Illpderr) (fnticisri)
apd the
Fourtl) Gospel

UJatkips

/J

THE
BAMPTON LECTUEES
1890

PHINTED BY
SrOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON

MODEEN OEITICISM

. CONSIDEEED IN ITS EELATION TO THE

FOURTH GOSPEL

BEING THE BAMPTON LECTUBES FOB 1890

BY

HENKY WILLIAM WATKINS, M.A., D.D.
SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD; FELLOW OF KING'S
COLLEGE, LONDON ; ARCHDEACON AND CANON OF DURHAM, AND
TROFESSOR OF HEBREW IN THE- UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM

LONDON
JOHN MUKKAY, ALBEMAELE STEEET
1890

mo

EXTEACT
PEOM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
OF THE LATE
KEV. JOHN BAMPTON,
CANON OF SALISBURY.

 'I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the
Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford
for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said
Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and purposes
hereinafter mentioned; that is to say, I will and appoint,
that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford for
the time being shall take and receive all the rents, issues,
and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and
necessary deductions made) that he pay all the remainder
to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to
be established for ever in the said University, and to be
performed in the manner following :
'I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in
Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of
Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining to the
Printing-House, between the hours of ten in the morning
and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity Lecture
Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between
the commencement of the last month in Lent Term, and the
end of the third week in Act Term.
' Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity
Lecture Sermons shall be preached upon either of the follow-

VI EXTRACT FROM FOUNDER'S WILL.
ing Subjects — to confirm and establish the Christian Faith,
and to confute all heretics and schismatics — upon the divine
authority of the Holy Scriptures — upon the authority of the
writings of the primitive Fathers as to the faith and practice
of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost
— upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended
in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds.
' Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity
Lecture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months
after they are preached, and one copy shall be given to the
Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of
every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the City of
Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ;
and the expence of printing them shall be paid out of the
revenue of the Lands or Estates given for establishing the
Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the Preacher shall not be
paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed.
'Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be
qualified to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he
hath taken the Degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of
the two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the
same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons
twice.'

PBEFATOBY NOTE.

To the Revd. the Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Oxford.
Dear Mr. Vice-Chancellor,
One of the duties which is imposed upon
a Bampton Lecturer by the ' Last Will and Testa
ment ' of the Founder is to print the ' eight
Divinity Lecture Sermons ' 'within two months
after they are preached,' and to present copies to
certain official persons.
You will, I hope, permit me, while I have the
pleasure of asking your acceptance of this copy of the
lectures for 1890, the last of which was delivered
yesterday, to accompany it with some brief prefatory
remarks which may help the reader, in so far as he
may care to do so, to approach these lectures from
the point of view of the writer.
The story of the genesis of this book is simple : —
One day while walking with the late Bishop of
Durham, when we hoped he was regaining strength,

V1U PREFATORY NOTE.
I took the opportunity of asking him how he
accounted for the fact of the frequent assertion that
the genuineness of the Fourth Gospel was disproved
by modern criticism, in the presence of the strong
and accumulating evidence in its favour. Those who
have endeavoured to extract an opinion from that
great Bishop and scholar during an afternoon's walk,
will not be surprised to hear that at the end of our
stroll my question was not answered, but that I had
been asked several others in the meantime, and that
the suggestion was made that the subject might be
profitably treated in a course of Bampton Lectures.
The conversation recurred to my mind in a
wakeful night, and I drew out a rough outline of
the arguments which presented themselves. This I
forwarded to the Bishop, who wrote the following note
in reply : —
I have read your scheme, and entirely approve of it. No
subject could be more useful at the present day, and I think
that the time has arrived when it can be effectively treated.
Of course it will take much time, but it will be worth the ex
penditure. J. B. Dunelm.
He was also kind enough, I believe, to express his
opinion to more than one of the Heads of Colleges,
and it was probably in consequence of that opinion
that I was appointed to deliver the lectures of 1890.

PREFATORY NOTE. ix
The ' much time ' which the Bishop saw would be
needed for, and which he wished that I should give
to the subject, has been largely filled by events which,
if they had been foreseen, must have prevented my
undertaking the duty that has now been ended rather
than fulfilled. The Bishop's own illness and death
brought necessarily a large increase of public and
private obligations ; and these brought in their train
a protracted inability for the vigorous performance of
any duty. At the beginning of this year the time
seemed to have come when I could hardly hope to be
sufficiently well, or sufficiently free from pressing en
gagements, either to prepare the lectures or to deliver
them. One of my oldest and kindest friends wrote : —
It is impossible that he can do justice to himself, or what
he will think of far greater importance, justice to his subject ;
it would be in every way better that he should seek release
from a duty which he cannot perform.
I felt bound by no ordinary obligation to yourself
and the other Heads of Colleges whose kindness had
entrusted me with so great a responsibility, but I
think that in my prostration I might have followed
my friend's advice, had not my eye fallen upon the
last words which my Bishop had written to me just
before his death. They 'seemed now to come from
another world as a command which must be obeyed,
and for which strength would be supplied.

