testimony in its favour; and oh all such questions the internal and external must co-operate to produce a decision. There are no data to determine positively the time or place of writing, or tbe particular persons to whom the epistle was at first addressed; but all' the pro babilities are that it was written at Ephesus after the publication of the Gospel, consequently at a late period of life, and addressed especially to the churches with which he was personally conversant in Asia Minor and the ricinity. It is full of the loveliness of the Gospel, and whfle i the Boanerges is clearly seen in its pages, , the.' predominating qualities are clearly those which made John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. According to one of the raost erainent of the modern commentators on John, after the introduction (i. 1-4), there are two principal sections, each pervaded by a single master-thought, and both tending to illustrate the leading subject of the whole, to wit, fellowship with God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 1. The theme THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 391 (I 5-il 28) is, God is light. 2. God is righteous (ii. 29- V. 5). 3. The conclusion, Jesus is the Son of God and the eternal Life. TESTIMONIES TO THE PIEST EPISTLE OF JOHN. Ignatius, ad Magnes. c. 6 : " Being intrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ, who before the ages was with the Father and in the end was manifested." 1 John I 2. Polycarp, ad Phfl. c. 7 : " For every one who doth not confess that Jesus Christ hath corae in ^he flesh is antichrist." 1 John iv. 3. Papias, Eusebius, 'Eccl Hist' iii 39: "He used testirapnies taken from the first epistle of John." Papias, it will be remerabered, was a pupil of John himself Epistle to Diognetus : " For God loved men, ... to whom he sent his only begotten Son, to whom also he promised the kingdom in heaven, and to those who love him will he give it. •'• • • How greatly should you love him who first so loved you !" 1 John iv. 9. , Irenseus, ui. 16 : "Because that John also testified to us in his epistle. Little children, it is the last time ; and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists ; whereby we knpw that it is- the, last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us ; for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us : but they went out that they might be made raanifest that they were not all of us. Wherefore know that every lie is extraneous and is not of the truth. Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ ? He is antichrist that denieth 392 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. the Father and the Son." " And again he says in the epistle. Many false prophets are gone out into the world. In this know the Spirit of God. Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit which says Jesus is not of God is of antichrist." 1 John iv. 1-3. " Wherefore he again says in his epistle. Every one who believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." 1 John v. 1. Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist.' V. 8 : " He also (Irenseus) makes mention of the first epistle of John, bringing very many testi monies from it." Clement of Alexandria, Psed. iii. : " But this is the love of God, says John, that we keep his coraraand- raents, . . . and his coraraandments are not grievous." 1 John V. 3. Strom, ii. : " John also appears in his larger epistle, teaching the differences of sins in these words. If any one seeth his brother sinning a sin which is not unto death, he may pray and he will give him life. He says to those sinning not unto death. For there is a sin unto death. He does not say that any one should pray conceming that." 1 John v. 16. TertuUian, Scorp. c 12 : " But John exhorts that we should lay down our lives for the brethren, denying that there is any fear in love." 1 John iii. 16, iv. 18. Adv. Prax. c. 15 : " And finally let us look upon him whom the apostle saw. What we have seen, says John, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled of the word of life, for the word was made flesh." 1 John i. 1. c. 25 : Which three are one (unum), not one person (wmws) ; as it is said, I and the Father are one (unum), as to unity of substance not as to singleness of number." 1 John v. 7, 8. THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 393 Origen, De Orat. : " As John says in the catholic epistle. He is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning." 1 John iii. 8. Comment, in Evan. Joan. xix. : " John in the catholic epistle saying these things, He that denieth the Father denieth also the Son ; for every one who denieth the Son, neither hath he the Father." 1 Johu ii. 22. ii. : " But in the cathoUc epistle of John himself it is said, God is light." Cyprian, Epist. 28 : " And the Apostle John .... in his epistle says. In this we understand that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He who says that he knows hira and keeps not his coraraandraents, is a liar, and the truth is not in hira." 1 John ii. 3, 4. Epist. 69 : "And also John the blessed apostle, .... Ye have heard that antichrist coraeth, and now there are many antichrists, whence we know it is the last tirae. They went out from us, but they were not of us : if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us." 1 John ii. 18, 19. De Bon. Pat : " As John the apostle teaches. He who says he abides in Christ ought himself to walk as he also walked." 1 John ii. 6. Athanasius, Cont Ar. Orat. 5 : " But that the Son did not have beginning of existence, but was always in the Father before he becarae raan, the Apostle John declares, saying in his first epistie. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of Ufe ; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear vritness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us. Epist ad 394 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Serap.: "And John writes in his epistle. By this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he has given unto us of his Spirit." 1 John ill 24. THE SECOND AND THIRD EPISTLES OF JOHN. These two letters are very short, they are addressed to private individuals, and are not of any particular dograatic interest They were therefore late in getting into circulation as a part of the New Testaraent Scrip tures, the ancient church exercising great caution on this subject, as we see in the exaraple of 2 Peter. Eventually they were universally acknowledged. The second epistle is addressed to a Christian woraan by the narae of Kuria, or Latinized Cyria. It is a mis take in the English translation to render this word lady. The epistle begins. The dder to the dect Cyria and her cliildren, whom I love in the truth ; exactly as the third epistle begins. The elder to the bdoved Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Both introductions are exceedingly charac teristic of the Apostle John, who here styles himself dder, just as Peter does (1 Pet. v. 1), on account of his advanced age and his position in the church. ' Who this Cyria was we have now no raeans of ascertaining ; but John exhorts her to persevere in Christian charity and to beware of false teachers, and gives her the hope of soon receiving a visit frora hira. Of Gaius he com mends the hospitality, warns him against Diotrephes and commends to him Demetrius. There is a Gaius mentioned by Paul (Rom. xvi. 23 ; compare 1 Cor. i. 14) as the entertaiijer of himself and the whole church at Corinth, and therefore a very hospitable person, and THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 395 the name also occurs in Acts xix. 29 and xx. 4 ; but there is no certainty whether any of these were the Gaius to whom John wrote. There is an ancient tradition that this Gaius was a personal friend of the apostle, who brought his Gospel from the island of Patmos to the churches. Gaius is the same narae as Caius. TESTIMONIES TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EPISTLES OF JOHN. Irenseus, iii. 16: "And John his disciple, in the aforesaid epistle, commands that we should avoid them, saying. For raany deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is corae in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves that ye lose not those things which ye have wrought." 2 John 7, 8. 116: " For John, the disciple of the Lord, pronounces a curse upon them, and wills not that we should bid thera God speed, saying. Whoever bids thera God Speed Is a partaker of their evil deeds.!' 2 John 4. Clement of Alexandria, ad Nurab. : " The second epistle* of John, which is the most simple, is written to virgins." Eusebius, Dem. Evang. Hi. 5 : " And John also you will find like to Matthew, for in his epistle he does not mention his own name, but calls hiraself the elder, never the apostle or evangelist And in the Gospel, when he speaks of the disciple whom Jesus loved, he does not reveal himself by name. Epiphanius, xxxiv. : " But John, the disciple of Christ, condemns them with a greater punishment when he does 396 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. not suffer us even to salute them, for whoever, says he, bids them God speed. Is a partaker of their evil deeds." 2 John 4. Jerome, Epist. Evang. : "The son of thunder, whom Jesus especially loved, who drank streams of doctrine from the breast of the Saviour, sounds with the Gospel trumpet, The elder to the woman elect of the Lord, etc. ; and in the other epistle, The elder to Caius. THE EPISTLE OP JUDE. Jude was the brother of James, the author of the first catholic epistle, who presided over the church at Jeru salera for many years, and consequently he was a younger son of Mary the mother of Jesus. A very intereresting incident respecting his grandsons is pre- serve.d to us by Eusebius ('' Eccl. Hist.' ill. 20), from the historian Hegesippus : — " There were yet living of the family of our Lord, the grandchildren of Judas, called the brother of our Lord, according to the flesh. These were reported as being of the family of David, and were brought to Domitian by the Evocatus. For this emperor was as much alarraed at the appearance of Christ as Herod. He put the question, whether they were of Darid's race, and they confessed that they were. He then asked them what property they had, or how much money they owned. And both of thera answered, that they had between them only nine thousand denarii ; * and this they had not in silver, but in the value of a piece of land, con taining only thirty-nine acres, frora which they raised ¦ * About 1500 dollars. THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 397 their taxes and supported themselves by their own labour. Then they also began to show their hands, exhibiting the hardness of their bodies, and the callosity formed by incessant labour on their hands, as evidence of their own labour. When asked > also, respecting Christ and his kingdom', what was Its nature, and when and where it was to appear, they replied, ' That it was not a temporal nor an earthly kingdom, but celestial and angelic ; that it would appear at the end of the world, when coming in glory he would judge the quick and dead, and give to every one according to his works.' Upon which Domitian, despising them, made no reply; but treating them with contempt, as simpletons, com manded them to be dismissed, and by a decree ordered the persecution to cease Thus delivered they ruled the churches, both as witnesses and relatives of the Lord. When peace was established they continued living even to the time of Trajan. Such is the statement of Hegesippus." But little is known of the life and labours of Jude. The epistle raust have .been written at a late period, for he mentions as historical facts already occurring, -what Peter,'in his second epistle, had predicted as still future at the time when he was writing (2 Pet. IL). The late date of the epistle, and the fact that not rauch was known in the great body of the churches respecting its author, were probably the reasons why it was slow in coming into universal use ; though it was very generally acknowledged at quite an early period, as will be seen in the testimonies. The author. In 9, 14, 15, refers to matters not on record in any of 'the canonical books of Scripture, and which, probably, like the names of 398 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim. in. 3), had been preserved till that time by tradition. It is true that the passage in 14, 15, is found in our present book of Enoch; but as this book was not corapleted in the forra in which we now have It till after this epistle was written, It is probable that Enoch quotes from Jude rather than Jude frora Enoch. After a brief introduction (1-3) the author proceeds to expose the corrupt, blasphemous, and wicked men, teachers of error and panderers to vice, who had crept into the churches (3-19), and concludes with the ex hortation and the expression of the hope that his readers would persevere in the right way, and be finally received to the joys of the upper world (20-25). TESTIMONIES TO THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. Clement of Alexandria, Psed. IL : " Says Jude, For I vrish you to know how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. And again, . . . Woe unto them I for they have gone in the way of Cain, and run greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are spots in your feasts." Strom, ifl. : " Concerning these and similar heresies I think Jude spake prophetically in his epistle. Like wise also these filthy dreamers — and so on to this. And their mouth speaketh proud things." Jude 16. THE SEVEN CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 399 Adumb. in. Ep. Jud. : " Jude, who wrote the catholic epistle, a brother of the Sons of Joseph, being very rdligious, when he knew his relationship to the Lord, nevertheless he did not say that he was his brother, but what said he ? Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, as of the Lord, but a brother of James." TertuUian, De Cult. Tem. 13: " Enoch has testi mony in the Apostle Jude." Origen, Comment, in Matth. i. : "Jude wrote an epistle indeed of few verses, but filled with efficacious words of heavenly grace, and says in the beginning, Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, but the brother of James." XV. : " And indeed raany of the first heavenly beings becarae last, being kept in eternal chains under darkness for the judgraent of the great day." Jude 6. xiii. : " And in the epistle of Jude, To those who are beloved in God the Father, and preserved and called in Jesus Christ." Jude 1. Coraraent. in Rom. iii. : " And unless they had been held by this law, the divine Scripture would never have said concerning them. The angels also, who kept not their principality, but left their own habitation, hath God reserved, under darkness bound in Tartaras with eternal chains, for the judgment of the great day." 6. V. : " In what manner then can we explain what the Apostle Jude says in his catholic epistle ? Fpr thus he speaks. The angels also, who kept not their princi pality," etc. De Princip. ui. 2 : " The Apostle Jude in his epistle says, Michael the archangel disputing with Satan con cerning the body of Moses." Jude 9. 400 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. Jerome, Catal. Script. Eccl. c. 4: "Jude, the brother of James, left a short epistle, which is of the seven catholic epistles." Epiphanius, xxvi. : " As also I judge the Holy Spirit was raoved in regard to these things In the Apostle Jude in the catholic epistle, I say, which was written by him. But this Jude is caUed the brother of James and of the Lord." THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. What are called the Apocryphal Epistles are for the most part very different corapositions from the Apoc ryphal Gospels and Acts, which have already been reviewed. Those are generally either spurious or anonymous fictions and worthless, except as they occa sionally embody some early Christian traditions not else where to be found. But these epistles are, as a whole, the vrritings of the men whose names they bear, good and useful raen and honoured teachers In the church, the public corapanions of the apostles theraselves. Hence the raore common and appropriate designation of these books Is, the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. They bear somewhat the same relation to the New Tes tament that such apocryphal books as 1 Maccabees, Jesus Sirach, and Wisdom of Solomon do to the Old. Though genuine, they are somewhat interpolated and corrupted, and the falling off in tone and sentiment from the inspired to the uninspired must be obvious to the dullest reader. Compare Barnabas for exaraple, the fellow-missionary of Paul, or Hermas, his personal friend (Rom. xvi. 14), with the apostle himself and it is seen at once how wide the difference is between an inspired THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 401 writer and an uninspired writer, even of the same age and class. We adrait that the epistle of Barnabas is strongly interpolated, and that the author of the 'Shepherd ' raay be a Herraas who lived at Rorae three quarters of a century after Paul ; but even with this admission, the contrast between the words which man's wisdom teacheth and the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth is sufficiently marked and strong. It is difficult to conceive how Irenseus, a coteraporary of the second Hermas, should ascribe this work to the first Hermas, and speak so very highly of it, if it had been a product of his own day. The writings referred to include the first epistle of Clement of Rome (Phil. iv. 3) to the Corinthians, the epistle of Barnabas, the epistle of Ignatius, the epistle of Polycarp, and the ' Shepherd ' of Hermas. These persons and their works are aU briefly described in the fourth chapter of this volume, to which the reader is here referred. To these may be added the epistles of the churches of Vienne and Lyons, and the epistle to Diognetus. I select, for the purposes of comparison with the New Testament epistles, the epistle of Ignatius to the Ephe sians, the epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, and the first vision of Hermas. I take the shortest recension of the epistle of Ignatius, which, beyond reasonable doubt, coraes to us as Ignatius wrote it. Let the reader now, before proceeding further, turn to the fourth chapter and examine the paragraphs on Herraas, Ignatius, and Polycarp. Herraas perhaps belongs more properly to the apoca lyptic than to the epistolary Apocrypha ; but I place him here with Ignatius and Polycarp, and after James 2 D Missing Page Missing Page 402 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. and Peter, John and Jude, that the striking contrast between the inspired and the uninspired, at the very earliest period of the church, may be the more clearly seen. THE EPISTLE OP IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS. Ignatius, who Is also caUedTheophorus, to the church which is at Ephesus in Asia ; most deservedly happy ; being blessed through the greatness and fulness of God the Father, and predestinated before the world began, that it should be always unto an enduring and un changeable glory ; being united and chosen through his true Passion, according to the will of the Father, and Jesus Christ our God ; all happiness, by Jesus Christ, and his undefiled grace. I have heard of your name, rauch beloved in God, which ye have very justly attained by a habit of righteousness, according to the faith and love which is in Jesus Christ our Savour. How that being followers of God, and stirring up yourselves by the blood of Christ, ye have perfectly accomplished the work that was connatural unto you. For hearing that I came bound from Syria, for the common name and hope, trusting through your prayers to fight with beasts at Rorae ; that so by suffering I may becorae indeed the disciple of hira who gave hiraself to God, an offering and sacrifice for us (ye hastened to See me). I received, therefore, in the name of God, your whole raultitude in Oneslraus. Who by Inexpressible love is ours, but ac cording to the flesh is your bishop; whom I beseech you, by Jesus Christ, to love ; and that you would all strive to be like unto him. And blessed be God, who has granted unto you, who are so worthy of him, to THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 403 enjoy such an excellent bishop. For what concerns ray fellow-servant Burrhus, and your most blessed deacon in things pertaining tp God, I entreat you that he raay tarry longer, both for yours and your bishop's honour. And Crocus, also, worthy both of our God and you, whom I have received as the pattern of your love, has in all things refreshed me, as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ shall also refresh hira, together with One slraus, and Burrhus, and Euplus, and Fonto, in whom I have, as to your charity, seen all of you. And may I always have joy of you if I shall be worthy of It. It is therefore fitting that you should by all raeans glorify Jesus Christ who hath glorified you ; that by a uniforra obedience ye may be perfectly joined together in the same raind, and in the sarae judgraent, and raay all speak the same things concerning everything. And that being subject to your bishop, and the presbytery, ye may be wholly and thoroughly sanctified. These things I prescribe to you, not as if I were somebody extraordinary ; for though I am bound for his name, I ara not yet perfect in Christ Jesus. But now I begin to learn, and I speak to you as fellow disciples together with me. For I ought to have been stirred up by you, in faith, in admonition, in patience, in long suffering ; but for as much as ch^ty suffers me not to be silent towards you, I have first taken upon me to exhort you, that ye would all run together according to the will of God. For even Jesus Christ, our inseparable Ufe, is sent by the will of the Father, as the bishops, ap pointed unto the utmost bounds of the earth, are by the will of Jesus Christ Wherefore it will become you to run together according to the will of your bishop, as 404 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. also ye do. For your faraous presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. Therefore in your concord and agreeing charity Jesus Christ Is sung, and every single person among you raakes up the chorus. That so being all consonant in love, and taking up tbe song of God, ye raay in perfect unity, with one voice, sing to the Father by Jesus Christ ; to the end that he may both hear you, and perceive by your works that ye are indeed the members of his Son. Wherefore it is profitable for you to live in an unblamable unity, that so ye may always have a fellowship -with God. Pray also without ceasing for other men; for there is hope of repentance in thera, that they may attain unto God ; let them therefore at least be Instructed by your works, if they will be no other way. Be ye mild at their anger ; humble at their boasting ; to their blasphemies, return your prayers ; to their error, your firmness in the faith ; when they are cruel, be ye gen tle ; not endeavouring to imitate their ways. Let us be their brethren in aU kindness and moderation, but let us be followers of the Lord : for who was ever more unjustly used? raore destitute? more despised? That so no herb of the devil may be found in you ; but ye may remain in all holiness and sobriety, both of body and spirit, in Christ Jesus. The last times are come upon us : let us therefore be very reverent, and fear the long-suffering of God, that it be not to us unto condem nation. For let us either fear the wrath that is to come, or let us love the grace that vve at present enjoy ; that by the one or other of these we may be found in Christ Jesus unto true life. Besides him, let nothing THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 407 be worthy of you ; for whora also I bear about these bonds, those spiritual jewels, in which