X PREFATORY NOTE.
The lectures will, I hope, need little explanation
to any thoughtful reader ; but as their purpose has
been somewhat mistaken, you will perhaps allow me
to point out : —
(1) That they are a course of eight lectures.
No one lecture aims therefore at any com
pleteness in itself, but forms only a single
step of the stairs. And the whole is a
course of eight Lecture Sermons, with
obvious limitations of time and place, and
not an independent work, and cannot
therefore aim at full treatment of so wide a
subject. The eight steps can at most form
a staircase, and are not a furnished house.
(2) That the subject is not the Fourth Gospel,
nor yet the evidences, external or internal,
in favour of its authenticity or genuine
ness, but ' Modern criticism considered
in its relation to the Fourth Gospel.'
The evidences are abundantly discussed
elsewhere. My purpose is to estimate the
criticism which this century has produced
in our own and other countries. I believed
before commencing these investigations,
and believe now, with a confidence
which does not fall short of certainty,
that there is no foundation for the asser-

PREFATORY NOTE. xi
tions which are so often made and ac
cepted, to the effect that modern criticism
is fatal to the claims of the Fourth Gospel ;
and I have tried to show this.
(3) That the examination which I have en
deavoured to make has relation to the
Fourth Gospel, and to the Fourth Gospel
only. It cannot in fairness be fully ex
tended to any other book of the New
Testament, and still less to any book of
the Old Testament. The evidence in re
lation to any given book in one of these
libraries must be examined separately.
The case of the Fourth Gospel is, however,
admittedly the one in which there has
been the greatest array of hostile critics
and the loudest assertions of victory. If
these critics are disarmed and the victory
is shown to be on the other side, we may
well doubt whether a similar array of
hostile criticism and similar shouts of
victory are not in the same way to be
distrusted in analogous cases. But the
argument from analogy must not be un
duly pressed. The wise man will use it
with caution, but he will nevertheless
use it.

XII PREFATORY NOTE.
(4) That in these lectures no reference has been
intentionally made to any work which is
not named in them. I am of course not
unaware that considerable discussion has
arisen in Oxford with regard to more than
one recent utterance which has been made
there. But from the day of my appoint
ment as lecturer, I have thought it my
duty to abstain from reading or hearing
any such utterance. It seemed to me to
be right to speak of my own subject with
out introducing any tinge of feeling which
might seem to come from possibility of
personal reference to any member of the
University before which these lectures
were to be delivered.
Perhaps some few words should be added as to
the method which has been followed. To examine
evidence required the production of witnesses, and
the number of witnesses has rendered the treatment
much more technical than I could have wished. I
have allowed every witness, as far as possible, to speak
for himself, and have supported his evidence by
reference to its original sources.
It will appear to every reader that I have for this
purpose made full use of the many guides to this

PREFATORY NOTE. xiii
knowledge which are now within reach. To the
scholar it will, I hope, appear also that these guides
have been used only as roads to the quarries. Con
siderable pains have been taken to make the references
really useful to the student. They will be often found
to differ from those in other works which cover com
mon ground and to which I am frequently indebted.
It is too much to hope that they will not sometimes
be found to be wrong, for there is many a slip between
the page of the author who is quoted, and the printed
page of the writer who quotes ; but it should not be
concluded that they are wrong, because they differ
from those in other works : —
Illi in nos sseviant, qui nesciunt cum quo labore verum
inveniatur, et quam difficile caveantur errores.
It will be specially evident that I have made con
stant reference to German authorities, and while I
have had occasion to dissent from the position which
has been assigned to some of them by certain English
writers, I should be indeed ungrateful if I did not
feel that the investigations of German scholars —
investigations perhaps rather than results — have
placed all workers in this field under an obligation
which cannot be too fully acknowledged.
On more than one occasion in the lectures I have
had to apologize for a too cursory treatment of an

xiv PREFATORY NOTE.
important point, and I feel on reviewing them as a
whole, that there are few pages which do not offer a
peg on which an excursus may well be hung. I had
intended to make at least some such additions, but to
do so with any approach to completeness would add
a second volume as bulky as the present one. This
would make it, moreover, impossible for me to fulfil
the Founder's condition as to printing the lectures,
and impossible to keep the price of the book within
moderate limits. Perhaps there is now as much of
technical detail as ' eight Divinity Lecture Sermons '
can fairly bear.
If anyone who heard the lectures should do me
the honour of reading them, he will find that several
passages in each lecture were omitted in delivery, and
that some were condensed. As it was, I fear that I
trespassed somewhat unduly on the kindness and
attention of my hearers. I have also changed a word
or two in a few passages ; but I have not ventured to
make any important change or to alter the ' Lecture
Sermon ' form of the whole. It seems to have been
the intention of the Founder that this form should
be preserved, and that the lectures should be printed
as they were delivered before the University.
It remains for me to add that these lectures owe
much to the fact that more than one kind friend has

PREFATORY NOTE. xv
looked at them as they have passed through the press.
If I do not publicly thank these friends by name, it is
because they ought not to be made in any way respon
sible for much with which they would possibly not
agree. The name of one dear friend, Bishop Lightfoot,
has been mentioned in connexion with them : —
Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit.
What I owe to him is more than I can tell or can
myself know, and it would be my greatest happiness
to think that any trace of this debt were to be found
in these lectures which came from his suggestion ;
but it is due to his memory and to my readers, to
make prominent the fact that no word of them was
known to him. The general plan has his imprimatur,
but this cannot be extended to any part of the
execution. I cannot doubt that this execution would
have fallen far below his idea ; for I know that it has
fallen far below my own. Of some passages he would
certainly have disapproved, and were he still with us
they could not have been spoken. Of these the reader
will as certainly approve ; for no estimate could
rightly be made of the criticism of the Fourth Gospel
in this century, without frequent reference to the most
competent witness that the century has produced.
There is one who is more than a friend, whose
hand never tired when I was able only to dictate, and

XVI PREFATORY NOTE.
without whose constant help these lectures could not
have been written and could not have been printed.
To yourself, Sir, and the other Heads of Houses,
my thanks are due, not only for the honour conferred
upon me by your appointment, but for much generous
courtesy which has been freely extended to me.
I have the honour to remain,
dear Mr. Vice-Chancellor,
Your faithful and obliged servant,
H. W. Watkins.
Athen^um Club :
June 9, 1890.

• *

The Lectures were delivered on the following dates
in conformity with University arrangements :
In Lent Term : Lectures I.-IIL, March 2, 9, 16.
In Easter Term: Lectures IV.-VIL, April 27, May 4,
11, 18.
In Trinity Term : Lecture VIII., June 8.

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.
For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.
2 Cor. xiii. 8. PAGE
I. Introduction. A. The Subject stated : Modern criticism and the Fourth
Gospel  3
B. Divisions of the Subject : The ' judgment of centuries.'
'Our age.' Width of inquiry . .... 4
C. Tone of discussion : Anti-theological prejudice.
Renan. Mental achromatism. This achromatism
impossible ........ 6
Illustrations : —
(a) James Mackintosh
(18) David Hume
(y) The Adventurer
(8) ' Cowardly Agnosticism '
(e) Mark Pattison
(f) Fortnightly Beview
(r,) Pope  10
D. Friendly and adverse witness : Dean Stanley. Advo
cate or judge 1 Position of a Bampton Lecturer . 13

XV1U CONTENTS. PAGE
II. Evidence or the Second Century : The Third Genera
tion : —
A. Church of Lyons :
Irenseus : His date, and work against Gnosticism.
His use of the Fourth Gospel . . . .18
B. Church of Alexandria :
Clement : His origin, date, teachers, and pupils.
His frequent use of the Fourth Gospel. John
and the ' spiritual Gospel ' . . . . .20
C. Churches of Rome and Carthage :
Tertullian : His position as a writer, date, and
training. His frequent quotations from the Fourth
Gospel. Passages from his works : —
(a) Rule against heretics
()3) The Apostolic churches
(y) Authors of ' Evangelical Instrument '
(8) Apostles handed down that which was from
the beginning
(e) The Evangelist and beloved disciple . . 22
D. Church of Antioch :
Theophilus : His writings testified to by Jerome
and Eusebius. His Commentary on the Gospels
doubtful. Importance of the treatise To Autolycus.
Its undoubted reference to the Fourth Gospel,
which is included among ' Holy Scriptures,' and
the author among ' spirit-bearing men ' . .27
E. Churches of Asia Minor :
Melito : Witness from Sardis. The probable date of
his writings. List given by Eusebius. Other
lists. His full testimony to the Fourth Gospel . 33
Apolinaris : Witness from Hierapolis. List of his
works given by :
(a) Eusebius
0) Theodoret
(y) Photius
His reference to the Fourth Gospel . . .36

CONTENTS. xix PAGE
Testimony to the writings of Melito and Apolinaris
given by :
(a) Polycrates
(0) Hippolytus
(y) Tertullian (quoted by Jerome)
(8) Clement of Alexandria
(e) Anastatius of Sinai
(f) Serapion, and other bishops
(rj) Jerome
(6) Socrates ... ... 37
Polycrates : Witness from Ephesus. His testimony
to the Fourth Gospel in a letter addressed to
Victor of Rome. His own account of his position 41
F. The Old Latin and Peshito Versions, and the Mura-
torian Fragment :
Liddon's approval of Westcott's opinion on :
(a) The Old Latin
(/3) The Peshito
(y) The Muratorian Fragment . . . .42
Force of the evidence if their early date is esta
blished
Recent opinions :
(a) Bishop Lightfoot
(0) Von Dollinger
Result independent of these opinions . . 44
Summary : Strength of testimony. Its extent and unan
imity in the third generation of the Second Century.
The corporate life of the Church. Answer of the
author of Supernatural Beligion is no answer. Conclu
sion .  46

a 2

XX CONTENTS.