I would to God that I raight arise through your prayers. Of which 1 entreat you to make rae always partaker, that I may be found in the lot of the Christians of Ephesus, who 'have always agreed with the apostles, through the power of Jesus Christ I know both who I am, and to whora I 'wrrite : I, a person conderaned ; ye, such as have ob tained raercy ; I, exposed to danger ; ye, confirraed against danger. Ye are the passage of those that are killed for God ; the companions of Paul in the mysteries of the Gospel; the holy, the martyr, the deservedly most happy Paul ; at whose feet may I be found when I shall have attained unto God ; who throughout all his epistles makes raention of you in Christ Jesus. Let it be your care, therefore, to corae more fully together, to the praise and glory of God. For when ye meet fully together in the same place, the powers of the devil are destroyed, and his mischief is dissolved by the unity of your faith. And indeed, nothing is better than peace, by which all war, both spiritual and earthly, are abolished. Of all which nothing Is hid from you, if ye have perfect faith and charity In Christ Jesus, which are the beginning and end of life. For the beginning is faith, the end charity. And these two, joined to gether, are of God : but all other things which concern a holy life are the consequences of these. No man professing a true faith sinneth; neither does he who has charity hate any. The tree is made raanifest by its fruit ; so they who profess themselves to be Christians are known by what they do. For Christianity is not the work of an outward profession, but shows itself in 4l)8 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. the power of faith, if a raan be found faithful unto the end. It is better for a raan to hold his peace and be, than to say he is a Christian and not to be. It is good to teach, if what he says he does likewise. There is therefore one Master who spake, and it was done ; and even those things which he did without speaking are worthy of the Father. He that pos.sesses the word of Jesus is truly able to hear his very silence, that he raay be perfect; and both do according to what he speaks, and be known of those things of which he is silent. There Is nothing hid frora God, but even our secrets are nigh unto him. Let us therefore do all things as becomes those who have God dwelling in them, that we may be his temples,, and he may be our God ; as also he is, and will manifest hiraself before our faces, by those things for which we justly love him. Be not deceived, my brethren : those that corrupt families by adultery shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If therefore they who do this according to the flesh have suffered death, how much more shall he die who by his wicked doctrine corrupts the faith of God, for which Christ was crucified ? He that is thus defiled shall depart into unquenchable fire, and so also shall he that hearkens to hira. For this cause did the Lord suffer the ointraent to be poured on bis head, that he might breathe the breath of iraraortality into his church, ^ Be not ye therefore anointed with the evfl savour of the doctrine of the prince of this world : let him not take you captive from the life that is set befpre you. And why are we not all wise, seeing we have received the knowledge of God, which is Jesus Christ ? Why do we suffer ourselves foolishly to perish, not considering the THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 409 gift which the Lord has truly sent to us? Let ray life be sacrificed for the doctrine of the cross, which is In deed a scandal to the unbelievers, but to us is salvation and life eternal. Where is the wise raan ? Where is the disputer ? Where Is the boasting of those who are called wise ? For our God, Jesus Christ, was according to the dispensation of God conceived in the womb of Mary, of the seed of David, by the Holy Ghost : he was born, and baptized, that through his Passion he might purify water to the washing away of sin. Now the virginity of Mary, and he who was born of her, was kept secret from the prince of this world, as was also the death of our Lord; three of the mysteries the most spoken of throughout the world, yet done in secret by God. How then was our Saviour manifested to the world? A star shone in heaven beyond all the other stars, and its light was inexpressible, and its novelty struck terror into men's minds. All the rest of the stars, together vrith the sun and moon, were the chorus to this star ; but that sent out its light exceedingly above them all. And men began to be troubled to think whence this new star came, so unlike to all the others. Hence all the power of raagic became dissolved, and every bond of wickedness was destroyed ; men's igno rance was taken away, and the old kingdora abolished, God hiraself appearing in the form of a man for the renewal of eternal life. From thence began what God had prepared ; from thenceforth things were disturbed ; forasmuch as he designed to abolish death. But if Jesus Christ shall give me grace through your prayers, and it be his will, I purpose in a second epistle, which I will suddenly write unto you, to manifest to you more 410 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. fully the dispensation of which I have now begun to speak, unto the new raan, which is Jesus Christ, both in his faith and charity, in his suffering and in his resurrection. Especially If the Lord shaU make known unto me that ye all by name corae together in cora raon in one faith and in one Jesus Christ ; who was of the race of David according to the flesh, the Son of man and Son of God ; obeying your bishop and the presbytery with an entire affection ; breaking one and the same bread, which is the medicine of immortality, our antidote that we should not die, but live for ever in Christ Jesus. My soul be for yours, and theirs whora ye have sent to the glory of God ; even unto Srayrna, frora whence also I write to you, giving thanks unto the Lord, and loving Polycarp even as I do you. Re raeraber me, as Jesus Christ does remember you. Pray for the church which is in Syria, from whence I am carried bound to Rorae; being the least of a.ll the*^ faithful which are there, as I have been thought worthy to be found to the glory of God. Fare ye well iu God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, our coramon hope. Amen. THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP TO THE PHILIPPLiNS. Polycarp, and the presbyters that are with him, to the church of God which is at Phflippi ; raercy unto you and peace, frora God Alraighty, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, be multiplied. I rejoiced greatly with you in our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye received the images of a true love, and accompanied as it behoves you, those who were in bonds becoming saints, which are the crowns of such as are truly chosen by God and THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 41 our Lord : as also that the root of the faith which was preached from ancient times remains firra in you to this day, and brings forth fruit to our Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered hiraself to be brought even to the death for our sins. Whora God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death. Whora having not seen ye love ; in whora, though now ye see him not, yet beUeving, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Into which many desire to enter, knowing that by grace ye are saved, not by works,' but by the will of God through * Jesus Christ. Wherefore, girding up the loins of your minds, serve the Lord with fear and in truth, laying aside all empty and vain speech and the error of many ; believing in him that raised up our Lord Jesus Christ frora the dead, and hath given him glory and a throne at his right hand. To whom all things are made sub ject, both that are in heaven and that are in earth ; whom every living creature shall worship ; who shall come to be the judge of the quick and the dead ; whose blood God shall require of them that believe not in him. But he that raised ,up Christ from the dead shall also raise up us in like manner if we do his will and walk according to his coraraandraents, and love those things which he loved ; abstaining frora all unrighteousness, inordinate affection, and love of raoney; from evil speaking ; false witness ; not rendering evil for evil, or rafling for railing, or striking for striking, or cursing for cursing. But remember what the Lord has taught us, saying, Judge not, that ye shall not be judged ; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven ; be ye merciful, and ye shall obtain mercy ; for with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. And 412 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. again, that blessed are the poor and they that are per secuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God. These things, my brethren, I took not the liberty of myself to write unto you concerning righteousness, but you yourselves before encouraged me to do it. For neither can I, nor any other such as I am, come up to the wisdom of the blessed and renowned Paul ; who being himself in person with those who then lived, did with all exactness and soundness teach the word of truth, and being gone from you, wrote an epistle to 3'ou. Into which, if you look, you wfll be able to edify yourselves in the faith that has been delivered unto you, which is the mother of us all ; being followed with hope, and led on by a general love, both towards God, and towards Christ, and towards our neighbour. For if any man has these things he has fulfilled the law of righteousness, for he that has charity is far from all sin. But _the love of money is the root of aU evil. Knowing, therefore, that as we brought nothing into this world, so neither may we carry anything out, let us arm ourselves with the armour of righteousness. And teach ourselves first to walk according to the com mandments of the Lord ; and then our wives to walk likewise according to the faith that is given to them, in charity and in purity, loving their own husbands vrith all sincerity, and all others alike with all tem perance ; and to bring up their children in the instruc tion and fear of the Lord. The widows likevrise teach that they be sober as to what concerns the faith of the Lord ; praying always for all raen ; being far from all detraction, evil speaking, false witness, from covetousness. THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 413 and from all evil. Knowing that they are the altars of God, who sees all bleraishes, and frora whom nothing is hid ; who searches out the very reasonings, and thoughts, and secrets of our hearts. Knowing, therefore, that God is not mocked, we ought to walk worthy both of his coraraand and of his glory. Also the deacons raust be blameless before hira, as the ministers of God in Christ, and not of men. Not false accusers ; not double-tongued ; not lovers of money ; but moderate in all things ; compassionate, careful ; walking accord ing to the truth of the Lord, who was the servant of all. Whom if we please In this present world we shall also be made partakers of that which Is to corae, according as he hath proraised us, that he will raise us up frora the dead ; and that if we shall walk worthy of him we shall also reign together with hira, if we believe. In like manner the younger raen raust be unblamable in all things ; above all, taking care of their purity, and to restrain themselves from all evil For it is good to be cut off frora the lusts that are in the world, because every such lust warreth against the spirit ; and neither fornicators, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves -with mankind, shall inherit the kingdom of God ; nor they who do such things as are foolish and unreasonable. Wherefore ye must needs abstain from all these things, being subject to the priests and deacons, as unto God and Christ. The virgins adraonish to walk in a spotless and pure conscience. And let the elders be corapas- sionate and merciful towards all, turning them from their errors ; seeking out those that are weak ; not for getting the widows, the fatherless, and tfee poor ; but alwavs providing what is good both in the sight of God 414 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. and man. Abstaining frora all wrath, respect of persons, and unrighteous judgment; and especially being free from all covetousness. Not easy to believe anything against any ; not severe in judgraent ; knowing that we are aU debtors in point of sin. If therefore we pray to the Lord that he would forgive us, we ought also to forgive others ; for we are all in the sight of our Lord and God, and raust all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall every one give an account of hiraself Let us therefore serve him in fear and with aU reverence, as both himself hath commanded, and as the apostles who have preached the Gospel unto us, and the prophets who have foretold the coming of our Lord, have taught us ; being zealous ¦ of what is good ; . ab staining from all offence, and frora false brethren, and frora those who bear the narae of Christ in hypocrisy, who deceive vain men. For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh he is antichrist ; and whoever does not confess his suffering upon the cross is from the devil And whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts, and says that there shaU neither be any resurrection, nor judgment, he is the firstborn of Satan. Wherefore, leaving the vanity of many, and their false doctrines, let us return to the word that was delivered to us from the beginning, watching unto prayer, and persevering in fasting, with supplication beseeching the all-seeing God not to lead us into temp tation ; as the Lord hath said. The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak. Let us therefore, without ceasing, hold steadfastly to him who is our hope, and the earnest of our righteousness, even Jesus Christ. Who his own THE APOCE'S^PHAL EPISTLES. 415 self bare our sins in his own body on the tree ; who did not sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. But suffered all for us that we might live through him. Let us therefore imitate his patience, and if we suffer for his narae let us glorify hira ; for this example he has given us by himself, and so have we believed. Where fore I exhort all of you that ye obey the word of right eousness, and exercise all patience ; which ye have seen set forth before your eyes, not only in the blessed Ignatius, and Zoziraus, and Rufus, but In others araong yourselves; and in Paul himself and the rest of the Apostles. Being confident of this, that all these have not run in vain ; but in faith and righteousness, and are gone to the place that was due to them frora the Lord, with whora also they suffered. For they loved not this present world, but hira who died, and was raised again by God for us. Stand therefore In these things and follow the example of the Lord ; being firm and immutable in the faith, lovers of the brotherhood, lovers of one another ; companions together In the truth, being kind and gentle towards each other, despising none. When it Is In your power to do good, defer it not ; for charity delivereth frora death. Be all of you subject one to another, having your conversation honest araong the Gentiles; that by your good works, both ye your selves may receive praise, and the Lord may not be blasphemed through you. But woe be to him by whom the name of the Lord Is blasphemed. Therefore teach all men sobriety; in which do ye also exercise yourselves. I am greatly afflicted for Valens, who was once a pres byter araong you, that he should so little understan,d 416 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. the place that was given to him in the church. Where fore I admonish you that ye abstain from covetousness ; and that ye be chaste, and true of speech. Keep your selves from all evil For he that in these things cannot govern hiraself, how shall he be able to prescribe them to another? If a man does not keep himself from covetousness, he shall be polluted with idolatry, and be judged as if he were a Gentile. But who of you are ignorant of the judgment of God ? Do we not know that the saints shall judge the world, as Paul teaches ? But I have neither perceived nor heard anything of this kind in you, among whom the blessed Paul laboured ; and who are named in the beginning of his epistle. For he glories of you in all the churches who then only knew God ; for we did not then know him. Wherefore, my brethren, I ara exceedingly sorry both for hira, and for his wife ; to whom God grant a true repentance. And be ye also moderate upon this occasion ; and look not upon such as enemies, but call them back as suffer ing and erring members, that ye may save your whole body : for by so doing ye shall edify your own selves. For I trust that ye are weU exercised in the Holy Scriptures, and that nothing is hid from you: but at present it is not granted unto me to practise that which is written. Be angry and sin not ; and again, Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Blessed is he that believeth and remerabereth these things, which also i trust you do. Now the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and be hiraself who is our everlasting high-priest, the Son of ^^od, even Jesus Christ, bufld you up in faith and in truth, and in all meekness and lenity; in patience and long-suffering, in forbearance THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 417 and chastity; and grant unto you a lot and portion among his saints, and us with you, and to all that are under the .^heavens who shall believe in our Lord Jesus ¦ Christ, and in his Father who raised hira frora the dead. Pray for all the saints ; pray also for kings, and all that are in authority ; and for those who persecute you, and hate you, and for the enemies of the cross ; that your frait may be manifest in all, and that ye raay be per fect in Christ. Ye wrote to me, both ye and also Ignatius, that if any one went frora hence into Syria, he should bring your letters with hira ; which also I will take care of as soon as I shall have a convenient oppor tunity, either by myself or him whora I shall send upon your account. The epistle of Ignatius which he wrote unto us, together with what others of his have corae to our hands, we have sent to you, according to your order ; which are subjoined to this epistle. By which ye may be greatly profited, for they treat of faith and patience, and of all things that pertain to edification in the Lord Jesus. What you know certainly of Ignatius, and those that are with him, signify unto us. These things have I written unto you by Crescens, -whom by this present epistle I have recommended to you, and do now again commend. For he has had his conversa tion without blame among us, and I suppose also with you. Ye wfll also have regard unto his sister, when she shall corae unto you. Be ye safe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in favour with aU yours. Amen. 2 E 418 THE BOOKS OF THB BIBLE. THE ' SHEPHERD ' OF HEEMAS. PEOM THE PIEST BOOK OF HEEMAS CALLED VISIONS. He who had bred me up sold a certain young maid at Rome ; whom when I saw many years after, I re membered her, and began to love her as a sister. It happened some time afterwards, that I saw her washing at the river Tiber, and I reached out my hand to her, and led her away from the river. And when I saw her, I thought with myself, saying. How happy should I be if I had such a wife, both for beauty and manners ! This I thought with myself, nor did I think anything more. But not long after, as I was walking, and musing on these thoughts, I began to honour this creature of God, thinking with myself how noble and beautiful she was. And when I had walked a little I feU asleep. And the Spirit caught me away, and carried me through a certain place toward the right hand, through which no man could pass. It was a place among rocks, very steep, and un passable for water. When I was past this place I carae into a plain ; and there, falling dowm upon ray knees, I began to pray unto the Lord, and to confess my sins. And as I was praying the heaven was opened, and I saw the woraan whora I had coveted saluting me from heaven, and saying, Hermas, hail ! And I, looking upon her, answered. Lady, what dost thou do here ? She answered me, I ara taken up hither to accuse thee of sin before the Lord. Lady, said I, wilt thou convince rae ? No, said she ; but hear the words which I am about to speak unto thee. God, who dwelleth in THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 419 heaven, and hath made aM things out of nothing, and hath multiplied thera for his holy church's sake, is angry with thee, because thou hast sinned against rae. And I, answering, said unto her. Lady, if I have sinned against thee, tell rae where, or in wh^t place ; or when did I ever speak an unseeraly or dishonest word unto thee ? Have I not a.lways esteemed thee as a lady ? Have I not always reverenced thee as a sister ? Why then dost thou imagine these wicked things against me ? Then she, smiling upon me, said, The desire of naughtiness has risen up in thy heart. Does it not seera to thee to be an ill thing for a righteous raan to have an evfl desire rise up in his heart? It is indeed a sin, and that a very great one, to such an one ; for a righteous raan thinketh that which is righteous. And whflst he does so, and walketh uprightly, he shall have the Lord in heaven favourable unto hira In all his business. But as. for those who think wickedly in their hearts, they take to themselves death and cap tivity ; and especially those who love this present world, and glory in their riches, and regard not the good things that are to come ; their souls wander up and down, and know not where to fix. Now this is the case of such as are double-minded, who trust not In the Lord, and despise and neglect their own life. But do thou pray unto the Lord, and he will heal thy sins, and the sins of thy whole house and of all his saints. As soon as she had spoken these words the heavens were shut, and I remained utterly swallowed up with sadness and fear ; and said within myself. If this be laid against rae for sin, how can I be saved? Or how shall I eveEi.be able to entreat the Lord for ray many and great sins ? With 420 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. what words shall I beseeclftfiim to be merciful unto me ? As I was thinking over these things, and meditating in myself upon them, behold a chair was set over against me, of the whitest wool, as bright as snow. And there carae an old woraan in a bright garraent, having a book in her hand, and sat alone, and saluted me, saying. Hernias, hail ! And I, being full of sorrow and weeping, answered, Hail, Lady! And she said unto me. Why art thou sad, Hermas, who was wont to be patient, and modest, and always cheerf'ul? I answered and said to her. Lady, a reproach has been laid to ray charge by an excellent woman, who tells me that I have sinned against her. She replied, Far be any such thing frora the servant of God. But it may be the desire of her has risen up in thy heart. For indeed such a thought maketh the servants of God guilty of sin ; nor ought such a detestable thought to be in the servants of God ; nor should he who is approved by the Spirit desire that which is evil ; but especially Hermas, who contains himself from all wicked lusts, and is full of all sirapllcity, and of great innocence. Nevertheless the Lord is not so rauch angry with thee for thine own sake, as upon the account of thy house, which has committed wickedness against the Lord and against their parents. And for that out of thy fondness towards thy sons, thou hast not admonished thy house, but hast perraitted them to live wickedly, for this cause the Lord is angry with thee, but he will heal all the e-rils that are done in thy house. For