LECTURE II.
Bemember the days of old,
Consider the years of many generations ;
Ask thy father, and he will show thee;
Thine elders, and they will tell thee. Deut. xxxii. 7. PAGE
Evidence of the Second Century : The Second Genera
tion : —
A. Justin Martyr : His conversion. His estimate of the
ethics of opinion. His writings. Chronology not
accurately known . . . ... 5:3
Opinions of :
(a) Credner
(/3) Volkmar
(y) Hort ... .... 57
Date of the First Apology and Dialogue : Their
evidence to the use of the Fourth Gospel. Nature of
an apology. The Dialogue an apology addressed
to the Jews. Position of an apologist in the
Second Century illustrated by later apologists . 58
Examples :
(a) Tatian
(/3) Athenagoras
(y) Tertullian
(8) Cyprian  63
Direct reference in Justin to the Evangelists ought
not to be expected. What traces of the Fourth
Gospel are actually found ..... 64
Memoirs : Recurrence of term.
Examples .
(a) The Memoirs
(/3) Memoirs of the Apostles
(y) Memoirs of His Apostles
(8) His Memoirs
Memoirs further described ..... 65

\ \

CONTENTS. Xxi PAGE
Memoirs considered as,
(a) a written record of the Lord
((3) sacred books
(y) of Apostolic authority
(8) coming from the Lord Himself . . .67
Use by Tertullian, Irenaeus, and other contempo
raries and followers. Identity therefore of the
Memoirs with the Four Gospels. This proved by
Tatian's Diatessaron, the key to Justin's Memoirs.
The identification is made by Justin, and known
to Irenasus and others. The Fourth Gospel cer
tainly included in the Memoirs . . .68
Results of recent investigations of this question by :
(a) Thoma
(0) Hilgenfeld
(y) Ezra Abbot
(8) James Drummond
(e) Sanday
(0 Westcott
Consensus of opinion ...... 73
Why did not Justin quote more fully from the
Fourth Gospel? Reasons suggested. Existing
works only fragments ...... 81
B. The Clementines : Now certain that the Fourth
Gospel is quoted in the Homilies. Their probable
date. Importance of their evidence . . .83
C. Valentinus : His date. His importance as a witness.
His followers form two schools :
(a) In the East: the Excerpt a Theodoti and Doc-
trina Orientalis
(j3) In the West : Ptolemseus and Heracleon . 85
Testimony to their works and knowledge of S. John by :
(o) Irenaeus
(/3) Epiphanius
(y) Clement
(8) Origen
(e) Hippolytus .... . 87

XXU CONTENTS.

The testimony of Valentinus to the Fourth Gospel.
The Valentinians a school. The Catholics also a
school. Statements by Irenseus and Tertullian.
Conclusion as to the use of the Fourth Gospel by
the Valentinians ....... 90
D. Marcion : His date. Reason for his rejection of the
Fourth Gospel. The testimony of Tertullian and
Irenseus shows that he was acquainted with it . .93
II. Evidence op the Second Century : The First Genera
tion : —
A. Polycarp : Date of martyrdom . . . . .95
B. Papias : The writings. Testimony of Irenseus to
Papias and Polycarp. His Letter to Florinus.
Testimony of Eusebius to Papias . . . .96
C. Basilides : Probably referred to by Papias. His date,
treated more fully in Lecture VII. . . . 100
Summary : Result of the evidence of the Second Century
in the third, second, and first generations : That the
Fourth Gospel was accepted throughout the Century as
the work of John the Apostle and Evangelist . . 102

LECTURE III.
And . . . many . . . believed . . . because of the word of the
woman, who testified, . . . And many more believed because of his
word ; and they said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of
thy speaking : for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is
indeed the Saviour of the world. — John iv. 39, 41, 42.
I. Facts op the Reception. The Evidence op Sixteen
Centuries.
Fulness of evidence to the use of the Fourth Gospel
in the third and succeeding centuries. Details not
needed, but bird's-eye view . . . 107
A. Evidence of the Third Century :
The Muratorian Fragment. The Versions . . 108

CONTENTS. xxiii TAGE
Eastern Church:
Origen : His division of the sacred writings
Dionysius : His opinion on the Fourth Gospel and
the Apocalypse opposed to that of modern nega
tive criticism
The Apostolical Constitutions .... 109
Western Church :
Evidence of :
(a) Caius
(/3) Hippolytus
(y) Cyprian . . . . HI
B. Evidence of the Fourth and succeeding Centuries :
In the East :
(a) Eusebius
(/3) Cyril of Jerusalem
(y) Athanasius
(8) Didymus
(<r) Gregory of Nazianzus
(0 Amphilochius
(¦q) Epiphanius
(8) Theodore of Mopsuestia
(t) John Chrysostom ..... 112
Period of the Uncial MSS. Survey of the lists,
canons, and councils. Close of Canon in the East.
No doubt as to the Fourth Gospel . . . 120
On the borderland :
(a) Hilary of Poitiers
0) Philaster of Brescia
(y) Rufinus of Aquileia . ... 122
In the West :
(a) Jerome
(/3) Augustine. Close of Canon in the West . 122
The Alogi : an apparent exception to universal
acceptance of the Fourth Gospel. Name appears
first in Epiphanius. They ascribe the Gospel to
Cerinthus. Rejection by Zeller. These supposed
antagonists are really positive evidence . . 123

XXIV CONTENTS.

II. Principles op the Reception.
A . Views now commonly held :
(a) The authority of the Church
(/3) The inner witness
(y) Verbal inspiration
(8) Canons of historical and literary criticism . 127
B. Treatment of the question in the Apostolic age :
Idea of writing excluded. Oral tradition and
writings side by side. Reasons why the early
Church did not provide a Canon of Scripture.
New Testament writings not regarded as ' Scrip
ture.' Examples ...... 140
C. The question in the post- Apostolic age :
Gospels not quoted as Canonical. Johannine influ
ence. Growth of reference to the words of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Constant appeal to the ' Word
of the Lord.' Examples. Individual churches and
writings ........ 142
The idea of a Catholic Church not yet realized.
Heretics the first to quote the Scriptures. Obli
gation, therefore, of the Church to draw up a
Catholic Canon. The Canon a question of
history, not of dogma. Tradition the first for
mative principle. In the third and fourth cen
turies, tradition became one with the sacred Scrip
tures. The Scriptures depend on the Church ;
the Church on the Scriptures .... 146
Testimony of :
(a) Augustine
(j3) Jerome  149
The Canon accepted on the authority of the Church
until the Reformation. Acceptance of the Fourth
Gospel in the Dark Ages ..... 151
D. Altered view of the Scriptures at the Reformation :
Position of :
(a) Bodenstein of Carlstadt
(/3) Luther
(y) Calvin
(8) Zwingli  152

CONTENTS. XXV PAGE
The Council of Trent. The infallibility of Scripture
substituted for the infallibility of the Church.
This infallibility attacked by modern criticism . 155
E. Verbal inspiration a new departure :
Opinions of :
(a) Westcott
(13) Bishop of Carlisle
(y) Newman
(8) Bishop of Amycla
(f) Richard Baxter
(0 Neander  157
Summary: Result of the 'judgment of centuries.' Com
prehension exemplified in width of the induction.
Depth of conviction shown by instances :
(a) Venerable Bede
(13) Bishop Lightfoot . ... 161

LECTURE IV.
Is there a thing rvhereof men say, See, this is neiv ? it hath
been already in tlie ages, which were before us. — Eccles. i. 10.
Criticism of ' Our Age. '
Assertion cannot be accepted as proof, nor yet
originality
Destructive criticism not sufficient. Constructive
demanded ....... 169
A. Evanson :
The Dissonance of the Gospels. The author. The
work, unworthy of the subject .... 174
Replies by :
(a) Priestley
((3) Simpson ....... 176
Survey of German influences at the opening of this
century. The Romanticists and others. Bearing
of these years on the Gospels .... 177

XXVI CONTENTS.

B. Bretschneider :
Life and earlier works  179
The Probabilia. Its purpose and scope. The Johan-
nine discourses largely imaginary. The author not
the Apostle, nor a Palestinian, nor a Jew. The
Gospel sprung from Jewish anti-Christian zeal,
and cannot be supported from the Apocalypse
nor from the Epistles. The Epistles themselves
are not proved to be Johannine, and they
strengthen adverse views about the Gospel. The
external evidences not sufficient. Weight of
opposing internal evidence. The place probably
Egypt. Summary ...... 180
Importance of the book
Bretschneider convinced by replies : His definite
and repeated retractation, ' Question is settled '
Bretschneider's character in the Autobiography . 187
C. Strauss :
Home life. Blaubeuren. Tubingen. Berlin.
Tutor at Tubingen. Influence of Schleiermacher.
The calm of 1834. The storm of 1835 . . 191
The Leben Jesu. The replies. ' Nothing new ' in
the Leben Jesu
Strauss's critical methods. The ' mythical theory. '
Later investigations of myths . . . 194
Position of :
(a) Bunsen
(/3) Ullmann
(y) Baur  196
The Leben Jesu contained no critique of the Gospels
Strauss's incredible uncertainty about John,
described by Baur ......
Strauss's life between the third and fourth editions
of the Leben Jesu
Nomination to Zurich
The fourth edition
The Christliche Glaubenslehre ..... 197
No theological work produced by Strauss in period
1840-64. Agnes Schebest. Strauss in parlia
ment  201