through their sins and iniquities thou art wholly consumed in secular affairs. But now the raercy of God hath taken cprapassion upon thee, and upon thy house, and hath greatly coraforted thee. THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 421 Only as for thee, do not wander, but be- of an even mind, and comfort. thy house. As the workman, bringing forth his work, offers it to whomsoever he pleases, so shalt thou, by teaching every day what Is just, cut off a great sin. Wherefore cease not to admonish thy sons, for the Lord knows that they will repent with all their heart, and they shall be vsrritten in the book of life. And when she had said this, she added unto me. Wilt thou hear me read? — I answered her. Lady, I wiU. Hear, then, said she ; and opening the book, she read, gloriously, greatly, and wonderfully, such things as I could not keep in ray memory. For they were ter rible words, such as no man could bear. Howbeit I committed her last words to ray remembrance ; for they were but few, and of great use to us. Behold the mighty Lord, who by his invisible power, and with his excellent wisdom, made the world, and by his glorious counsel beautified his creature, and with the word of his strength fixed the heaven, and founded the earth upon the waters, and by his powerful virtue estabUshed his Holy Church, which he hath blessed. Behold, he vrill remove the heavens, and the mountains, the hflls, and the seas; and all things shall be made plain for his elect, that he may render unto thera the proraise which he hath promised with much honour and joy; if so be that they shall keep the coraraandraents of God, which they have received with great faith. And when she had made an end of reading she rose out of the chair ; and behold four young men came, and carried the chair to the east. And she called rae unto her, and touched my breast, and said unto me. Did my reading please thee ? — I answered. Lady, these last things please me ; 422 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. but what went before was severe and hard. She said unto me. These last things are for the righteous, but the foregoing for the revolters and heathen. And as she was talking with me, two men appeared and took her upon their shoulders, and went to the east where the chair was. And she went cheerfully away ; and as she was going said unto me, Herraas, be of good cheer. As I was on the way to Cuma, about the same time that I went the year before, I began to call to mind the vision I formerly had. And again the Spirit carried me away, and brought me into the same place in which I had been the year before. And when I was come into the place I fell down upon my knees, and began to pray unto the Lord, and to glorify his name, that he had esteemed me worthy, and had manifested unto me my forraer sins. A.nd when I arose from prayer, behold I saw over against me the old woman whom I had seen the last year, walking, a.nd reading in a certain book. And she said untP me. Canst thou teU these things to the elect of God? — I answered and said unto her, Lady, I cannot retain so ma.ny thiilgs in my meraory, but give me the book and I will write thera down. Take it, says she, and see that thou restore it again to me. As soon as I had received it, I went aside into a certain place of the field, and tran scribed every letter, for I found no syllables. And as soon as I had finished what was written in the book, the book was suddenly caught out of ray hands, but by whora I saw not After fifteen days, when 1 had fasted, and entreated the Lord vrith all earnestness, the knowledge of the -writing was revealed unto me. Now the writing was this : Thy seed, 0 Hermas ! have THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 423 sinned against the Lord, and have betrayed their parents through their great wickedness. And they have been caUed the betrayers of their parents, and have gone on in their treachery. And now have they added lewdness to their other sins, and the pollutions of naughtiness : thus have they filled up the raeasure of their iniquities. But do thou upbraid thy sons with aU these words ; and thy wife, which shall be thy sister, and let her refrain her tongue with which she calura- niates. For when she shall hear these things she will refrain herself, and shall obtain mercy. And they also shall be instructed when thou shalt have reproached them with these words, which the Lord hath comraanded to be revealed unto thee. Then shall their sins be forgiven which they have heretofore comraitted, and the sins of all the saints who have sinned even unto this day, if they shall repent with all their hearts, and reraove all doubts out of their hearts. For the Lord hath sworn by his glory concerning his elect, having deterrained this very tirae, that if any one shall even now sin he shall not be saved. For the repentance of the righteous has its end ; the days of repentance are fulfilled to all the saints ; but to the heathen there is repentance even unto the last day. Thou shalt there fore say to those who are over the church, that they order their ways in righteousness, that they may fully receive the proraise with much glory. Stand fast, there fore, ye that work righteousness, and continue to do it, that your departure may be with the holy angels, Happy are ye, as many as shall endure the great trial that is at hand, and whosoever shall not deny his life. For the Lord hath sworn by his Son, that whoso denieth 424 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. his son and hira, being afraid of his life, he will also deny hira in the world that is to come. But those who shall never deny hira, he wfll of his exceeding great raercy be favourable unto thera. But thou, 0 Herraas ! reraeraber not the evils which thy sons have done, neither neglect thy sister, but take care that they amend of their forraer sins. For they will be instructed by this doctrine if thou shalt not be mindful of what they have done wickedly. For the remembrance of evils worketh death ; but the forgetting of thera, life eternal But thou, 0 Hermas! hast undergone a great many worldly troubles for the offences of thy house, because thou hast neglected thera, as things that did not belong unto thee, and thou art wholly taken up with thy great business. Nevertheless, for this cause shalt thou be saved, that thou hast not departed'^ from the living God ; and thy simplicity and singular contlnency shall preserve thee, if thou shalt continue in them. Yea, they shall save all such as do such things, and walk in innocence and simplicity. They who are of this kind shall prevail against all impiety, and continue unto life eternal FEOM THE SECOND BOOK OF HEEMAS CALLED COMMANDS. When I had prayed at home, and was sat down upon the bed, a certain raan came in to me with a reverend look, in the habit of a shepherd, clothed vrith a white cloak, having his bag upon his back, and his staff in his hand, and saluted me. I returned his salutation, and immediately he sat down by me, and said unto me, I am sent by that venerable messenger, that I shoifld THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 425 dwell with thee all the reraaining days of thy life. But I thought that he was corae to try rae, and said unto hira. Who art thou ? For I know to whora I am com mitted. He said unto rae. Do you not know me? I answered. No. I am, said he, that shepherd to whose care you are delivered. Whilst he was yet speaking his shape was changed ; and when. I knew that it was he to whom I was committed, I was ashamed, and a sudden fear came upon me, and I was utterly overcome with sadness, because I had spoken so fpoUshly unto him. But he said unto me. Be not ashamed, but receive strength in thy raind, through the coraraands which I am about to deliver unto thee. For, said he, I am. sent to show unto thee all those things again which thou hast seen before; but especially such of them as may be of most use unto thee. And, first of all, write my Commands and Sirailitudes ; the i:est thou shalt so write as I shall show unto thee. But I there fore bid thee first of all write my Commands and Simi- Utudes, that by often reading of thera thou raayest the more easily keep them in meraory. Whereupon I wrote his Commands and Similitudes, as he bade me. Which things if, when you have heard, ye shall observe to "do them, and shall walk according to them, and exercise yourselves in them, with a pure raind, ye shall receive from the Lord those things which he has promised unto you. But if, having heard them, ye shall not repent, but shall stiU go on to add to your sins, ye shall be punished by him. All these things that shepherd, the angel of repentance, comraanded me to write. First of all, believe that there is but one God, who created and framed aU things of nothing into being. 426 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. He comprehends all things, and is only immense, not tP be comprehended by any. Who can neither be defined by any words, nor conceived by the mind. Therefore believe in him, and fear him; and fearing hira, abstain from all evil. Keep these things, and cast all lust and iniquity far from thee ; and put on righteous ness, and thou shalt live to God, if thou shalt keep his coraraandments. He said unto me, Be innocent, and without disguise ; so shalt thou be like an infant who knows no malice, which destroys the life of man. Especially see that thou speak evil of none, nor wfllingly hear any one speak evil of any. For If thou observest not this, thou also who hearest, shalt be partaker of the sin of hira that speaketh evil by believing the slander, and thou also shalt have sin, because thou belieyest hira that spake evil of thy brother. Detraction is a pernicious thing; an inconstant, evfl spirit, that never continues in peace, but is always in discord. Wherefore refrain thyself frora it, and keep peace everraore with thy brother. Put on a holy constancy, in which there are no sins, but all is full of joy ; and do good of thy labours. Give without distinction to all that are in want, not doubting to whora thou givest. But give to all ; for God will have us give to all, of all his own gifts. They therefore that receive shall give an account to God, both wherefore they receive, and for what end. And they that receive without a real need shaU give an account for it ; but he that gives shall be innocent, for he has fulfilled his duty as he received it frora God, not making any choice to whom he should give, and to whom not. And this service he did with simplicity. THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 427 and to the glory of God. Keep therefore this coraraand according as I. have delivered it unto thee; that thy repetatance raay be found to be sincere, and that good may corae to thy house, and thou mayest have a pure heart. Moreover he said unto me. Love tmth, and let all the Speech be trae whi-ch proceeds out of thy mouth ; that the spirit which the Lord hath given to dwell in thy flesh may be found true towards all men ; and the Lord be glorified, who hath given such a spirit unto thee ; because God is trae in all his words, and in him there is no lie. They therefore that lie deny the Lord, and become robbers of the Lord ; not rendering to God what they received from him. For they received the Spirit free from lying : if therefore they make that a liar, they defile what was committed to thera by the Lord, and becorae deceivers. When I heard this I Wept bitterly. And when he saw rae weeping he said tmto rae. Why weepest thou? And I said, Because, sir, I doubt whether I can be saved. He asked rae. Wherefore? I repUed, Because, sir, I never spake a true word in my life ; but always Uved in dissimulation, and affirmed a lie for truth to all raen ; and no raan contradicted me, but all gave credit to my words. How then can I live, seeing I have done in this manner ? And he said unto me. Thou thinkest well and truly. For thou oughtest, as the servant of God, to have walked in the truth, and not have joined an evil con science with the Spirit of truth, nor have grieved the holy and true Spirit of God. And I repUed unto him. Sir, I never before hearkened so diligently to these things. He answered. Now thou hearest them, take 428 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. care frora henceforth that even those things which thou hast forraerly spoken falsely for the sake of thy business, may, by thy present truth, receive credit. For even those things may be credited if for the time to come thou shalt speak the truth ; and by so doing thou mayest attain unto life. And whosoever shall hearken unto this command, and do it, and shall depart from all lying,- he shall live unto God. Furthermore, said he, I command thee, that thou keep thyself chaste ; and that thou suffer not any thought of any other marriage, or of fornication, to enter into thy heart; for such a thought produces a great sin. But be thou at all times mindful of the Lord, and thou shalt never sin. For if such an evfl thought should arise in thy heart, thou shouldest be guflty of a great sin ; and they who do such things foflow the way of death. Look therefore to thyself, and keep thyself from such a thought; for where chastity reraains in the heart of a righteous man, there an evil thought ought never to arise. And I said unto him. Sir, suffer rae to speak a little to you. He bade me say on. And I answered, Sir, if a man that is faithful in the Lord, shall have a wife, and shaU catch her in adultery, doth a man sin that contlnueth to Uve stfll with her ? And he said unto me. As long as he is ignorant of her sin he commits no fault in liring - with her ; but if a man shaU know his wife to have offended, and she shall not repent of her sin, but go on stiU in her fornication, and a man shall continue nevertheless to live vrith her, be shall becorae guflty of her sin, and partake with her in her adultery. And I said unto him. What therefore is to be done if the THE APOCEYPHAL EPISTLES. 429 woman continues on in her sin ? He answered. Let her husband put her away, and let him continue by hiraself. But if he shall put away his wife and raarry another, he also doth commit adultery. And I said. What if the woman that Is so put away shall repent, and be willing to return to her husband, shall she not be received by him ? He said unto me. Yes ; and if her husband shall not receive her, he will sin, and commit a great offence against hiraself; but he ought to receive the offender if she repents ; only not often. For to the servants of God there is but one repentance. And for this cause a raan that putteth away his wife ought not to take another, because she may repent. This act Is alike both in the man and in the woraan. Now they corarait adultery, not only who pollute their flesh, but who also raake an iraage. If therefore a woraan perseveres in anything of this kind, and repents not, depart frora her, and live not with her ; otherwise thou also shall be partaker of her sin. FEOM THE THIED BOOK OF HERMAS CALLED SIMILITUDES. After a few days I saw the sarae person that before talked with rae in the sarae field in which I had seen those shepherds. And he said unto me. What seekest thou? Sir, said I, I corae to entreat you that you would coraraand the shepherd, who is the minister of punishment, to depart out of my house, because he greatly afflicts me. And he answered, It is necessary for thee to endure inconveniences and vexations ; for so that good angel hath commanded concerning thee, because he would try thee. Sir, said I, what so great 430 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. offence have I coraraitted, that I should be delivered to this messenger ? Hearken, said he ; thou art indeed guilty of raany sins, yet not so many that thou shouldest be delivered to this raessenger. But thy house hath comraitted many sins and offences, and therefore that good messenger, being grieved at their doings, com manded that for some time thou shouldest suffer afflic tion ; that they may both repent of what they have done, and may wash themselves from all the lusts of this present world. When therefore they shaU have repented, and be purified, then that messenger which is appointed over thy punishraents shall depart from thee. I said unto him. Sir, if they have behaved them selves so as to anger that good angel, yet what have I done ? He answered. They cannot otherwise be afflicted unless thou, who art the head of the famfly, suffer. For whatsoever thou shalt suffer, they must needs feel it ; but as long as thou shalt stand weU established they cannot experience any vexation. I replied. But, sir, behold they also now repent with all their hearts. I know, says he, that they repent with all their hearts; but dost thou therefore think that their offences who repent are iraraediately blotted out ? No, they are not presently ; but he that repents raust afflict his sod, and show hiraself hurable in all his affairs, and undergo raany and divers vexations. And when he shall have suffered all things that were ap pointed for him, then perhaps he that raade him, and formed all things besides, will be moved with compas sion towards hira, and afford hira some remedy; and especially if he shall perceive his heart, who repents, to be pure from every evil word. But at present it is THE APOCRYPHAL EPISTLES. 431 expedient for thee, and for thy house, to be grieved ; and it is needful that thou shouldest endure much vexa tion, as the angel of the Lord who committed thee unto me has commanded. Rather give thanks unto the Lord, that knowing what was to come, he thought thee worthy to whora he should foretell that trouble was coming upon thee, who art able to bear it. I said unto him. Sir, be but thou also with rae, and I shall easily undergo any trouble. I will, said he, be with thee; and I will entreat the messenger who is set over thy punishment that he would moderate his afflictions to wards thee. And raoreover thou shalt suffer adversity but for a little tirae, and then thou shalt again be re stored to thy former state ; only continue on in the humiUty of thy mind. Obey the Lord vrith a pure heart, thou, and thy house, and thy children ; and walk in the commands which I have delivered unto thee, and then thy repentance may be firm and pure. And if thou shalt keep these things with thy house, thy incon veniences shall depart from thee. And all vexation shall in Uke raanner depart frora all those whosoever shall walk according to these coraraands. Again he showed me a wfllow which covered the fields and the raountalns, under whose shadow carae all such as were called by the narae of the Lord. And by that willow stood an angel of the Lord, very ex cellent and lofty ; and did cut down boughs from that willow vrith a great hook; and reached out to the people that were under the shadow of that willow little rods, as it were about a foot long. And when all of them had taken them he laid aside his hook, and the tree continued entire, as I had before seen It. At which 432 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. I wondered, and mused within myself Then that shepherd said unto me. Forbear to wonder that that tree continues whole, notwithstanding so raany boughs have been cut off from it ; but stay a little, for now it shall be shown thee what that angel means who gave those rods to the people. So he again deraanded the rods of thera, and in the sarae order that every one had received thera was he called to hira, and restored his rod ; which, when he had received, he examined thera.' From some he received them dry and rotten, and, as it were, touched with the moth ; those he com manded to be separated from the rest and placed by theraselves. Others gave hira their rods dry indeed, but not touched with the moth ; these also he ordered to be set by themselves. Others gave in their rods half dry ; these also were set apart. Others gave in their rods half dry and cleft ; these too were set by themselves. Others brought in their rods half dry and half green, and these were in like manner placed by themselves. Others delivered up their rods two parts green and the third dry, and they too were set apart. Others brought their rods two parts dry and the third green, and were also placed by theraselves. Others delivered up their rods less dry (for there was but a very little, to wit, their tops dry), but they had clefts, and these were set in like manner by theraselves. In the rods of others there was but a little green, and the rest dry, and these were set aside by themselves. Others came, and brought their rods green as they had received thera, and the greatest part of the people brought their rods thus ; and the messenger greatly rejoiced at these, and they also were put apart by THE APOCRYPHAL EPISTLES. 433 themselves. Others brought their rods not only green but full of branches, and these were set aside, being also received by the angel with great joy. Others brought their rods green vrith branches, and those also some fruit upon them. They who had such rods were very cheerful, and the angel hiraself took great joy at them; nor was the shepherd that stood with me less pleased with them. Then the angel of the Lord commanded crowns to be brought, and the crowns were brought made of palms ; and the angel crowned those men in whose rods he found the young branches with frait, and commanded thera to go into the tower. He also sent those into the tower in whose rods he found branches without fruit, giving a seal unto them. For they had the same garment, that is, one white as snow, with which he bade thera go into the tower. And so he did to those who returned their rods green as they received thera, giving them a white garment, and so sent them away to go into the tower. Having done this, he said to the shepherd that was with me, I go my way ; but do thou send these within the walls, every one into the place in which he has deserved to dwell ; examine first their rods, but examine them diligently, that no one deceive thee. But and if any one shall escape thee, I will try thera upon the altar. Having said this to the shepherd he departed. After he was gone the shepherd said unto rae, Let us take the rods frora them all, and plant them ; if perchance they may grow green again. I said unto him. Sir, how can those dry rods ever grow green again ? He answered me. That tree is a willow, and always loves to live. If therefore these rods shall be planted, and 2 P 434 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. receive a little moisture, many of thera wiU recover theraselves. Wherefore I wfll try, and vrill pour water upon thera, and if any of them can live I will rejoice with him ; but if not, at least by this means I shall be found not to have neglected my part. Then he com manded me to call them ; and they all came unto him, every one in the rank in which he stood, and gave him their rods ; which having received, he planted every one of them in their several orders. And after he had planted tbem all he poured much water upon them, insomuch that they were covered with water, and did not appear above it Then when he had watered them, he said unto me, Let us depart, and after a little tirae we will return and visit them. For he who created this tree would have all those live that received rods from it. And I hope, now that these rods are thus watered, many of them, receiving in the moisture, wfll recover. I said unto him. Sir, tell me what this tree denotes ? For I am greatly astonished, that after so raany branches have been cut off it seems stfll to be whole, nor does there anything the less of it appear to remain, which greatly araazes me. He answered. Hearken. This great tree which covers the plains and the mountains, and all the earth, is the law of God, published throughout the whole world. Now this law is the Son of God, who is preached to all the ends of the earth. The people that stand under its shadow are those which have heard his preaching, and believed. The great and venerable angel which you saw was Michael who has the power over this people, and governs them. For he has planted the law in the hearts of those who have believed ; and therefore he visits THE APOCRYPHAL EPISTLES. 