CONTENTS. xxvii PAGE
The new Leben Jesu, 1864. Its scope. Written for
the laity. ' Theologians are the least impartial.'
Renan. Earlier Lives of Jesus. Critique of the
Gospels. The ' Theologian ' clings to the Fourth
Gospel  202
The external evidence :
(a) Its weakness
(13) Papias
(y) The Fourth Gospel itself
(8) Second Epistle of Peter
(e) Ignatius
(f) Justin Martyr
(rj) The Philosophumena ..... 206
The internal evidence :
(a) The Valentinians
(/3) The Montanists
(y) The Clementines
(8) Apolinaris
(e) The Apologists
(C) Theophilus
(if) Irenseus ....... 209
The Alogi : Their tactical mistake in rejecting the
Apocalypse. Summary ..... 211
Strauss returns later to the Johannine question.
His critique is really that of the Tubingen School.
The older work will not fit on this new critique.
Conscious and unconscious fiction. Strauss and
Baur. Re- writing of the theory of myth.
Bruno Bauer. Volkmar. Earlier and later
theories of myth  212
Strauss's disappointment
His view of
(a) Ewald
(/3) Baur
The ' mythical theory ' dead. Myth cannot live
with Design. Renan's theory of legend . . 217
Summary : Strauss makes no substantial addition to the
criticism of the Fourth Gospel  219

XXVUl CONTENTS.

LECTURE V.
And not even so did their witness agree together. — Mark xiv. 59.
I. The New Tubingen School :
A. Baur: FAGE
Evangelical sympathies Influenced by Schleier-
macher and Hegel ...... 223
Work at Blaubeuren and Tubingen
Extent of his literary work. List of books and
shorter writings ....... 225
Baur's method of investigation. Pauline and
Petrine parties. Four Pauline Epistles . . 228
At first took no part in the 'Johannine question,'
but was afterwards convinced that it was a
' tendency-writing.' Application of the principle
to the ' mythical theory ' . ... 230
Combination of results :
Three stages : —
(a) To a.d. 70 : The documents
(S) a.d. 70 to 140: „
(y) From a.d. 140: ,, ,,
The Johannine Gospel . . ... 232
B. Followers of Baur :
Schwegler
Ritschl Hilgenfeld Kostlin
Volkmar Holsten Zeller  234
Baur bound by the Hegelian Left. Development of
philosophy ........ 237
Baur's theory an arch. The arch tested. The
foundations doubted  238

CONTENTS. XXIX PAGE
The workmen questioned :
(a) Volkmar
((3) Hilgenfeld
(y) Ritschl
(8) Holsten
The arch a ruin  240
French writers :
Stap
D'Eichthal  244
German criticism of the Tubingen school :
(a) De Wette
(18) Meyer ... .... 245
II. The Partition Theories :
EckermannAmmonPaulus
Weisse Schenkel
Schweizer Tobler
Ewald Hase Reuss Renan Sabatier Weizsacker Wendt  246
III. The Negative School :
A. German :
KeimHoltzmann, Heinrich
Honig
Thoma Mangold Holtzmann, Oscar  258

XXX CONTENTS. PAGE
B. Dutch :
Scholten  263
C. English :
TaylerAuthor of Supernatural Beligion
Opinions of this work by .
(a) Zahn
(/3) Salmon
Abbott
Davidson .... .... 266
Examination of his works :
The First Introduction.
Dedication. The newer criticism. The author's
position. View of the Fourth Gospel. Conclu
sion as to its authenticity ..... 272
The Second Introduction
Change of view and later opinions on the Fourth
Gospel. Similar treatment of the Acts of the
Apostles. Criticism on this change by Schiirer.
Both views cannot be right. His position between
the two editions . . .... 278
D. The two latest critics :
Martineau His general position ...... 286
Views on :
(a) The unity of composition
(0) Author
(y) External evidence
(8) Internal evidence
(e) The Apocalypse
(£) Paschal controversy
(rj) The ( Marks of Time
(8) The First Epistle  287
Delff  292

CONTENTS. XXXI PAGE
Views of these critics on :
(a) Eye-witness
(0) Unity
(y) Period
(8) Subjective criticism
Compared and found to be diametrically opposed . 293
Conclusion  295

LECTURE VI.
At the mouth of two witnesses or three shall every word be
established. — 2 Cor. xiii. 1.
I. Introduction :
Schleiermacher :
His position, influence and character. His writ
ings. Free treatment of the New Testament.
Special views on the Fourth Gospel. Johannine
authorship upheld throughout .... 299
Neander :
Change of name from Mendel to Neander. Special
qualifications. His Life of Jesus, and Lectures on
S. John  304
De Wette :
Early essays. His character and life. Liberal views.
The Johannine question. His Introduction and
Commentary ........ 307
Liicke :
The Berlin group. The Commentary. The religious
sense. Acquaintance with the newer theories.
Result of his criticism  310
Bleek :
Estimate of his powers. Earlier writings. The
Beitrage. The Introduction ..... 313