435 them to whom he has given the law, to see if they have kept it. And he exaniines every one's rod, and of those, many that are weakened ; for those rods are the law of the Lord. Then he discerns all those who have not kept the law, knowing the place of every one of them. I said unto him. Sir, why did he send away some to the tower, and left others here to you? He replied, Those who have transgressed the law which they received from him are left in ray power, that they may repent of their sins ; but they who fulfilled the law and kept it are und^ his power. But who then, said I, are those who went into the tower crowned ? He replied. All such as have striven with the devil, and have overcome him, are crowned; and they are those who- have suffered hard things that they raight keep the law. But they who gave up their rods green, and with young branches, but without fruit have indeed endured trouble for the sarae law, but have not suffered death ; neither have they denied their holy law. They who delivered up their rods green as they received them are those who were modest and just, and have lived with a very pure mind, and kept th© command ments of God. The rest thou shalt know when I shall have considered those rods which I have planted and watered. After a few days we returned, and in the same place stood that glorious angel, and I stood by him. Then he said unto rae; Gird thyself with a towel, and serve me. And I girded myself with a clean towel, which was made of coarse cloth. And when he saw me girded, and ready to minister unto him, he said. Call those raen whose rods have been planted, every one in his order as they gave thera. And he 436 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. brPught me into the field, and I called them all, and they all stood ready in their several ranks. Then he said unto them. Let every one pluck up his rod and bring it unto rae. And first they delivered theirs whose rods had been dry and rotten. And those whose rods still continued so he commanded to. stand apart. Then they carae whose rods had been dry, but not rotten. Some of these delivered in their rods green ; others dry and rotten, as if they had been touched by the moth. Those who gave thera up green he coraraanded to stand apart; but those whos% rods were dry and rotten he caused to stand with the first sort. Then carae they whose rods had been half dry, and cleft : many of these gave up their rods green, and uncleft Others delivered thera up green with branches, and fruit upon the branches, like unto theirs who went crowned into the tower. Others delivered thera up dry, but not rotten ; and sorae gave thera as they were before, half dry, and cleft Every one of these he ordered to stand apart; sorae by theraselves, others in their respective ranka. Then came they whose rods had been green, but cleft. These delivered their rods altogether green, and stood in their own order. And the shepherd rejoiced at these, because they were all changed and free from their clefts. Then they gave in their rods who had them half green and half dry. Of these sorae were found wholly green, others half dry, others green with young shoots. And all these were sent away, every one to his proper rank. Then they gave up their rods who had thera before two parts green and the third dry. Many of these gave in their rods green ; many half dry; the rest dry, but not rotten. So these were THE APOCRYPHAL EPISTLES. 437 sent away, each to his proper place. Then came they who had before their rods two parts dry and the third green ; many of these delivered up their rods half dry ; others dry and rotten ; others half dry and cleft ; but few green. And all these were set every one in his ovm rank. Then they reached in their rods in which there was before but a little green, and the rest dry. Their rods were for the most part found green, having Uttie boughs, with fruit upon them, and the rest altogether green. And the shepherd upon sight of these rejoiced exceedingly, because he had found them thus, and they also went to their proper orders. Now after he had examined aU their rods, he said unto me, I told thee that this tree loved life ; thou seest how many have repented and attained unto salvation. Sir, said I, I see it. That thou mightest know, saith he, that the goodness and mercy of the Lord is great, and to be had in honour, who gave his spirit to them that were found worthy of repentance. I answered, Sir, why then did not all of them repent? He replied. Those whose minds the Lord foresaw would be pure, and that they would serve him with all their hearts, to them he gave repentance. But for those whose deceit and wickedness he beheld, and perceived that they would not truly return unto him, to them he denied any return unto repentance, lest they should again blaspheme his law vrith vricked words. I said unto him, Now, sir, make known unto me what is the place of every one of those who have given up their rods, and what their portion ; that when they who have not kept their seal entire, but have wasted the seal which they received, shall hear and believe these things. 438 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. they may acknowledge their evil deeds and repent f' and receiving again their seal from you, may give glory to God, that he was raoved with compassion towards them, and sent you to renew their spirits. Hesirken, said he : They whose rods have been found dry and rotten, and as it were touched with the moth, are the deserters and the betrayers of the church. Who, with the rest of their crimes, have also blasphemed the Lord, and denied his name which had been called upon them. Therefore all these are dead unto God, and thou seest that none of them have repented, although they have heard my commands which thou hast de livered unto them. Frpm these men therefore life is far distant. They also who have deUvered up their rods dry, but not rotten, have not been far frora them. For they have been counterfeits, and brought in e-vil doc trines, and have perverted the servants of God ; but especially those who had sinned ; not suffering them to return unto repentance, but keeping thera back by their false doctrines. These tjierefore have hope ; and thbu seest that many of them have repented since the time that thou hast laid my coraraands- before them : and many more vrill yet repent, but they that shall not repent shall lose both repentance and life. But they that have repented, their place has begun to be within the first walls, and some of them are even gone into the tower. Thou seest therefore, said he, that in the repent ance of sinners there is life ; but for those that repent not death is prepared. Hear now concerning those who gave in their rods half dry and full of clefts. They whose rods were only half dry are the doubtful ; for they are neither living nor dead. But they who THE APOCRYPHAL EPISTLES. 439 deUvered in their rods not only half dry, but also full of clefts, are both doubtful and evil speakers ; who detract frora those that are absent, and have never peace among themselves, and that envy one another. Howbeit to these also repentance is offered; for thou seest that some of these have repented. Now all those of this kind who have quickly repented shall have a place in the tower ; but they who have been raore slow in their repentance shall dweU vrithin the walls ; but they that shall not repent, but shall continue on in their wicked doings, shall die the death. As for those who had their rods green, but yet cleft, they are such as were always faithful and good, but they had sorae enmity and strife araong themselves conceming dignity and pre-eminence. Now aU such are vain and without un derstanding as contend with one another about these things. Nevertheless, seeing they are otherwise good, if when they shaU hear these commands they shall amend themselves, and shall at my persuasion suddenly repent, they shaU at last dwell in the tower, as they who have truly and worthily repented. But if any one shall again return to his dissension, he shall be shut out from the tower, and shall lose his life. For the life of those who keep the commandments of the Lord consists in doing what they are coraraanded ; not in principality, or in any other dignity. For by for bearance and huraflity of raind raen shall attain unto life ; but by seditions, and conterapt of the law, they shaU purchase death unto theraselves. They who in their rods had half dry and half green, are those who are engaged in many affairs of the world, and are not joined to the saints ; for which cause half of them 440 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. liveth and half is dead. Wherefore many of these, since the tirae that they have heard my commands, have repented and begun to dwell in the tower. But sorae of them have wholly fallen away ; to these there is no more place for repentance. For by reason of their present interests they have blasphemed and denied God ; and for this wickedness they have lost life. And of these many are stiU in doubt ; these may yet return ; and if they shall quickly repent they shaU have a place in the tower ; but if they shall be more slow they shall dwell without the walls ; but if they shall not repent they shall diel As for those who had two parts of their rods green, and the third dry, they have by manifold ways denied the Lord. Of these, many have repented, and found a place in the tower; and many have altogether departed from God, These have utterly lost life. And some, being in a doubtful state, have raised up dissensions : these may yet return, if they shall suddenly repent, and not continue in their lusts ; but if they shall continue in their e-vfl doing they shall die. They who gave in their rods two parts dry and the other green, are those who have indeed been faithful but withal rich and full of good things ; and thereupon have desired to be famous araong the heathen which are without, and have thereby fallen into great pride, and begun to aira at high matters, and to forsake the truth : nor were they joined to the saints, but Uved vrith the heathen ; and this life seemed the more pleasant to thera. Howbeit they have not departed from God, but continued in the faith ; only they have not wrought the works of faith. Many therefore of these have repented, and begun to dwell in the tower. Yet others THE APOCRYPHA.L EPISTLES. 441 stfll living araong the heathen people, and being lifted up with their vanities, have utterly fallen away from God, and followed the works and wickednesses of the heathen. This kind of men therefore are reckoned among strangers to the gospel. Others of these began to be doubtful in their minds, despairing, by reason of their vricked doings, ever to attain unto salvation. Others, being thus made doubtful did moreover stir up dissensions. To these, therefore, and to those who, by reason of their doings, are becorae doubtful, there is stfll hope of return ; but they must repent quickly, that their place may be in the tower. But they that repent not, but continue stiU in their pleasures, are nigh unto death. As for those who gave in their rods green, excepting their tops, which only were dry, and had clefts, these were always good, and faithful, and upright before God : nevertheless they sinned a Uttle, by reason of their empty pleasures and trifling thoughts whioh they had within themselves. Wherefore many of them, when they heard my words, repented forthvrith, and began to dweU in the tower. Nevertheless some grew doubtful, and others to their doubtful minds added dissensions. To these, therefore, there is still hope of return, because they were always good ; but they shall hardly be moved. As for those, lastly, who gave in their rods dry, their tops only excepted, which alone were green, they are such as have believed indeed in God, but have Uved in wickedness ; yet without depart ing from God, having always wilUngly borne the narae of the Lord, and readfly received into their houses the servants of God, Wherefore, hearing these things they returned, and without delay repented and lived 442 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. in all righteousness. And some of thera suffered death ; others readfly underwent many trials, being mindful of their evil doings. And when he had ended his explications of aU the rods, he. said unto me. Go, and say unto all men that they repent, and they shall live unto God ; because the Lord, being moved with great clemency, hath sent me to preach repentance unto all ; even unto those who, by reason of their evil doings, deserve not to attain unto salvation. But the Lord will be patient, and keep the invitation that was made by his Son. I said unto him. Sir, I hope that all, when they shall hear these things, will repent. For I trust that every one acknowledging his crime, and taking. up the fear of the Lord, wfll return unto repentance. He said unto me. Whosoever shall repent vrith all their hearts, and cleanse themselves frora all the evfls that I have before mentioned, and not add anything more to their sins, shall receive from the Lord the cure of their forraer iniquities if they shall not make any doubt of these coraraands, and shaU live unto God. But they that shall continue to add to their transgressions, and shall stfll converse vrith the lusts of this present world, shall condemn themselves unto death. But do thou walk ip these commands, and thou shalt live unto Gpd ; and whosoever shall walk in these, and exercise them rightly, shall live unto God. And having showed me all these things,, he said, I will show thee the rest in a few days. The opinions of the ancients in regard to Hermas were not settled. Origen on Rom. xvi. 14, says, " I sup pose that this Hermas is the author of the Uttle boot called the ' Shepherd ' (Pastor), a writing (scripture) which THE APOCRYPHAL EPISTLES. 443 seems to me highly useful, and it is, as I suppose, dirinely inspired ;" and yet in his homily on Luke xii. 68, he expresses himself more doubtfully. The author of the ' Fragment of Muratori ' expresses himself more decidedly as to the author of the ' Shepherd.' He says, " Hermas composed the ' Shepherd ' very lately, in our times, in the city of Rome, while the bishop Pius, his brother, occupied the chair of the Roman Church." Jerome (Catal. c. 10) writes, " Herraas, whom the Apostle Paul mentions in the epistle to the Romans (xvi. 14) they assert to be the author of the book which is called ' Pastor,' and which is even now publicly read in some of the churches of Greece. It is traly a useful book, and many of the ancient writers have taken testi monies from it, but it is almost unknown among the Latins ;" and yet in another passage of the sarae work - (c. 20) he seems to reject it altogether. TertuUian, in the latter part of his life at least, de cidedly rejected it ; and affirms that it was classed by every councfl of the churches among the false and apocryphal books (De Pudic. c. 10 and 20) ; and the ' Muratorian Fragment ' says, " It should be read, indeed, but it can never be publicly read in the church, either among the prophets or the apostles." The conclusions of Eusebius are given very distinctly, ' Eccl Hist' iu. 3, and are as follows : — " But as the same apostle in the addresses at the close of the epistle to the Romans, has among others made mention also of Hermas, of whom they say we have the book called ' Pastor,' it should be observed, that this too is disputed by some on account of whom it is not placed among those of acknowledged authority (o/wXayovixevoi). 444 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. By others, however, it is judged most necessary, espe ciaUy to those who need an elementary introduction. Hence we know that it has been already in public use in our churches, and I have also understood by tradition, that some of the most ancient writers have made use of it" The passage in Irenseus respecting Hermas is as fol lows : — " Well has the Scripture spoken which says, First of aU beUeve that there is one God, who created all things and ordered aU things, and made aU things from that which is not." The quotation is from Hermas, Coraraand. i. 1, and with reference to this passage Euse bius (' Eccl. Hist.' V. 8) says in regard to Denseus, " And he not only knew but also admitted the book called ' Pastor,' in these words, ' Well is it said in that work which declares, First of aU believe that there is one God, who created and arratiged all things,' " etc.; or translating Eusebius with literal exactness, " Not only did he know but he also receives the writing (Scripture, ypatf'vy of the ' Shepherd,' saying, Wherefore well spake the Scripture (writing, ypa-4>rj) which says," etc. The word Scripture (ypafjyri) was probably then used vrith rather raore latitude than it is now. There is certainly no evidence that any of the apostles ever sanctioned the ' Shepherd ' of Herraas as of divine authority, or even knew of the existence of the book. 445 CHAPTER XII. THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN AND THE APOCRYPHAL REVELATIONS. EEVELATION OF ST. JOHN, OE THE APOCALYPSE. — INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. The official activity of John extended through a much longer period than that of any other of the primitive teachers of Christianity ; for he was the youngest of the apostles, and reached a far more advanced age than any of his associates. On account of his known character as the personal favourite and bosom friend of his divine Master, the celebrity of his writings, the extent of his travels through Christendom, the great age to which he lived, his being looked up to by all the churches for a long period as the only man living who had seen and familiarly conversed with Jesus of Nazareth, and on account of the number of young men who were prepared for the Christian ministry under his instructions — on these ac counts John was raore extensively known and more highly venerated among the Christian churches of the 446 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE, first and second century than any other apostle, unless , Paul should be regarded as an exception. If, then, the Apocalypse is falsely ascribed to John, we should naturally suppose that it would not have been ascribed to him at a very early period ; that very few, if any, of the writers who lived at and near his time, would be likely to fall into the raistake ; and that in a later age the book would graduaUy, and ih the face of opposition from the better informed, work its way into public confidence, as a genuine production of the be^ loved disciple. But the historical facts in the case are directly the reverse of aU these reasonable expectations, which every one will see to be exactly in the natural course of events, on the supposition that the book is spurious. The testimony of the early and contemporary witnesses is unaniraous and uncontradicted in favour of the book. Though well known and extensively used in the churches, not a breath of suspicion was ever blown upon its repu tation till more than one hundred and fifty years after the death of the apostle to whom it is ascribed; and then not confidently, but doubtingly, not on any critical grounds aUeged or pretended, but solely on account of the supposed difficulty of its interpretation, the bad use which had been raade of it, and a dislike to the doctrines which it was iraagined to contain. THE MILLENNIAL CONTROVERSY. The occasion on which the genuineness of the Apoca lypse was first called in question was the follovring., About A.D. 230, Nepos, the pious and active bishop THE EEVELATION OP ST. JOHN. 447 of Arsinoe, in Egypt, adopted the notion of the thou sand years personal reign of Christ on earth, famfliarly called the millennium, and published a book entitled •Refutation of the AUegorists,' in which he amplifies this doctrine, advocating it with great zeal, and main taining it principally by quotations from the Apocalypse. The book was very popular, and gained raany adherents to the doctrine, and so high did their zeal ran, that the chfliasts (as they were called) or the rafllennialists began to secede from the mother church at Alexandria, which opposed their notions. After the death of Nepos, Coracion, the pastor of a country church, took the lead in propagating the same sentiments. Dionysius, the mild and learned bishop of Alexandria, desiring to put an end to this dispute, and unwflUng to fulminate ecclesiastical thunders, which he knew could have no other effect than to irritate, without intimidating or subduing, went into the province of Arsinoe, where the seceders were most numerous, and proposed an amicable conference. They met him with their leader, Coracion, at their head, and the book of Nepos was carefully read and its arguments examined. The good bishop Diony sius, with exemplary patience, spent three days in reasoning with his wandering sheep,, quietly listened to everything they had to say, answered all their objec-- tions; and by the mildness of his bearing and the force of his arguments so completely satisfied them that they had been in the wrong, that Coracion, in the name of aU the rest, thanked him for his kindness and his instructions, and declared that they were all convinced that he was in the right, and accordingly they cheerfully renounced their own opinions and 448 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. adopted his. A rare result of theological controversy I (Neander's ' Church History,' Part l p. 1094 ff. in Ger man.) THE APOCALYPSE THEN FIEST QUESTIONED. This took place A.D. 255, and Dionysius, to secure the victory which he had gained, wrote a work on the Promises. Notwithstanding his wonderful success, the affair had given Dionysius a great deal of trouble, the whole of which he was disposed to attribute to the in fluence of the Apocalypse, and began to doubt whether a book which he supposed had done so much mischief could be of divine authority, or at any rate the pro duction of an apostle. Accordingly, in his work on the Promises, he expresses himself to the follovring effect, namely : " That some before his time had rejected the book, alleging that it was altogether dark, entirely without sense and reason, and ascribed it to the heretic Cerinthus; that he, however, would not, hiraself, pre surae to reject it, as raany of his Christian brethren held it in high estimation. He acknowledged that he could not understand the book, yet would not, on that account, reject it, but would allow that it was written by a man named John, who was a holy and inspired man. But I would not (says he) easily agree that this was the apostle, the so'n of Zebedee, and brother of James, who is the author of the gospel and general epistles which bear his name. But I conjecture, from the general tenour of both, and the form and complexion of the composition, and the execution of the whole book, that it is not from hira. That it is a John that wrote these things we raust believe hira, as he says THE EEVELATION OF ST. JOHN. 449 it; but what John it is, is uncertain. ... I ara of opinion that there were raany of the sarae narae with John the apostle, who, for their love and adrairatlon o hira, adopted the .sarae epithet. . . . They say that there are two monuments at Ephesus, and that each bears the name of John ; and from the sentiments and expressions (of the two works in question, the Gospel and Apoca lypse), as also from their coraposition, it might be very reasonably conjectured that this one is different from that" — and thus he continues through several paragraphs — saying nothing directly — denying nothing positively, but exhibiting great doubt and perplexity. (Eusebius, 'Eccl Hist' Book vii. 25). This was the first open attack ever made on the genuineness of the Apocalypse; and it is plain from the above extracts that Dionysius could sustain himself by no respectable authority, otherwise he would have produced it; and the "some before himself" to whom he alludes so generally, were probably those who had been engaged in, the same controversy with Nepos, and whose minds had received a bias similar to his own. It is also plain that he had no historical ground for his conjectures and suggestions, but that the testimony was all against hira ; that he was not hiraself at all confident in his own opinion ; and that his wish "to get rid of the authority of this book arose entirely frora his apprehension of its obscurity, and its Influence on the raillennial controversy. This controversy continued to prevail through several centuries, particularly in Asia; and wherever it prevailed, the anti-millennialists felt the same anxiety to rid themselves of the authority of the Apocalypse. This kept up the controversy in 2 G 450 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. regard to the book ; and all who have rejected the book, have been induced to reject it, not on historical testiraony against it, or the want of such testimony in its favour, but simply on doctrinal grounds. TESTIMONIES TO THE EEVELATION OF JOHN. We Introduce these testimonies by a striking passage from Irenseus. Irenseus here seeras to say that the Revelation was seen in the reign of Doraitian ; but this Is by no raeans certain, as the reader will see by turning back to the remarks on page 170 of this volume. The ancients were by no means agreed as to the , time when John saw the Apocalypse. It was fixed to the reign of Nero, certainly by Theophylact, HippO' lytus, Arethas, and the Syrian translator, and probably also by Cleraent of Alexandria and TertuUian. Epi phanius puts it in the reign of Claudius the predecessor of Nero ; while Eusebius, Jerome, and Victorinus decide for Domitian. Nero Claudius Domitius, or Domitianus, was the full name of the persecuting eraperor ; and hence we see how it happened that by different ancient writers both Claudius and Domitian were put in the place of Nero. Some of the ablest modern commenta tors, as Stuart, Guericke, and others, decide for the time of Nero. Compare, however, xAlford's' Greek Testaraent, vol. iv. p. 230 — 36. Eusebius ('Eccl, Hist' v. 8) gives the passage of Irenseus (Hser. v. 30), and as here we happily have the work of Irenseus himself still extant, we know that the quotation by Eusebius Is faithful and correct and we have no reason for a contrary supposition in regard THE EEVELATION OF ST. JOHN. 451 to any of the passages from ancient authors quoted by Eusebius. " Since we have proraised in the outset of our work to give extracts occasionally when we refer to the decla rations of the ancient presbyters and historians of the church, in which they have transmitted the traditions that have descended to us respecting the sacred Scrip tures, among these Irenseus was one." This is what this author says in the third book of the work already mentioned ; and in the fifth, he thus descants on the Revelation of John, and the calculation of antichrist's name : " As raatters are thus, and the number is thus found in all the genuine aad ancient copies, and as they who saw John attest, reason itself shows that the nuraber of^the name of the beast Is indicated by the Greek letters which it contains." And a little further on he speaks of the sarae John : " We, therefore," says he, "do not venture to affirra anything with certainty respecting the narae of antichrist. For were it necessary that his narae should be clearly announced to the present age, it would have been declared by hira who saw the revelation. For it has not been long since it was seen, but alraost in our own generation, about the end of Domitian's reign." (t9j? Aofienavov ap'^rj^.) These are what he states respecting the Revelation. Irenseus had been well acquainted with these men who had seen John, for they were his own teachers. No contrary contemporary testiraony can be adduced. Could the Apocalypse have been so soon forged, so soon ascribed to John, so soon have gained general credence, while John was yet living, and among his personal friends ? How could Polycarp and Papias 452 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. have consulted John as to the reading of a passage in a work which he never wrote, and which was falsely ascribed to him, without detecting Its spuriousness ? Hermas : The ' Shepherd ' of Herraas was probably written very soon after the Revelation of John, and being a work of the sarae kind, contains frequent aUu- sions to it. The raost obvious difference between the two books, which must at once strike the raind of every ¦ careful reader, is, that John, of the Revelation, is a good Christian of the apostolic age, writing under the irarae diate Influence of divine inspiration, while Herraas, of the ' Shepherd,' is a good Christian of the sarae age, or of the age imraediately following, writing vrithout any such special divine Influence. Corapare Hermas' Vision, ill, with Rev. xxi 14, iii. 12. Papias and others : " Concerning the divine inspira tion of the Apocalypse it is not necessary to raultiply words, blessed men testifying that it is worthy of belief : Gregory the Theologian, Cyrill, and still earUer Papias, Irenseus, Hippolytus, and Methodius." Andreas, Proleg. in Apoc. p. 175. Justin Martyr: "And a certain man of us whose name was John, one of the twelve apostles of Christ, in that revelation of Christ which was exhibited to him, foretold that the faithful would live a thousand years in Jerusalem, and after that a universal resurrection of all men and the final judgment." Rev. xx. "John wrote the Apocalypse which Justin Martyr and Irenseus interpreted." Jerome, de Vir. ill. c. 9. " He (Justin Martyr) writes also, that even down to his time, gifts of prophecy shone forth in the church ; mentions also the Revelation of John, plainly calling THE EEVELATION OF ST. JOHN. 453 it the work of the apostle, and records also certain prophetic declarations, in his discussion with Tryphon." Euseb. ' Eccl. Hist.' iv. 18. Melito : " He wrote two books concerning the pass- over. , . and conceming the Revelation of John." Euseb. ' Eccl. Hist.' iv. 26. "Melito wrote concerning the Devil one book, and concerning the Revelation of John." Jerome de Vir. iU. c. 29. '' ApoUonius: " He quotes also the Revelation of John as testiraony; and relates also that a dead raan was raised by the divine power, through the same John, at Ephesus." Euseb. ' Eccl. Hist.' v. 18. Churches of Vienne and Lyons : " For he was also a real disciple of Christ, and followed the Lamb whither soever he went" Rev. xiv. 4. " Not abashed vvhen overcome by the martyrs, but evidently destitute of all reason, the maduess both of the governor and the people, as of some savage beast, blazed forth so much the more, to exhibit the -same unjust hostility against us. That the Scriptures might be fulfiUed, 'He that is unjust let him be unjust still, and he that is righteous let hira be righteous still' " Rev. xxii. 11. " But If any one of us, either by letter or in conversation, called them martyrs, they seriously reproved us. For they cheerfully yielded the title of martyr to Christ, the true and faithful martyr (witness), the first begotten frora the dead, the prince of divine life." Rev. i. 5, iii. 1 4. Irenseus : " But also John the disciple of the Lord> seeing in the Apocalypse the sacerdotal and glorious coming of the kingdora." Hser. iv. 20; Rev. I 12-16. ¦ " And yet more manifestly conceming the last time. 454 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. and concerning the ten kings there, araong whom the. empire which now reigns will be divided. John the, disciple of the Lord signified in the Apocalypse, dis tinguishing what the ten horns would be which were seen by Daniel, saying thus it was told to me." Hser. V. 26. Compare also Eusebius, ' Eccl. Hist' v. 3. Athenagoras: "And the earth shall give up the dead which she hath received." Legat. p. 39 ; Rev. XX. 13. Theophilus : " And there is extant another book of Theophilus against the heresy of Hermogenes, in which he uses the testimonies taken from the Revelation of John." Euseb. ' Eccl. Hist.' iv. 24. "This Eve was the head and beginning of sin, as she was seduced by a serpent, through whora the malignant Devil spoke, who is called the Devfl and Satan, and to this day opei-ates In those who act in his spirit, and he does not cease to be caUed the Devfl. He is also called Daemon and Dragon." Ad Autol. ii. ; Rev. xll. 3-9. Clement of Alexandria : "Aid though he may not be honoured with the first seat on earth, he will be en throned on the four and twenty thrones judging the people, as John says in the Apocalypse." Strom, vi. p. 667; Rev. iv. 4, 11, 16. " And we understand that the Jerusalera from above will be constructed of several stones ; and we adrait that twelve gates of the heavenly city, assimilated to precious stones, signify the distinguished grace of the apostolic voice." Ibid, il p. 207 ; Rev. xxi 21. TertuUian: "John in the Apocalypse commands that those who eat things offered to idols and commit THE EEVELATION OP ST. JOHN. 455 fornication should be cast out" De Praesc. c. 33 ; Rev. fl. 20. " For also the aposle John in the Apocalypse describes a sword coraing out of the raouth of God, two-edged, very sharp, which should be understood of the Divine Word, two-edged with the two Testaraents of «the Law and the Gospel." Adv. Marc. iii. 14. " We also have the churches brought up by John ; for although Marcion rejects his Apocalypse, yet the ¦ order of bishops traced to the origin will stand to John as the author." Ibid. iv. 5. Caius: Eusebius, 'Eccl Hist' ul. 28: "About the same time, we have understood, appeared Cerinthus, the leader of another heresy. Caius, whose words we quoted above, in ' The Disputation ' attributed to him, writes thus respecting hira : ' But Cerinthus, by means of revelations which he pretended were written by a great apostle, also falsely pretended to wonderful things, as if they were showed him by angels, asserting, that after the resurrection there would be an earthly kingdora of Christ, and that the flesh, "i.e. men, again inhabiting Jerusalem, would be subject to desires and pleasures. Being also an enemy to the divine Scriptures, with a view to deceive men, he said that there would be a space of a thousand years for celebrating nuptial festivals.' Bionysius also, who obtained the episcopate of Alexan dria in. our day, in the second book 'On Promises,' where he says some things as if received by ancient tradition, makes mention of the same man, in these words : ' But it is highly probable that Cerinthus, the same that established the heresy that bears his name. designedly affixed the name (of John) to his own 456 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. forgery. For one of the doctrines that he taught was, that Christ would have an earthly kingdora. And. as he was a voluptuary, and altogether sensual, he conjectured that it would consist in those things that he craved in the gratification of appetite and lust ; *'.§. in eating, drinking, and raarrying, or in such things whereby he supposed these sensual pleasures raight be presented In more decent expressions ; -riz., in festivals, sacrifices, and the slaying of victims.' John the apostle once entered a bath to wash ; but ascertaining Cerinthus was within, he leaped out of the place, and fled frora the door, not enduring to enter under the sarae roof with him, and exhorted those with him to do the same, saying, ' Let us flee, lest the bath fall in, as long as Cerinthus, that eneray of the truth, is within.' " The above frora Eusebius respecting Caius of Rome and Dionysius, I have inserted to indicate the reason why the authority of the Apocalypse was ever ques tioned in the ancient church, not because there' was any evidence against it,, or any lack of evidence in its favour, but simply because certain mischievous heretics had made a bad use of it. Origen : " And John the son of Zebedee says in the Apocalypse, And I saw an angel flying through the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach to thera that dwell on the earth." Corament. in Joan, i, ; Rev. xiv. 6, 7. "John hiraself bears witness In the Apocalypse In these vvords : I, John, who also am your brother, and corapanion in tribulation, and in the kingdora and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patraos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. 457 Jesus Christ ; and it appears that he saw the Apocalypse in the island." Comment, in Matth. xvi ; Rev. i. 9. "And itherefore John, rightly an apostie and evangelist, and now on account of the Apocalypse a prophet, described the Word of God in the Apocalypse." Coraraent. in Joan. - Hippolytus: "And also concerning the Gospel and Apocalypse according to John." Canon Pasch. " Saint Hippolytus, the raartyr bishop, coraposed a book concerning dispensation . . . and also an apology for the Apocalypse and Gospel of John the apostle and evan- ¦:gelist." Ebed Jesu. Catal. v. 6 ; Syr. Lardner iu. 99. " Hippolytus wrote some coraraentaries on the Scrip tures, of which I have found these, in Hexseraeron. . . de Apocalypse, etc," Jerome de Vir. ill. c. 61. "For he, being in the island of Patmos, sees the Apocalypse, in which awful mysteries are unfolded, and explaining them he teaches others. Tell me now I pray thee, 0 blessed John, apostle and disciple of the Lord, what thou didst hear and see concerning Babylon . . . and one of the seven angels came who had the seven phials," etc. De Christo et Antichristo, 36. Dionysius of Alexandria : Eusebius (' Eccl. Hist' vii. 24, 25) makes a very prolix statement of the opinions of Dionysius respecting the Apocalypse, but it is too long to be inserted here. ¦ By the follovring stateraent of Eusebius respecting 'Dionysius, it is e-rident that he did at first receive the Apocalypse as a genuine work of the apostle John, like all the other pastors till his time. ('Eccl Hist.' vii. 10). "Gallus had not held the government quite two years when he was removed, and Valerian, with his 458 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. son Gallienus, succeeded in his place. What Dionysius has also said respecting hira, raay be learned from his epistle to Herraararaon, in which he gives the following account : ' In like manner it was revealed to John, and there was,' says he, 'a raouth given him, speaking great things, and blasphemy. And there was given him power, and forty-two months, but it is wonderful that both took place in Valerian, and especially when we consider the condition of the man before this, how kind and friendly he was towards the pious." (Rev, xiii 5). Cyprian,, Jie Bon. Pat: "God the Father com manded that his Son should be worshipped ; but in the Revelation an angel rebuked John vrishing to worship hira, and said, ' See thou do it not, for I am thy feUow servant and of thy brethren ; worship Jesus the Lord.' " Rev. xix. 10. De Eleemos : " Hear the voice of the Lord in the Revelation, reproving men of this sort vrith just re bukes." Rev. ill 17, 18. Epist. 63 : " For the Sacred Scripture in the Apoc alypse declares that waters signifies peoples." Rev. xvii. 15. Methodius, Conviv. p. 70 : " But John in the Apoc alypse, being inspired by Christ, teaches us that the word, which was made flesh, is also chief Virgin, and chief Pastor, and chief Prophet.' (He liere quotes Rev. xiv. 1-4,) Vidorinus of Pettau, De Fabric. Mund. : "And therefore without doubt there are twelve angels of the day and twelve angels 'of the night, according to the number of the hours. There are the twenty-four wit- THE REVELATION OP ST. JOHN. 459 nesses of the days and the nights, who are seated before the throne of God, having golden crowns on their heads, whora in the Apocalypse of John the apostle and evangelist, he calls elders, because indeed they are elders both to the other angels and to raen." Rev. iv. 4. "The open book is the Apocalypse which John saw." Lardner iv. p. 216. " John was in the island of Patmos. . . There he saw the Apocalypse. . . So afterwards he delivered this same Apocalypse which he had accepted frora the Lord — that is. Thou raust again prophesy," etc. Rev. x. xi. ; Kirchhofer, p. 322. " Victorinus, bishop of Pettau, was not so well skiUed in Latin, as in Greek. Whence his works are great in meaning, but low in the construction of words. They are these : Coraraentaries on Genesis — on the Apocalypse of John — and many others." Jerome, Catal. Vir. fll. c. 74. " Of which book (the Apocalypse) Victorinus, called bishop, discussed certain most difficult passages." Cassi- odor. Ju. Div. c. 5. Pamphilus, Apol. pro. Orig. : " John says in his Revelation, The sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell gave up the dead which were in them." Eev. xx. 13. Lactantius, Epist. p. 42 : " His name is known to none except to himself and his Father, as John teaches in the Revelation." (xix. 12.) Instit. vii. 10 : " But he who contaminates hiraself with vices and criraes and is a slave to voluptuousness, he, vbeing damned, suffers eternal punishraent, which the Divine Scriptures called the second death; which 460 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. is also perpetual and full of the most -grievous torments." Eev. IL 11', xxi. 8. Eusebius, Demonst Evan. viu. p. 386: "Whence, he says, the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed, and he hiraself hath opened the seals attached to the book, as we read in the Apocalypse of John." Rev. V. 5." In this persecution it is handed down by tradition that the apostle and evangelist John, who was yet living, in consequence of his testimony to the divine word, was conderaned to dwell in the island of Patraos. Irenseus, indeed, in his fifth book against the heretics, where he speaks of the calculations forraed on the epithet of antichrist, In the above-mentioned Reve lation of John, speaks in the follovring manner respect-- ing him." ' Eccl. Hist.' in. 18 ; Rev. xui. 18. " About this time also, for a very short time, arose the heresy of those called Nicolaltans, of which mention is raade in the Revelation of John." ' Eccl. Hist.' -iii. 19 ; Rev. ii. 6, etc. Athanasius: "The Holy Scripture pronounces that the Son eternally coexists with the Father when it says. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And in the Apocalypse, These things saith He who is, and who was, and who is to corae." Cont. Av. ii. ; Rev. i. 8. Epiphanius, in his great work on the Hseresles, very often quotes the Revelation ; and always as Scripture and as the genuine work of John, the apostle and evangelist. Hilary, in Psalm i. Lardner v. p. 252 : " But that these leaves of the tree are not useless, but salutary THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. 461 to the nations, St. John testifies in the Apocalypse." Rev. xxii. 2. De Trinit. vi. : " Matthew frora a publican was chosen to be an apostle; and John, on account of his farail- iarity with the Lord, was worthy of the Revelation of the heavenly mysteries." Jerome, in Psalm cxlix. : " We read in the Apocalypse of John, which is read and received in the churches ; for it is not held among the apocryphal Scriptures, but among the Scriptures of the church." Adv. Jovin. u. 14 : " The apostle who wrote the book of the gospel ... is a prophet, for he saw in the island of Patraos . . . the Apocalypse, containing Infinite mysteries of the future." In Isaiara. Proe. Kirchhofer, p. 328: "In which way also, that Is spiritually, the Apocalypse of John is to be understood." Augudin, Passira : " John the apOstle In the Apoc alypse. . . The sarae John the evangelist in that book which is called the Apocalypse. . . In the Apocalypse ,of John hiraself, whose is this gospel," etc., etc. OBJECTIONS TO THE APOCALYPSE. ,,Let us now turn our attention to the objections to its authenticity, which sorae regard of sufficient weight to counterbalance the whole force of this concurrent and uncontradicted testimony of the ancients. 1. It was conjectured by Dionysius, as you have already seen, that the Apocalypse was written, not by John the apostle, but by a certain presbyter naraed John, whp lived at Ephesus about the same tirae. 462 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. To this, we reply, 1st, It is directly contrary to all contemporary and early testiraony. The writers of the first age knew of no such presbyter John, but ascribe the Apocalypse to John the apostle. 2nd, The very existence of any such John the presbyter, as a different person from John the apostle, is very problematical He makes no figure in ecclesiastical history, and we are strongly tempted to beUeve that his existence is a mere conjecture of those who wished to get rid of the apostolic authority of the Apocalypse. The apostle John styles himself the elder or presbyter •in the first verse of his second and third epistles, and this might first have given rise to the stosy of two Johns at Ephesus. Eusebius infers and stoutly argues in favour of a presbyter John, distinct frora the apostle, from the fact that the name of John twice occurs in the following passage of Papias, in which he says that he made it a point to inquire " what was said by Thoraas, Jaraes, John, Matthew, or any other of the disciples of our Lord. What was said by Aristion; and the presbyter John, disciple of our Lord " (Euseb. ifl. 39). 'Whether the presbyter John here mentioned be the same with John the apostle, or John whose sur name was Mark (Acts xii. 25), or some other John, it certainly cannot prove, in direct opposition to aU testimony, that John the apostle did not write the Apocalypse. 2. Another objection of Dionysius, and one which has often been repeated since, is, that John's narae is affixed to the Apocalypse, which is not the case with his Gospel or first epistle. This is a very singular argument; as much as to say, if a man publishes one work anony- THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. 463 mously, and another with his name to it, we are to reject the one which bears his narne, because the other is anonymous. Again : though the apostle John does not describe himself, by name, to be the writer of the Gospel, yet he does declare himself to be the author in terms so express, that he well knew any one would understand them (John xxi. 24 compared with verse 20, and xiii, 23-25, and xix. 35). The nature of the Apocalypse, it being prophecy In the most sublime style of inspiration, required a raore distinct enunciation of Its author to give it authority than the plain narrative of the Gospel. This is accord ing to the analogy of other prophecies. Not a book of prophecy occurs in the Old Testaraent which is not ac companied by the name of the writer. John while prophe sying, of course, adopted the prophetic mode of writing. 3. The style and language of the Apocalypse is very different- from that of the Gospel .and Epistles. This is true, and the style ought to be different ; for the whole subject and the whole mode of treating it is entirely different. Style varies with the varieties of the subject. Is the genuineness of Milton's ' Paradise Lost ' to be dis-. puted because it Is not written in the same style with his ' Docirine and Discipline of Divorce ?' Or Nowton's work on ' Chronology and the Bible,' because they are not in the style of his ' Principia ?' There is, however, a striking resemblance in some particulars between the style of the Apocalypse and that of the Gospel. There is the same depth and peculiarity of feeling in both. 4. It is objected that the Greek of the Apocalypse is much less pure and more largely tinctured with 464 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. Hebrew idioms than that of the Gospel or Episties. This Is true, and for the best of reasons. The Apocalypse was written earlier than the Gospel or Epistles, and be fore the writer had become so familiar with the Greek language as he was afterwards. Again, alraost every sentence in the Apocalypse is written with particular reference to sorae passage of the Old Testaraent pro phecies, and of course It takes a Hebrew colouring. We are led to think that the apostle had no book with him in his exile and solitude but his Hebrew Bible; that this was his constant meditation, and the whole train of his thoughts was shaped and raodified by its language and imagery. 