XXXII CONTENTS. PAGE
Bunsen :
Arnold's opinion of him. Fourth Gospel a ' cardinal
point' ......... 315
Ebrard :
Writings on the subject. Strong views on the Fourth
Gospel and on negative criticism .... 317
Tholuck and Hengstenberg :
Their influence and weight of opinion. Commentaries
on S. John  318
Meyer :
Wide range of work and time. Review of the nega
tive criticism. Delight in Luther's testimony . 319
Lechler :
His works. Doctrinal forms prove Johannine author
ship. Change of view. Intellectualism. Abides by
view of S. John  321
Weiss :
His works. Johannine authorship maintained
throughout. Summary of his conclusions . . 323
Luthardt :
His works devoted to the Johannine question.
Results  326
Godet :
His Commentary on S. John. Conviction by impres
sion and by scientific study ..... 328
Beyschlag :
His writings. Result of his examination of Baur's
theory  329
Zahn :
His independence. The History of the Canon. The
Fourth Gospel  330
Franke :
His Old Testament in John. Scope of work. Johan
nine type of doctrine. Form of the writing.
The author a Hebrew-speaking Jew of the first
century  332

CONTENTS. xxxiii
. PAGE
Other writers who hold the positive view :
The value of their testimony  334
Four English names reserved for special treatment :
Character of the witnesses :
(a) Bishop Lightfoot
(0) Bishop Westcott
(y) Salmon
(8) Sanday  337
Their position unnoticed by many Continental critics :
Examples :
(a) Bleek
(0) Weiss
(y) Meyer  342
Their evidence :
Bishop Lightfoot's : The school of S. John in the
second century ....... 343
Bishop Westcott's : Internal evidence. External evi
dence. All evidence points in one direction . . 345
Salmon's : The Gospel and First Epistle by the
same writer. Date. External evidence. Conditions
of authorship met only by S. John .... 346
Sanday's: Advance of positive evidence. Internal
evidence. One key only fits the wards . . . 348
Conclusion :
Personality. Anonymity
Evidence largely a question of reputation
Requisites in a witness ...... 350

XXXIV

CONTENTS.

LECTURE VII.
Therefore every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom
of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder^ which bringeth forth
out of his treasure thmgs new and old. — Matt. xiii. 52. PAGE
I. Discoveries op 'Our Age.'
Statement of subject. Width of inquiry . . .357
A. Villemain's search expedition. Discoveries of Mynas.
The Philosophumena edited by Miller . . . 359
Discussion of the authorship :
Views held by :
(a) Jacobi
(0) Duncker and Schneidewin
(y) Bunsen
(8) Lommatzsch
(e) Von Dollinger
(0 Cruice
(r;) Baur and Fessler
Consensus of opinion in favour of Hippolytus . . 361
Importance of the discovery
Which is the true Basilides 1
Critics generally prefer Hippolytus. Exceptions.
Opinions of :
(a) Hort
(0) Renan
This conclusion independent of any view of the Fourth
Gospel ........ 364
But this Basilides contains clear quotations from the
Gospel. Meaning of <p-qcrLv.
Critical opinions of :
(a) Bunsen
(0) Keim
(y) Renan
(8) Arnold  . 368

CONTENTS. XXXV PAGE
B. The Clementine Homilies :
Dressel's discovery. Quotation now admitted on all
sides. Zeller's unfortunate assertion . . . 373
C. Tatian's Diatessaron .
The modern discovery
Reference to the work by
(a) Eusebius
(0) Epiphanius
Not known in the Western Church .... 375
Known in the Syrian Church and written in Syriac
Homilies of Aphrahat
Doctrine of Addai
Theodoret
Bar-SalibiThe Mechitarist Fathers
MosingerEzra Abbot
Wace
Zahn's restoration of the text
Older than the Curetonian Syriac
Result stated by Harnack
Arabic MSS. in the Vatican and in Egypt, edited by
Ciasca
Importance of the discovery ..... 380
D. The Martyrdom of Polycarp :
Older view a.d. 167. The key
Usher, Pearson and others
Letronne and Borghesi
Waddington decides for Feb. 23, a.d. 155
General acceptance of this result
Bishop Lightfoot's investigations confirm it
Importance of this date ...... 387
E. The Heads against Caius :
Commentary of Bar-Sallbi
Gwynn on Hippolytus and Caius. Both accepted
the Fourth Gospel  , . 392