5. It Is said that the Apocalypse is not included in the raost ancient Syrian translation. It is true that sorae of the manuscripts of the Syrian translation which have been brought to Europe do not contain this book. But that the book was well known and acknowledged as genuine in the Syrian churches is evident from the fact, that in the second century it was quoted as Scripture by Theophilus, bishop of Antioch. In the early part of the third century its genuineness was vin dicated against the attacks of Caius by Hippolytus, who was held in high repute by the Syrians; and in the fourth century it is quoted as the work of John by the Syrian saint, Ephraem. (Works of Ephr. t. u. p. 332 ; iii. 616 ; and in Greek, ii. 252 ; iu. 52.) The Syrian raanuscripts which do not contain the books were probably written after the mlUennial con troversy had made the Revelation distasteful to a power ful party in the church. 6. But the great, and in fact, the only objection THE EEVELATION OP ST. JOHN. 465 against the Revelation, which has had any real iraport ance, has always been that which was at first stated by Dionysius, namely, that it was very obscure, without sense and reason ; as Dionysius says, exceedingly difficult to be interpreted, and the great storehouse from which heretics and fanatics have drawn their materials to trouble the church with. The want of "sense and reason" belongs to the interpreters, and not to the book. Obscurity, to a certain extent, is an attribute of all prophecy, and heretics and fanatics always lay hold on the most highly figurative language, because this is the most easfly perverted. Even allowing the objection to be just as it is stated. It has but little to do with the question of authorship, which is a question of fact, to be settled by the appropriate evidence ; and no one has ever shown, or done anything towards show ing, that there is anything in the Revelation so repugnant to the known character of John, that he cannot reason ably be supposed to be the author of it. A writer Is not accountable for the stupidity of his comraentators, nor for the ignorance or vrilful abuse which weak raen and bad men may raake of his writings. I hope it will be seen that the darkness, the absurdities, the raysticism, and fanaticism, which have been attributed to the Apocalypse, no more belong to it than dinginess belongs to the clear blue sky when it happens to be observed through a dingy glass. I have been thus particular in stating the whole ar gument in respect to the genuineness of the Revelation, on account of the peculiar attitude in which it stands before the Christian world, and because pf the many and various opinions respecting it. 2 H 466 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. I would here say to my readers, take the book of Revelation^ and, read it once through without reference to anything which you have ever heard said about it, and without attempting to apply its predictions to any of the events of history with which you are famfliar. Read it siraply for the sake of enjoying it; read it as a glowing description of a series of magnificent pictures which were passing before the eye of the writer ; read it for the sake of throwing your soul into its sublime acts of adoration of the Great Supreme; read it for the sake of becoraing imbued with its spirit, without troubling yourselves as to the historical application of its symbols ; and remember, while you read, that it is an Oriental, an Asiatic, and a Hebrew book. (On the subject of this chapter, compare particularly the intro ductions of Michaelis, Hug, and Home, araong the older writers ; and Stuart, Guericke, Duesterdieck, Alford, and Wordsworth of the raore recent ones.) GENEEAL DESIGN OF THE BOOK. When we enter on the investigation of a rauch dis puted subject, it is very desirable to find sorae coraraon ground on which all agree and frora which we raay take our departure. Such a coramon ground we have even in reference to the interpretation of the , Apocalypse. Almost all interpreters agree substantially in this: namely, that it is the general object of this book to excite and encourage Christians in tiraes of depression and persecution, by disclosing to them the glories and the terrors of the invisible world ; to show the dreadful- ness of the punishments which await the enemies of THE EEVELATION OF ST. JOHN, 467 religion, and the nearness and delight of the rewards which avvait its friends ; and to assure those who are exposing theraselves to suffering in the cause of Christ, of 4he ultiraate and coraplete triuraph of this cause over every forra of hostility, however malignant and powerful. This was its original and acknowledged purpose, and this purpose it has abundantly answered In every age of the church, notwithstanding the numerous abuses to which it has been subjected. And this is an instance of the care which God takes to secure the original end for which his institutions are designed. Not withstanding all the abuses of this book, ,the church in times of distress has always used It, as It was designed to be used, for corafort and encouragement. Diversity of opinion has arisen in making the appli cation of Its symbolic language to particular events of subsequent history ; and tlfe diversity has been as endless as the varieties of fancy and passion araong raen ; and the difficulty and obscurity which envelope the book arise frora its being read with the Idea that each of Its symbols must be appropriated to some one coiresponding event ,of history ; and that the book is , valuable only as a collection of predictions, which have had or are to have punctual and literal accom plishment. That the book contains much of prophecy there can be no doubt ; but I apprehend that the Idea of pro- .phecyas applied to the Revelation is generaUy too literal and narrow ; that the constant and anxious search for the fulfilment of predictions has often prevented readers from seeing that the book contains much, of the highest value to the Christian, which is not prophecy. 468 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. It is desirable often to read the book, and leave the prophetic application of its symbols entirely out of view, and look at the passages just as they stand — living pictures of eternal realities, which are invisible to raortal eyes — and endeavour, at the sarae tirae, to unfold their more striking peculiarities, and to trace their connection with the prophetic poetry of the Old Testaraent. INTEEPRETATION OF THE APOCALYPSE. The Laws of Interpretation, as we say in the Preface, are given in the volume on the Old Testament. A few brief hints on the subject of Symbolic Prophecy is aU that can find place here. A syrabol is the same as a signal. Frora its own nature it can express only a general idea, never a spe cific one. You see a ship at sea with the flag at half mast. This gives you the general idea that there is distress on board, but what the distress is the signal (or symbol) does not inform you. It may be sickness, mutiny, want of provisions or water, a leak, or any number of different kinds of misfortune, you have no idea which; the single idea which you get is that the people are in distress and want help. The syrabol is equally appropriate to express any of the different sources of calaraity, and no more appropriate to express one than the other. Just so in prophecy. The mere appro priateness of a symbol is no proof of its application to a specific event in prophecy, though inappropriateness is a decisive arguraent against its application. The same symbols that appropriately represent the calamitous expedition of Xerxes into Greece would THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. 469 also approj)riately represent the calaraitous expedition of Napoleon into Russia ; the sarae symbols that would appropriately represent the distress of the French during their revolution would also be appropriate to the Jewish-Roraan war. To fix the specific application of symbols, you raust always have, besides the appropriate ness of the symbols themselves, some localizing fact or circumstance which confines the symbols to one historical series of appropriate events rather than another. Otherwise all disputes about the application of prophetic symbols is like standing on shore and disputing about the particular calaraity on board a ship at sea with the flag at half raast ; one affirming it is cholera, another that it is small-pox, another that it is rautiny, another that it is want of water, and none of thera knovring in the least whereof they affirm. They raust hear directly frora the ship itself before they can decide as to the particular kind of distress which she is suffering. It is the neglect of this idea which Is the cause of the interrainable disputes about the historical application of prophetic symbols. Mere appropriateness is taken as sufficient ground for the historical application; but there are very raany different historical events to which the symbols are all and equally appropriate. The particular localizing fact or circumstance must always be first ascertained. Moreover, a series of symbolic prophecies Is like a gaUery of historical pictures ; the pictures are hung along upon the wall of the roora in the order jn which the events occurred. There is succession without chro nology, order without dates, proximity in place without 470 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. proximity in time. The superintendent of the gallery hangs the pictures along close together, and does not leave spaces between the frames proportionate to the intervals of time that intervened between the transactions represented in the several pictures. Npw just so is prophecy constructed. Just such a picture gallery are the syrabolic prophecies of the Bible ; succession without chronology, order vrithout dates, proxiraity in place without proxiraity in tirae. A few pictures have the dates upon thera, but a very few, and much fewer than is usually imagined. The numbers in the syrhbolic prophecies are them selves symbolic, and not literal. Thus in the Apocalypse, 3|, 7, JO, 42, 1250, are aU symbolic, and not to be literally understood. This is fully proved and copiously illustrated in the chapter on the Laws of Interpretation already referred to. We are now prepared to give an opinion as to the SPECIAL APPLICATION OF THE PROPHETIC SYMBOLS OF THE APOCALYPSE. This whole book, with its names and imagery, Is mani festly symbolical. Thus in IL 6, 1 4, 20, Nicolaltans, or Balaamites, designate selfish and money-loving ecclesi astics ; Jezebel, a noisy, licentious woman, &c. In the book two cities are represented as being de stroyed, and a third Is established on their ruins. The first, Sodora, is clearly pointed out to be Jeru salera, xl. 1, 2, 8, by the mention of the temple and the holy city — " where also our Lord was crucified." The seven trumpets, therefore, and chapters viiL-xi. clearly THE EEVELATION OF ST. JOHN. 471 refer to Jerusalem, or Jewish institutions. This we are sure of on critical grounds. The second city, Babylon, is clearly pointed out to be Rome (xiii. 18 ; xvii. 9, 18). Six hundred and sixty- six (666) is the sum of the numerals in the Greek word Aareiva (lateinos), meaning Roman ; and the ciiy on seven hills, which then ruled over the kings of the earth, could be no other than Rome. The seven vials there fore, and chapters xiii.-xviii. plainly refer to Rome, or Roman institutions. This also we are sure of on critical grounds. But Rorae appears in two forras, first as a marine monster (xiii.), then as a woman sitting on a scarlet coloured beast (xvii.) ; so that there raust be two Romes, the Pagan and the Papal. The third city, established on the ruins of the two former. Is the New Jerusalera, which descends frora God out of heaven (xxi. 2). Frora this fact we are also sure on critical grounds that this third city, must be symbolical, and not literal ; and we are led to infer that the other two also are symbolical and not literal. The circumstances in which the author wrote, the purpose for which he wrote, and the whole structure of the work, show that the three cities are syhibolical of the three religions then contending for supremacy ; the first two of -which were united against the last, that is Paganism and Judaism were united against Christianity. The general subject of the prophecy, then. Is the de struction of the two great antagonistic powers of Chris tianity, persecuting Judaism and persecuting Paganism, and the triumph, and finally complete establishment of the religion of Christ over, the whole world. In accordance , with the genius of prophecy, a full 472 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE, picture is given of the then present condition of things, and the most prorainent and characteristic points of the future are hastily but clearly sketched. ANALYSIS OP THE APOCALYPSE. Two dates assigned to it — one in the reign of Nero, the other in the reign of Doraitian. External testimony strongest for the latter date ; internal evidence for the earUer. Best stateraent of the argument for the earlier date, Guericke, ' Introduction to New Testament,' and Stuart, ' Introduction to Apocalypse.' Best for the later date, Alford and Wordsworth, Greek Testament with Notes. A regular allegorical poem, as well as a book of pro phecy. Its symbols are not confined to specific historic events, but they all have " springing and germinant accomplishment thrpughout many ages, the height and fulness of them " belonging to the great final judgment ; like the prophecy against Edora, in. Isaiah xxxiv. 1-8. See especially vs. 2 and 5. The plan of the Apocalypse indicated in i. 19. I. The things which thou seest — the vision of Christ in his glorified body in the midst of the churches. II.-III. Tfie things which are — the condition of the seven churches. Symbolic as well as literal. IV.-XXII. The things which shall be hereafter — the Prophetic Future. IV.-VII. General, exhibiting the forces on tlie side of the saints in opposition to the persecutors. IV. God on his throne. V. The Lamb vrith the book of fate THE EEVELATION OF ST. JOHN. 473 VI. Seven seals, the methods by which persecutors in afl times will be destroyed; vs. 1, 2, the conqueror; vs. 3-5, war ; vs. 5, 6, famine ; vs. 7, 8, pestflence ; vs. 9-11, prayer of the saints for the great final judgment, an'd the acceptance of the prayer ; vs. 12-17, the great final judgment itself VII, Perfect safety of the saints amid all the preceding judgments, VIII.-XL Under the opening of the seventh seal, the overthrow of the first great persecuting power, that of Judaism, symbolized by the city of Jerasalem, xi. ¦1, % 8. VIILrlX. Seven trumpets, process of the over throw X. A magnificent episode, limiting the time, XI. The final result, XII. Birth and early preservation of Christianity, symbolized in the history of the infancy and childhood of Jesus, XHL-XIX. Overthrow of the second great persecuting power, symbolized by the city of Rome, xvii 18. XIII.-XVI. Overthrow of Pagan Rome, considered as a persecuting power. XIII. The beast the world-power, as a persecutor. The false prophet, the power of superstition, aiding the world-power in its work of persecution. XIV. The Larab and his forces. XV.-XVI. Seven vials, process of the overthrow of the pagan persecuting power. XVII.-XIX. Rome in another form— the persecuting Papacy. XVII. The harlot riding on the beast, the apostate 474 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Papal church, using the world-power in aid of its own purposes of persecution. ' XVIII.-XIX. Process and corapleteness of her over throw. XX. 1-6. Resurrection and judgraent of the martyrs and the persecutors (see Daniel xii. 2). The Mfllen- nium. XX. 7-XXII. Another rebellion and struggle, final and coraplete triuraph of good over eril — ^the last great day of judgraent. APOCEYPHAL EEVELATIONS. The Apocrjrphal Revelations, as a general fact, are the poorest speciraens of the Apocryphal Literature. In nothing has the huraan raind more strikingly exhibited its own irabecfllty than in its attempts to imitate or counterfeit the divine revelations. Professor Stuart, in his 'Commentary on the Apocalypse,' vol. L pp. 36-127, and 475-504, has given an elaborate account, with speci mens, of several of these works ; and Tischendorf in his admirable manner published seven of thera at Leipsic in 1866, of which the most interesting are, 1, Revelations of Moses ; 2, of Ezra ; 3, of Paul ; and 4, of John, all in Greek, and rauch better edited than any of the preceding editions. Among the best attempts of this sort are the ' SibyUine Oracles,' the ' Book et Judith, d Tobias, d Pastor non sunt in canone. (Wis dom, which is coramonly inscribed Soloraon's, the book of Jesus Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and Pastor are not in the canon.) In another place he says of these books very sharply : Apocryphorum nsenias mortuis niagis hsereticis quam ecdesiasticis vivis, canendas. (The songs of the Apocrypha ought ¦ to be sung by dead heretics rather than by liring ecclesiastics.) Proleg. Gal. et Prol in Cora. Matt. Augustin was at vari ance with Jerome, as the theologian is apt to be at variance with the scholar. He strongly conderaned Jerorae's Latin translation of the Old Testaraent, be^ cause it varied so rauch frora the Septuagint ; though it departed frora the Septuagint only by coming nearer to the dirine original in the Hebrew; but Augustin was not scholar enough to know or appreciate a fact of this kind. (Compare Marheinecke's Symbolik, Bund fl. S. 224, ff.' first edition, 1810.) This is a subject of deep interest at the present time. Eoraanists among us are continually objecting to our APOCEYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 521 Bible, calling it a mutilated Bible, and furiously resist ing, wherever they can, its introduction into schools and families. In the foUovring pages we shall give a reriew of the debates and decisions on this subject in tbe Council of Trent, that the reader may see on what very shallow and insufficient grounds that decision was made on which so much was depending ; and then we shall show the grounds on which we pronounce that decision to be totally wrong, by exhibiting in full the reasons why the books in question ought to be excluded frora the canon of Scripture. The following is a summary of the points which wfll be stated and proved in the ensuing discusion : — . (1.) These books never had the sanction of Christ or his apostles or of any of the writers of the New Testament.¦ , (2.) They formed no part of the original , Hebrew canon, and were not written till after the Old Testaraent inspiration had ceased and the canon was closed, V (3.) They were rejected vrith singular unanimity by the early Christian churches and by the best of the church fathers. (4.) The books theraselves, examined individuaUy, can be proved, each one by itself to be unworthy of a place in the canon of Scripture. fl Under this last head we shaU give, in regard to each hook : (a) a description of the book ; (b) we shaU ex amine its internal evidence in regard to its having a place in the canon, and (c) state the external testiraony in respect tp it. 522 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. IL DEBATES AND DECISIONS IN THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. The Council of Trent for its fourth session, which was held in the spring of the year 1546, collected seve ral propositions respecting the Scriptures frora the writings of Luther, which they alleged to be erroneous. These propositions were earnestly discussed in the several congregations which preceded the session ; as was also the question, whether canons with anatheraas annexed, in the usual raanner, should be issued against these errors. Two of the alleged errors were these : (a) That no books ought to be received into the canon of the Old Testament except those which were found in the original Hebrew canon ; and (b) That the original text, the Hebrew for the Old Testament, and the Greek for the New, is the only ultiraate appeal as the pure word of God, and that the Latin Vulgate, used in the churches, abounds in erroneous transla tions. We give not the words but only the sub stance, because it is only with these two points that we are concerned in the present discussion ; and it would lead us too far out of our track to follow the exact order and method of the treatment of the several topics in the council. We proposed to give, and that too in a very con densed form, bnly what pertains to the Old Testament canon, and the authority of the Latin Vulgate, as cora pared with the original Text. In regard to the canon, they were generally agreed that a catalogue of the sacred books should be raade out, after the exaraple of the ancients ; and that all the APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 523 books usually read in the Roman churches should be adraitted into it, and that the Old Testaraent canon should not be limited to those books only which were received by the Hebrews. The catalogues of the Coun cil of Laodicea, of Pope Innocent I., of the third Coun cfl of Carthage, and of Pope Gelasius, were proposed as models. As to the form of the catalogue there were four opinions : (1.) Some proposed that the books should be separated into two divisions, the first of which should consist of those only which had always and vrithout dispute been regarded as canonical, the ofwKa^ovpAvwv of Eusebius; and the second, of those which had been by some rejected, and in regard to which there was more or less of doubt, the avTiXeyo/iivmv. (Compare Euseb. ' Hist Eccl' ill 25.) They argued that, though this distinction had not been formally and expressly recognized by any pope or council yet it had been in fact tacitly and universally acknowledged ; that Augustin makes this distinction, and that it is re ceived, and the authority of Augustin in re-spect to it confirraed, by the canon in canonicis. Gregory, also, who lived after Gelasius, declares, in his Exposition of Job, that the books of Maccabees were written for edffication and adapted to it, but yet they were not canonical. Aloysius of Catanea, a Dorainican Friar, affirraed that this distinction was raade by Jerome, and that the church had accepted it as the rule and standard for estabUshing the canon of the Holy Scriptures. He also quoted Cardinal Cajetan, who, following Jerome, had made the same distinction, and, in the dedication to C ement VII. of his treatise on the historical books 524 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. , of the Old Testament, had declared it to be a settled principle of the church. (2.) A second proposition was, that the books should be arranged, not in two, but three divisions, the first to consist of those which had always and without con tradiction been' received as divine; the Second, those which had sometimes been doubted, but whose canoni cal authority had at length been confirmed by the usage of the church, to which class belong certain epistles and the apocalypse of the New Testaraent, and sorae few passages in the evangelists; and the third division should consist of those books which had never been esteemed canonical, to which class belong the seven apocryphal books of the Old Testament, and the passages ofDanid and Esther which are not found im, the Hebrew text. (3.) The third opinion was that there should be no distinction made araong the books, but after the exaraple of the Council of Carthage and other synods, they should merely raake out, the catalogue, and offer no reraarks upon it. (4.) The fourth proposal was this :' that all the books in all their parts, just as they stand in the Latin Bible, should be declared equally of divine authority. The book of Baruch here made no little difficulty, for this book was not to be found in the catalogues of the Laodicean or the Carthaginian councils, nor yet in those raade by the Roraan pontiffs ; and therefore it ought to be excluded, both for this reason and because the beginning of the book is wanting. Yet, because sorae lessons in the church books were taken from it, the members of the council could not be persuaded to APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 525 reUnquish its canonical authority; and they therefore resolved that it must have been regarded by the ancients as a part of the book of Jeremiah, and received into the canon under the name of that 'prophet Thus their opinion of what the fact ought to have been deterrained thera to assume the fact itself without evidence. A summary and convenient mode of proceeding, which has often been followed, both in ecclesiastical and other assembUes. On the eighth of March, 1546, there was held an extraordinary congregation, in which it was unani mously resolved, that church tradition should be held of equal authority with the written word of God. With respect to the form In which they should put forth their catalogue of the canonical Scriptures, the theologians stiU entertained various opinions. One was, that the individual books need not be mentioned by name; another, that the books ought to be divided into three classes; and a third, that all the books of the Latin Bible should be placed in one rank as of equal authority. In this diversity of opinions it was agreed, that cata logues should be made out according to the three dif ferent proposals, and laid before the next congregation for exaraination ; and then it should be decided which of the three should be adopted. In the congregation of the fifteenth of March, the three catalogues were actually presented ; each had its advocates ; but the third was the one which triuraphed. In the subsequent congregations, the authority of the Latin translation was discussed ; and here arose a hot conflict between the few who had some knowledge of the Greek language and a good understanding of the 526 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. Latin, and the many who knew nothing of the one and but little of the other. The Dorainican Aloysius of Catanea here again made hiraself heard. He reraarked that in regard to this raatter, nothing could be better in itself or more vrisely adapted to the times than the principle asserted by Cardinal Cajetan, that justly cele brated divine, who from his early youth had devoted himself to the study of theology, and with a happy talent and unwearied diligence, which had raade him the most distinguished in this branch of science of any one for many centuries ; insorauch that there was not a prelate or doctor in the whole council who need be ashamed to confess himself his inferior and pupfl in point of learning. This great prelate, when he went to Germany in 1523, to hold his conference with Luther, being led to study earnestly the best raeans of reuniting the disraembered church and bringing the heretics to a confession of their errors, concluded that the only effective raethod must be a critical understanding of the Holy Scriptures in their original languages. Accordingly, during all the rest of his life, full eleven years, he de voted himself entirely to the study of the Scriptures, and wrote his expositions upon them, not according to the Latin translation, but according to the original text, the Hebrew for the Old Testament, and the Greek for the New ; and forasmuch as he was not himself skilled in these tongues, he employed men thoroughly acquainted with thera to translate for him literally, word for word, as is abundantly manifest from his works on the sacred books. This excellent cardinal was wont to say, that to underfetand the Latin text was not necessary to under stand the word of God ; the word of God is infallible, APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 527 but the Latin translators may have made mistakes. On this account, also, Jerome justly said, that to prophesy and write holy books is the gift of God's Spirit ; but to translate these books frora one language to another is matter of human skill. In reference to these words, Cajetan often said, with a sigh : " Oh that the teachers of former times had been of this opinion, and then the Lutheran heresy would not have arisen." Cataneus further declared, that the Latin translation could not be received as authoritative without -riolating the canon Ut VderuMh, etc., did. 9, where it is asserted that the truth of the Old Testaraent is to be sought in the Hebrew text, and that of the New in the Greek. To ¦ declare the one translation authentic, would be to con demn Jerome and all the others ; for as these cannot be authentic, no further use can be raade of thera. A miserable business it would be, in a conflict with oppo nents, to select a text doubtful and not generally ac knowledged, when one is in possession of the genuine and infallible text, which ensures a certain victory. With Jerorae and Cajetan we raust consider it certain that there is no translator, whatever care he may exercise, who raay not soraetiraes fall into a mistake. If the holy council itself would undertake a translation, and examine and improve it by the original text, then it might not be doubted that the Holy Spirit, which guides all church councils in matters of faith, would so aid the fathers of the synod, that no error would be eoramitted. A translation examined and established in this raanner might safely be deeraed authentic; but without such an investigation the synod ought not to venture to approve a translation, or assure itself of the 528 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. aid of the Holy Ghost. In the council of the apostles themselves there was a thorough investigation of the raatters before thera previous to a decision. But as such an investigation in this matter would require a ten years' labour, he thought it best that the affair should be left as it had been for fifteen hundred years past. The greater part of the theologians were opposed to these riews. They argued that the translation which had so long been received and used in the churches and the schools must of necessity be declared authentic ; otherwise, the Lutherans had already gained their pbint, and the door was thrown open to endless heresies and unappeasable disturbances. The popes and the scholastic theologians had for the most part founded the doctrines of the Romish church, which was the mother of all churches, on certain passages of Scripture ; and now, if there were granted to every one the right to call in question the translation, whether it were correct or not, whether this were done by comparing it with other translations or with the original Hebrew and Greek text, then the linguists and grammarians might bring all into confusion, and set up theraselves as urapires in matters of faith; and they would be the doctors of theology and of the canon law, and they would have the dignity of bishops and cardinals; and the inquisitors; if they were not skillpd in Hebrew and Greek, could no more proceed against the Lutherans, but they would cry out, " it is not so in the original," " the translation is false ; " and in this raanner every school-fox raay put forth his novelties, and the abortions of his own brain conceived in wickedness or ignorance, as the true doc trines, and never be at a loss, by some gramraatical APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 529 trick, to find a text to justify them; and thus there would never be an end. Everybody knows that Luther's translation of the Bible has brought after it nuraberless and contradictory heresies, worthy of being conderaned to eternal darkness ; and that Luther hiraself is continually ' changing his own translation, and never publishes a new edition without altering at least a hundred passages. Were such liberty allowed to all who might choose to raake use of it, the tirae would soon corae when a Christian would no longer know what to believe. These views were by the majority received with approbation, and it was furthermore argued that God had given to the Hebrew church an authentic Scripture, and to the Greek an authentic New Testaraent; and who could affirm, without offence, that the Roman church, more beloved of God than all the rest, should be left without so great a benefaction ? Surely there could be no doubt that the sarae Holy Ghost which first gave these holy books had also directed to the trans lation received by the Roman church. To others it seemed going too far to consider a raan a prophet and apostle because he was the translator of a book ; and they raodified their idea by saying that the translators had not the prophetic and apostoUc spirit, but doubtless one very nearly related to it. And should any one hesitate to attribute to them the influ ences of the Holy Spirit, he must at least allow these influences to the council ; and if therefore, the council should confirm the Vulgate, and pronounce an anathema against those who dared question its authority, then it must be received as Infallible, if not through the Spirit which guided the translation, yet at least by 2 M 530 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. the Spirit given to the council which had declared it authentic. Isidor Clarus, a Benedictine abbot, and a scholar well read in these studies, ventured, in the way of a historical reriew, to controvert these opinions, and said, that in the most ancient church there were several Greek translations of the Old Testament, which were collected by Origen into one book and arranged side by side in six columns. The principal of these was the Septuagint, frora which raany Latin translations had been made ; and the New Testament also had been many times translated from the Greek into the Latin. Of these translations of the Old and New Testaraent, the so-called Itala found the most favour ; and this was generally read in the churches, and was preferred to all the others by Augustin; still it was always held subordinate to the Greek text When that' great linguist, Jerorae, becarae aware that tbe version of the Old Testaraent, partly through the fault of the Greek translators, and partly through that of the Latin, was in raany places defective, he resolved to raake a new translation immediately frora the Hebrew, and to improve the version of the New Testament by a careful collation of the original Greek. The celebrity of his narae induced raany to receiv^e his translations,, but many rejected them, partly frora attach ment to the old and suspicion of the new, and partly, as Jerome himself affirms, out of envy. But after tirae had abated the bitterness of the envy, the transla tions of Jerome were received by the Latins very generally, and were used together vrith the Itala, the latter being designated as the old, the former as -the APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 531 new. Gregory gives testiraony to this effect, for in his work on Job he writes to Leander, that the apostolic see .received both translations, that in his exposition of Job he had used the new because it carae nearest to the Hebrew text, yet in his citations he had some times used the one and sometimes the other, just as was most convenient for the purpose in hand. Thus theologians wavering between the two, and using some times one and then the other, according to circum stances, they at length combined both into one and gave to this the narae of Vulgate. The Psalms, con tinued Clarus, were retained entire in the old translation, because they, being daily sung in the churches, could not well be altered. The minor prophets were all in the new translation ; the major prophets were in a translation made up of the two. No one can doubt that all this was done in accordance with the Divine wfll, without which nothing can take place ; yet no one can say that the human will was not equally concerned in it. Jerorae hiraself had freely taught that no trans lator is inspired by the Holy Spirit ; and since the Latin Bible which we use is raostly in the translation of Jerome, it seems extravagant to attribute to hira the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, when he himself expressly disclaims it. No translation, there fore, ought to be esteemed of equal authority with the original text. For these reasons, therefore, he would advise that the Vulgate should have the preference over all other editions; that it should be revised and loorrected by the original text, and then declared to be authentic. If this were done, the other old transla tions would speedily go out of use, and new ones might 532 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. be prohibited by a severe edict. Thus all the evils which arise from new translations, and which had been so ably set forth in the preceding congregations, would in a short time pass away. Andrew de Vega, a Franciscan friar, would mediate between the two extremes. He would allow, with Jerorae, that the translator has no prophetic inspiration, nor any gift of the Spirit which renders him infallible ; and he would allow, with Jerome and Augustin, that the translations should be exarained and corrected by the original text ; yet he would add, that these admis sions and views need not hinder the church from de claring the Vulgate to be authentic. Such a declaration would imply only that the translation contains no material error in respect to faith and practice, but not that, in afl its expressions and in every shade of mean ing, it is equal to the original No translation can reach to such a degree of accuracy, but raust sorae tiraes enlarge and soraetiraes lirait the signification of particular words, and must sometimes avail itself of metaphors and other figures of speech not identical with those in the original. The Vulgate had been in use in the church for a thousand years and upwards, and in this time they had become certain that it con tains no -material error in respect to faith or practice. The ancient councils had recognized this translation as a sufficient one, and it ought now to be valued accord ing to its worth thus indicated ; and it ought to be declared authentic in this sense, that every one might rely on its correctness without hazarding his salvation. Learned men might not to be withheld, by any prohibi tion, frora applying themselves to the study of the APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 533 Hebrew and Greek text, but the new and faulty transla tions, which bring confusion into the church, ought to be restrained. The many difficulties urged did not hinder the fathers from declaring, by almost general consent, the Vulgate translation to be the authentic Bible of the church. Some were so moved by the arguments of the theo logians, that they vrished the subject might be passed over for the present ; but the raajority were against it. Still the proposal was made, and it was at length resolved that the Vulgate, now declared to be authentic, should be carefully exarained and corrected, and a copy made out siccording to which all others should be printed. Six men were selected for this labour, and they were required to engage in it with all diligence that the work might be published before the close of the councfl. They reserved to themselves tbe power of adding to this coramittee, if, in the course of their sessions, men should be found suited to such an under taking. Thus the Vulgate was received as the authentic text, and the apocryphal books of the Old Testament, being a part of it, were received with it as canonical, not because there was any argument in favour of the in- fallibility of the text or any proof of the canonical authority of these books, for all the argument and all the proof was directly the other way ; but siraply because the state of things was such, that to seera to question the entire accuracy of the text or the canon of the Vulgate would occasion great inconvenience and trouble to the dominant party in the Romish church, and put them at a great disadvantage in their con- 534 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. troversy with the Protestants. Gramraarians and lin guists must not presume to know raore than bishops and cardinals; well-settled ecclesiastics must not be put to the trouble of learing Hebrew and Greek ; the church of the past raust not in any respect be put in the wrong, nor must the- comraon people be allowed to lessen their confidence in the teachers set over them in regular succession frora the apostles. Whatever might be required by trath and Christian integrity, these things were by no raeans to be allowed. There were strong raen in that council, weU read and intelligent raen, who saw the thing as it was, and laboured to set it right; but their voice was lost in the clamour of the multitude, and truth and right avafled little against the pressure of an iraraediate and urgent self-interest. We are sorry to say that the Council of Trent is not the only deliberative body which has been swayed in a similar manner ; but that there have been abundant examples of the same kind from that day to this, both in ecclesiastical and political assemblies, and among Protestants as well as Catholics. In regard to the sense of .Scripture, the well-known views of Cardinal Cajetan occasioned no little discus sion. This prelate had taught, both by precept and example, that a new interpretation of any passage, if it be in accordance with the text and not opposed to other Scriptures, may be received, although the raajority of the doctors are against it ; for God did not grant the knowledge of Scripture to the ancients alone, otherwise there would be nothing left for posterity or the present generation to do but just to copy the fathers. Some strongly advocated these sentiments of Cajetan, and APOCEYPHAL BOOKS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 535 Others opposed them ; and, after a warm discussion on both sides. Cardinal Pacheco arqae and said, that the Holy Scriptures had already been so well explained by so many pious and learned men, that there was npthing to be added, and that the new interpretations which, from tirae to time, were brought forward, could give rise only to heresies. He considered it necessary to bridle the insolence of the present age, and hold it in subjection to the fathers and the church ; aud if a too bold spirit arise, it must be checked and not aUowed to gratify itself and disturb the world by its new revela tions. This declaration was vastly pleasing to almost thi entire assembly. It is such an easy way of getting rid of difficulty and establishing the truth, that conser vative majorities in all generations have been very apt to adopt it. In the congregation on the twenty-ninth of March, the wording of the decree respecting the Scriptures came up for discussion. To many it seeraed rather hard to thunder an anathema against a man, and curse him as a heretic, merely because he could not receive every unimportant passage of the Vulgate as authentic, and had some new view of the interpretation of a text or two of the Holy Scripture. After long discussion they concluded to make out the catalogue of the sacred books, including the Old Testaraent Apocrypha, and fortify that with an anathema, as also the authority of church traditions ; and then, as to translations and interpretations, they would so frame the decree as to make it a remedy against novelties and irapertinent expositions. Thus all the learned raen of. the Roman .Catholic church in all tirae were shut up to a reception 536 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. of the apocryphal books as authentic and canonical, however clearly ^eir investigations raight teach thera the contrary, and though they knew that these books had been expressly rejected by almost all the saints and fathers of the church, who must therefore be re garded as openly anathematized by the council. The attempt of Jahn, and sorae other learned Catholics, to escape by classing the books as proto and deutero- canonical is whofly unsuccessful; for, though this dis tinction was proposed in the council it was triumphantly overborne by an almost unaniraous vote, and all the books included in the Vulgate were placed on a footing of entire equaUty. At the close of the congregation Cardinal Montanus eulogized in high terras the wisdom and leaming of the members, and earnestly exhorted them to an orderly and seemly behaviour in the public session, and to avoid there all opposition and disputation, inasmuch as the points of difference had all been sufficiently discussed in the several congregations; and it was proper that the public decision should be characterized by harra ony and unaniraity. After they were dismissed, Cardinal Cer- vinus privately called together those who had opposed the reception of the Vulgate and its apocryphal addi tions to the original canon as authentic and canonical, and endeavoured to pacify thera by urging that it was not prohibited but allowed to correct the Vulgate by the original text, that they were only to allege that there were in it no errors of faith so great that it ought to be rejected. On the eighth of April the public session was held, and the decrees were read in due form. The catalogue APOCEYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 537 includes the whole of the Old Testament Apocrypha, and the decree declares that the synod receives all the books enumerated, vrith the same affection and rever ence, and then proceeds in the^oUowIng terms : — " But if any one shall not receive these sarae books entire with all their parts, as they are wont to be read in the Catholic church, and the old Latin Vulgate edition, for sacred and canonical, and shall knovringly and inten tionally despise the traditions aforesaid, let him be accursed.". This surely is sufficiently explicit ; and by this decree the council anathematizes the great body of the saints and fathers of the church, as we shall soon see. The next decree is without the anathema, and the first para graph is in the foUowing terms : — " Moreover, the sarae holy synod decrees and declares, that this same old Vulgate edition, which has stood the test of so many ages' use in the church, in public readings, disputings, preachings and expoundings, be deemed authentic, and that no one on any pretext dare or presurae to reject it." Notvrithstanding the strenuous opposition to the sentiraent of these decrees while under discussion in the congregation, when they were put to vote in tbe public session but two voices were heard in opposition or re monstrance. The poor little troublesome bishop of Chlozza alone ventured to say no, but prudently added, perhaps I shall submit (non placet, sed forsan obediam). One other member did not approve that traditions should be received pari pidatis affectu ac reverentia (with equal affection and reverence), but for pari he would substitute summa (for equal he would substitute 538 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. greatest). All the others gave an unqualified affirma tive. When these proceedings of the council were made - public, there were many, especiaUy in Germany, who expressed themselves very freely in regard to them. Some said it was strange that five cardinals and fortyr eight bishops should take it upon theraselves to decide so peremptorily in regard to points of religion of so much weight, and which had hitherto remained unde cided, declaring books to be canonical which had thus far been regarded as apocryphal, or at most uncertain, making a translation authentic which in numerous pas sages departs widely from the original text, and deciding in how limited or how extended a sense men should understand the word of God. Moreover, among all these fathers there were none any way distinguished for learning ; there were some good^canon lawyers, but they had no extensive knovvledge of religious matters ; the few theologians there were below mediocrity ; the as sembly was principally raade up of mere noblemen and courtiers ; the greater part of the bishops had no actual sees, and those who were really bishops had such sraaU dipceses, that aU together they could not be considered as representing even the thousandth part of Christenr dom. From all Gerraany there was not at this time a single bishop or theologian present in the council Others said that the points decided were after all of no such great iraportance as they appeared to be. As to traditions, the decree was a mere bag of wind ; , for to what purpose was it tp ordain that thp church should receive the traditions, and yet not decide which were the true traditions that must be received ? Moreover, it APOCEYPHAL BOOKS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 539 was not even commanded that they should be received ; it was only forbidden that they should knowingly and ,Gpnsciously be despised ; so that one might even reject thera without violating the decree, provided he did it respectfully and reverently. The Papal court itself sets the exaraple of such rejection ; for it prohibits the ordi nation of deaconesses ; it aUows the people no vote in the choice of their pastors, when this was plainly an apostolic institution, and observed in the church for more than eight hundred years ; it obstinately vrithholds the cup from the laity, when Christ instituted the sacra ment in both kinds, and it was so received by the apostles, and has been so observed by the whole church till within about two hundred years, and even now in aU Christian churches except the Latin. If these be not traditions, what else deserves the name ? And in respect to the Vulgate, what signifies the affirmation of its authenticity, while the different editions vary so much frora each other, and no one of these is pointed out as the correct one ? Such were the comments made at the tirae, and to this day they have lost none of their relevancy or sig nificance. The only authority for the reception of the apocryphal books into the Old Testament canon is the authority of the Councfl of Trent ; and the entire worth- lessness of that authority the preceding pages abundantly show.* * The statements in the above exhibition of the debates and decisions in the Council of Trent rest on the following authorities: Sarpi's 'Greschichte des Koncil von Trident,' uebersetzt von Winterer, Band I. S. 290-298. The same translated by Brent, pp. 150-162. Mendham's •¦ ' History of the Council of Trent,' pp. 48-68. Marheinecke's ' ChristUche Syinbollk,' IL S. 224-261. Perceval's ' Roman Schism,' pp. 158-164. 540 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. in. THESE BOPKS NE-VER HAD THE SANCTION OP CHRIST OK HIS APOSTLES, OK -ANY OP THE WBITERB OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. The New Testament very frequently quotes, and much more frequently contains incidental allusions to, the Old. The Pentateuch, the prophetic books, the Psalras, and other parts of the sacred volume of the Hebrews, were continually in the minds of the writers, and flowed out in all their sayings and writings, as if welling up from the depths of their innermost religious consciousness. But in all these quotations and allusions we look in vain for a reference to any of the apocryphal books. Though there are raany places where incidents of the apocryphal writings would afford illustrations ex ceedingly apt and beautiful, yet no such illustrations are ever found. If the writers of the New Testament were acquainted vrith any of these books (and it is scarcely possible to doubt that they had seen some of them), most carefuUy must they have abstained from alluding to them in their canonical writings. They sanctioned the whole Hebrew canon as it existed in their tirae ; but they sanctioned none of the apocry phal books, for they never quote thera, and these books never formed a part of the Hebrew canon. We speak of the ancient apocryphal books which are printed in the Vulgate Bible, and not of the raore recent ones, such as the book of Enoch, the Ascension of Moses, etc. These, it is trae, soraetiraes borrow from the New Testaraent (compare 2 Tim. iii. 8 ; Jude ix. 14), but the New Testament never from them ; since it is itself more APOCEYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 541 ancient than they are, or at least more ancient than the probably interpolated passages on which the stress is laid. rv. THESE BOOKS FOKMED NO PART OP THE OBIGINAL HEBREW CANON, AND WERE NOT WRITTEN TILL APTEK INSPIRATION HAD CEASED AND THE CANON WAS CLOSED. On this point we have the most explicit, the entirely disinterested testimony of Josephus, the Jewish historian. In his work against Apion (i. 8) he gives an account of aU the books held sacred by the Hebrews, and this testiraony is also copied by Eusebius, the celebrated Christian historian (' Eccl. Hist.' iii. 10). This passage of Josephus we shall quote in fuU, as it stands in his writings, noting the variations that occur in Eusebius. "We have not innumerable books which contradict each other, but only twenty-two, which contain the history of all past times, and are justly believed to be divine. Five of these belong to Moses, and contain his laws, and the history of the origin of mankind, and reach to his death. This is a period of nearly three thousand years. From the death of Moses to Artaxerxes [Eusebius: to the death of Artaxerxes], who, after Xerxes, reigned over the Persians, the prophets who lived after Moses wrote down the events of their tiraes in thirteen books. The other four books contain hyrans to God and precepts for raen. From Artaxerxes to our own times our history has indeed been written ; but these writings are not esteemed worthy of the sarae credit as the former, because since that tirae we have no certain succession of propheta 542 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. " What trust we put in these our writings is manifest by our deeds. Though so long time has elapsed, no one has ever dared to add to, or take from them, or raake any change in them whatever. It is as it were inborn with every Jew, from the very first origin of the nation, to consider these books as the doctrines of God, to stand by them constantly, and if need be, cheerfully to die for them. It is no new thing to see the captives of our nation, many of them in number and at many different times, endure tortures and deaths of all kinds in the public theatres, rather than utter a word against our laws, or the records which contain thera." Josephus here clearly recognizes the existence of the apocryphal books, and expressly excludes them from the canon ; while he bears open testiraony, as of a raatter well known to all the world, to the extrerae and scrupulous care with which the Jews preserved all their canonical books free from mutflation and ad dition and change of every kind. Comparing these explicit statements of Josephus with the numerous quotations from the Old Testament which he has made in his historical writings, it is quite evident that the twenty-two books which he includes in the Hebrew canon, and which he affirras were held raost sacred by the Jews who were conteihporary with Christ and the apostles, are the follovring : — The five books of Moses : — 1.' GenesiB. 4. Numbers. 2. Exodus.. 5. Deuteronomy 3, Leviticus. APOCEYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 543 The thirteen prophetic books :- I. Joshua. 2. Judges and Ruth. 3. Two Books of Samuel. 4. Two Books of Bangs. 5. Two Books of Chronicles. 6. Ezra and Nehemiah. 7. Esther. 8. Isaiah. 9. Jeremiah. 10. EzeMel. II. Daniel. 12. Twelve Minor Prophets. 13. Job. The four books of hymns and precepts : — 1. Psalms. j 3. Eoclesiastes. 2. Proverbs. I 4. Canticles. This Is according to the Jewish arrangeraent and nomenclature of the books, which, in raany respects, differs from that which has been received into our EngUsh Bibles from the Greek translation of the Seventy.* V. THESE BOOKS -WERE REJECTED WITH SINGULAR UNA NIMITY BY THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND. THE BEST OP THE CHURCH FATHERS. (1) Testimony of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, A.D. 170, who rejects them all. MeUto was, after the apostles, one of the earliest bishops of the apocalyptic church of Sardis, a distin guished writer, and of great influence among the eariy Christians. He travelled to Palestine for the express purpose of ascertaining exactly the canon of the Old Testament, and gave the result of his investigations in the foUowing letter to his friend Onesimus, which we find in Eusebius ('Eccl. Hist.' B. iv. 26) :— * Compare Eichhorn's ' Einleit. ins Alt. Test.' B. I. S. 143-163. 514 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. " Melito to Onesimus his brother, greeting : Since you have often, on account of your zeal for the word of God, begged of me to raake selections for you, from the law and the* prophets, concerning the Saviour and our whole faith ; and as you, moreover, wished to learn accurately of the old books, how many they are in nuraber and in what order they are written, I have earnestly endeavoured to perforra the same, well know ing your zeal for the faith and your great desire to learn the word of God ; and that, through your earnest love toward God, you desire these raore than all things else, striving for your eternal salvation. " I accordingly went to the East, and, coraing to the very place where these things were preached and transacted, I have accurately learned the books of the Old Testament. Their names ae ars follows : — five books of Moses, to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronoray. Joshua Nave, Judges, Ruth, Four books of Kings [two of Samuel and two of Kings], two of Paralipomenon [Chronicles]. The Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon (which is also Wisdom), Eoclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Job. Of the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah ; and of the twelve prophets, one book ; Daniel Ezekiel, Esdras " [including also Nehe miah, and perhaps Esther]. ¦ Here this ancient bishop excludes every apocryphal book frora the canon, though he raust have known of their existence. From the names which he givfes to sorae of the books, it Is plain that he read thera in the Septuagint translation ; yet, though the apocryphal books had probably been added to this translation be fore his tirae, he carefully excludes thera all, -- The APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 545 most ancient church fathers were much more discrirai- nating in their investigation of the sacred books than the comparatively modem fathers in the Council of Trent. Melito knew whereof he affirmed, for he had examined vrith the greatest care, at the very source of information, and under the pressure of a very strong and elevated motive. Melito does not give the name of the book of Esther, and in sorae other of the church fathers this name Is also omitted. But this does not prove that the book of Esther was by them excluded from the canon. Many, supposing ' that book to have been writtten by Ezra, included it under the general narae of Esdras. In Hebrew the books have no naraes, but each Is desig nated by its initial word. Melito arranges the books in the order of tirae, and the four historical books preceding tbe captivity (two of Sarauel and two of Kings) he calls by the general narae of Kings, and so it is possible that he might have designated the three historical books subsequent to the cap tivity by the general name of Esdras, especially as Nehemiah was usuaUy included In that designation, and Esther was by some supposed to be the work of Ezra.* * It is possible, also, that Esther by these fathers might have been entirely excluded, on account of its being so encurabered with apocryphal additions, which they might have found it difficult to separate from the genuine work. "• Cary's ' Testimonies of the Fathers,' p. 114. Eichhorn's ' Einleit. Alt. Test.' i. 166. 2 N 546 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. (2) 'Testimony of Origen, the great Biblical Scholar of ' the Early Greek Church, a. d. 200, piho rejeds them all. The testimony of Origen is preserved by Eusebius (' Eccl. Hist.' vi. 25), and is for substance the foUo Wr ing :^" It should be observed that the collective books, as handed down by the Hebrews, are twenty-two, ac cording to the nuraber of letters in their alphabet These twenty-two books, according to the Hebrews, are as follows : (1) Genesis ; (2) Exodus ; (3) Leviticus ; (4) Nurabers ; (5) Deuteronoray ; (6) Joshua, the son of Nave ; (7) Judges and Ruth in one ; (8) first and second of Kings in one (Samuel) ; (9) |third and fourth of Kings in one ; (10) first and second of Chronicles (Paralipomenon) in one ; (11) Esdras, first and second (*,e., Neheraiah) in one; (12) Book of Psalras; (13) Proverbs of Soloraon; (14) Eoclesiastes; (15) Song of Songs ; (16) Isaiah ; (17) Jereraiah, with Laraen- tations and the epistle, in one ; (18) Daniel ; (19) Ezekiel ; (20) Job ; (21) Esther." It is reraarkable that,, though Origen twice says the Hebrew books are twenty-two, the list which he gives contains but twenty-one. On exaraination, we find the book of the twelve rainor prophets omitted. This added, would make the requisite nuraber of twenty- two. That there is here, not a mistake of Origen, but an error in the text of Eusebius, is manifest from the fapt that the Latin translation of Origen by Rufinus has this book, as does also Hilary's prologiie to tbe APOCEYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 547 Psalms, which includes this passage of Origen.* Ori gen's other writings, also, show his acquaintance with these prophets. It is, perhaps, not easy to determine what Origen intends by the epistle of Jeremiah. Possibly it may be the letter contained in the apocryphal book of Barach, chapter vi. That Origen understood the dif ference between tbe canonical and apocryphal books is manifest frora what he says in iraraediate connection wjfh his catalogue : " Separate from these (e^o) Be tovtwv) are the. Maccabees," etc. (3) Testimony of the Apodolic Canons, about A.D. 250, which probably reject them al^. The text here is somewhat uncertain, and has evi dently been tampered with. The copies vary from each other. One manuscript includes Judith, and some admit Maccabees ; but the oldest and best copies exclude all the apocryphal books. The following is the catalogue according to the best testiraony : — "Let these be the sacred and holy books for all, both clergy and laity, namely, of the Old Testament, of Moses five, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Nurabers, Deuteronomy ; of Joshua, the Son of Nave, one ; of Ruth one ; of Kings four ; of Paralipomenon [Chroni cles], the book of days, two ; of Esdras two [including Nehemiah] ; of Esther one ; of Job one ; of the Psalter one ; of Solomon three. Proverbs, Eoclesiastes, Song of Songs ; of the twelve prophets one ; of Isaiah one ; of ' Eichhorn's 'Einleit. ins Alt. Test.' L 169, 170. Perceval's '^Eoman Schism,' p. 421. 548 THE BOOKS OP THE BIBLE. Jeremiah one ; of Ezekiel one ; one of Daniel." There Is then permission given. to read the Son of Sirach. The book of Judges is omitted, unless it be included under the narae of Ruth. The text, however, is so ira perfect, that we cannot very confidently rely upon it. Nevertheless, it shows decidedly that in the middle of the third century the apocryphal books had not yet found their way as canonical into the Christian church.* (4) Testimony of Athanasius, the great Champion of Orthodoxy, A.D. 330, who rejects them aU accept Baruch.The testiraony of this father raay be found in his works, Tora. II. p. 39, Paris edition, 1629. It is as follows : — " The books of the Old Testament are twenty- two, which is the number of the letters among the Hebrews. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Nuinbers, Deu teronoray, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, of Kings four, two books ; of Paralipomenon (Chronicles) two, one book ; Esdras two, one book ; Psalms ; Proverbs ; twelve pro phets, one book ; then Isaiah, Jeremiah with Baruch, Laraentatlons, and epistles ; Ezekiel and Daniel. Then there are books uncanonical, but readable, the Wisdora of Soloraon, Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit." It is very curious that Athanasius should put Esther araong the uncanonical books, and Baruch in the ca nonical ; yet so it reads. Esther was encumbered with many apocryphal additions, and the epistle ascribed to Jeremiah in the book of Baruch was by sorae re- * Labbe and Cossart, Ooucil. I. 44, Perceval's 'Eoman Schism,' 421, 422. APOCEYPHAL, BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 549 ceived as genuine. This may account for the raistake of Athanasius on this point ; and the entire testiraony of Athanasius clearly shows that the apocryphal books, as a whole, were decidedly rejected by the church in his tirae. There is another passage from Athanasius, very va luable on account of the clear distinction which it makes between the canonical and the apocryphal books. It is in the Epist Festal quoted by Carey (' Testimonies of the Fathers,' p. 117) : " Since sorae persons have attempted to set in order the books that are cafled apocryphal, and to mix thera with the divinely inspired Scriptures, of which we have been fully certified, as those who saw them frora the beginning, and who, be ing ministers of the word, handed thera down from our fathers, it seemed fitting to me, being exhorted thereto by the orthodox brethren, and having learned the truth, to set out in order the canonical Scriptures, which have been handed down, and are believed to be from ^God, that every one who has been deceived may convict those who have led him astray." Here follows the list. He adds : " It Is true that, besides these, there are other books which are not put Into the canon, but yet are appointed by the fathers . to be read by those who first come to be instructed in the way of piety." He then gives the names of most of the common apocryphal books. (5) Tedimony of Hilary, the celebrated Bishop of Poidiers, A.D. 350, who rejects them all. Prologue to the Psalras, Sec. 15: "And this is the cause that the law of the Old Testament is arranged 550 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. in twenty-two books, that they raay correspond with the nuraber of the Hebrew letters. According to the traditions of the ancients, they are so arranged, that there are five books of Moses ; Joshua Nave, six ; Judges and Ruth, seven ; first and second of Kings, eight ; third and fourth of KingSj nine ; of Paralipo menon two, ten ; book of days of Esdras, eleven ; Solomon's Proverbs, Eoclesiastes, Song of Songs, thir teen, fourteen, and fifteen ; twelve prophets, sixteen ; then Isaiah, Jeremiah with Lamentations and Epistle; these and Daniel and Ezekiel and Job and Esther, make up the nuraber of twenty-two books. Some are pleased to add Tobit and Judith, to make the nuraber twenty- four, according to the letters of the Greek alphabet" This hint of Hilary's, which has already been referred to in another part of this discussion, Is not an unfair specimen of a very considerable portion of the logic which we find araong the good old fathers of the first four centuries. The Greeks had two raore letters in their alphabet than the Hebrews had in theirs, and therefore it was well that they should have two raore books In their Old Testaraent canon, to make all correspond ; and It is suggested that for this purpose two can be taken out of the Apocrypha! No wonder that where such reasoning prevailed spurious books sometimes crept in. (6) Tedimony of Epiphanius, the great opposer of Heresy, a.d. 360, who rejeds them all. " The Hebrews have two-and-twenty letters,, and five of these have two forms ; and also their sacred books are so disposed that they number tWenty-two, APOCEYPHAL BOOKS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 551 and yet twenty-seven are found, because five of thera are divided into two parts. Thus Ruth is joined to Judges, and both are reckoned as one book by the Hebrews ; and the first of Paraliporaenon Is joined to the second, and both caUed one book; the first of Kings is joined to the second, and caUed one book; the third to the fourth, and so on. Thus the books are contained in four Pentateuchs, and two others re main besides ; so that the canonical books are thus : five legislative, (1) Genesis, (2) Exodus, (3) Leviticus, (4) Numbers, (5) Deuteronomy ; and this is the Pen tateuch and the legislation. Then five are poetical, (6) the book of Job, (7) the Psalter, (8) Proverbs of Soloraon, (9) Eoclesiastes, (10) Song of Songs. Then another Pentateuch which Is called the writings, and by sorae the holy writings, which are as follows: (11) book of Joshua, son of Nave, (12) Judges with Ruth, (13) first of Paralipomenon with the second, (14) first of Kings with the second, (15) third of Kings with the fourth, (16) the twelve Prophets, (17) Isaiah, (18) Jereraiah, (19) Ezekiel (20) Daniel; and this is the prophetic Pentateuch. Two others reraain, which are, one of Esdras, and this is also reckoned, and another book, which is called that of Esther. Thus the twenty-two books are corapleted, according tP the nuraber of the Hebrew letters." He then raentions two of the apocry phal books, to wit, the Wisdora of Solomon, and the book of Jesus Sirach, and says: "these indeed are useful books and profitable, but they are not placed in the nuraber of the canonical." De Ponder, et Mens. II. 16.* * Perceval's ' Eomaa Schism,' pp. 423, 424. Carey's ' Testimonies,' pp. 116-118. 552 THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. (7) Testimony of the Council of Laodicea, A.D. 367, confirmed by the Fourth General Council of Choker don, A.D. 451, which rejects them all. " The books of the Old Testaraent which must be read are : Genesis of the world. Exodus from Egypt, Leviticus, Nurabers, Deuteronoray, Joshua son of Nave, Judges, Ruth, Esther, of Kings first and second, third and fourth, Paralipomenon first and second, Esdras first and second, book of 150 Psalms, Proverbs of Solo mon, Eoclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job, twelve Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah [and Baruch],* Lamentations and Epistles, Ezekiel, Daniel." Labbe and Cossart, Concil L 1509. (8) Testimony of Gregory Nazianzen, the FeUow-student and distinguished Opponent of the Emperor Julian, A.D. 390, who rejeds them all. Gregory gives a catalogue of the sacred books in one of those poetic effusions of his, which were quite famous in their day. We will content ourselves with simply giving the facts, vrithout attempting to translate the poetry. " All the historical books are twelve. The first is Genesis, then Exodus, Leviticus, Nurabers, and the Second Law (Deuteronomy). Then Joshua, and Judges, and Ruth the eighth. The ninth and tenth books are the deeds of the Kings, then Paralipomenon, and you have Esdras the last. Five are the poetic * The hook of Baruch is omitted in tlie best copies ; see above, p. 282, debates in the Council of Trent. APOCEYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 553 books, of which the first is Job, then Darid, then three of Solomon, Eoclesiastes, Song, and Proverbs. Five also are those of the prophetic spirit. Twelve [pro phets] indeed are in one writing, Hosea, Amos, and Micah the third, then Jonah, Joel, and Obadiah, Nahura, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, Haggai, then Zechariah and Malachi. These make one book. The second is Isaiah, then Jereraiah, who was called from the womb, then Ezekiel, and the grace of Daniel. He gave two and twenty ancient books, corresponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet." 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