XXXVI CONTENTS. PAGE
F. No discoveries oppose the Johannine authorship
Fragments of Papias do not oppose but support it
Weight of this negative proof  393
II. Reinvestigation of Materials.
A. The Ignatian Epistles :
Bishop Lightfoot convinced on investigation
Zahn's statement of the change. Result
Still fresh materials confirm the view
Harnack's judgment
Date of the Epistles
Johannine quotations about a.d. 110
Other contemporary writings ..... 395
B. Epistle of Polycarp :
Harnack's view
Importance of the Letter
Silence of Eusebius
Syriac version of Eusebius. Cureton. Dindorf.
Wright
Armenian version. Merx
Syriac Apology  402
Conclusion :
No body of negative criticism which is not self-
destructive
The positive is to the negative criticism as 5 = ac
Suggestions of author other than S. John, valueless
The river of the past strengthened in the present . 409

CONTENTS. xxxvii

LECTURE VIII.
Many other signs tlierefore did. Jesus in the presence of his
disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written,
that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and
that believing ye may have life in his name. — John xx. 30, 31. PAGE
I. Results prom Earlier Lectures.
The 'judgment of centuries ' confirmed by ' our age.'
The Fourth Gospel accepted as the Gospel according
to S. John
Inspiration is of the essence, not of the form
The vessel is not, the contents are, divine . . . 417
II. This Discussion not merely an Apologia.
The Fourth Gospel the treasure of humanity
Danger of missing it ...... 419
III. Different Forms op the One Gospel.
Such differences necessary in a Revelation from God
to man
Fundamental differences between the Fourth Gospel
and the Synoptics
This expressed by :
(a) Bretschneider
(0) Renan  421
IV. The Fourth Gospel is a Tendency-writing, and claims
to be so.
The three-fold purpose stated. Baur
Difference in form admitted. Details not essential
and may be here passed over. The difference as a
whole is essential, and therefore the subject of
inquiry ......... 422
V. The Key to the Form op the Gospel lies in Translation,
which is necessary to the Johannine Authorship.
A. Realization of the Apostle's position : . . . 426

XXXVlll CONTENTS.

Life in Ephesus :
(a) The Church
(0) The concourse of peoples
(y) The sects of philosophy. The East. The
West. Philo. The cult of Diana
(8) The city
The Apostle's work and teaching. The close of life.
Natural desire for a record ..... 427
B. The traditional account of the origin of the Gospel :
The circle of disciples and friends
The work, if Johannine, necessarily Ephesian
Example : The doctrine of the Logos . . . 438
C. Translation explains the uniform tone of thought and
expression, and the opposing views of critics :
No human view expresses the fulness of the Divine . 442
VI. Translation a Question for all Time.
The problem of to-day
A nineteenth-century Ephesus
Relation of Universities to this problem
Army waiting for leaders. Difficulty of the task.
Only leaders can lead. Leaders must lead . . 444
VII. Practical Hints for Younger Hearers.
A. Characteristics of present-day thought : Law and prin
ciple. Scientific laws not ultimate . . 453
B. The Fourth Gospel and our present ' laws ' :
No plea for the temporary expressions of theology
or science ........ 456
The immensity of nature. The ultimate explana
tion. Scientific leaders have no word to speak :
(a) Herbert Spencer
(0) Tyndall
(y) Darwin
(8) Clifford
(f) Asa Gray  458

CONTENTS. xxxix

' Origination ' the essential thing
Answer of the Fourth Gospel
The Incarnation the only explanation of existence . 460
C. Modern ethical science :
The categorical imperative
Illustrations in modern University life and work
The true principle. Illustrations
The shadow of Christ. Altruism .... 461
D. Agnosticism :
Its attractiveness. Reasons
(a) Modern use of term
(0) S. Paul's
(y) S. John's  465
Intellectual agnosticism necessarily true
Conclusion without premises. Examples
Agnosticism is the assertion of faith
The Fourth Gospel is a Gospel of faith, and appeals
to the faculty of faith
Lessons for the individual ...... 467

LEGTUEE I
THE 'JUDGMENT OP CENTURIES'
THE SECOND CENTURY: THIRD GENERATION

¦ IL FAUT SAVOIR DOUTER OU |L FAUT, ASSURER OU IL FAUT, ET SE
SOUMETTRE OU IL FAUT; QUI NE FAIT AINSI N'ENTEND PAS LA FORCE
DE LA RAISON. Pascal.

LECTURE I.
For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.
2 Cor. xiii. 8.
The subject on which I propose to speak in the introduc-
present course of lectures is ' Modern Criticism.' It subject
was suggested by a remark of the late Dr. Keim, stated:
which expresses, in the deliberate words of a man
who was as reverent as he was learned, the conviction
that ' Our age has cancelled the judgment of cen
turies.' l Others have expressed and have accepted,
sometimes with little reverence and with little learn
ing, similar opinions ; and there has grown up
around us — in the drawing-room, indeed, rather than
in the lecture-room, in the magazine and in the novel,
rather than in the serious and responsible treatise, in
the characters of fiction and of anonymous writers,
rather than in the persons of scholars of established
reputation — a method of thinking, or at least of say
ing, that these opinions are ascertained truths which
must with fuller knowledge gain general acceptance.
Dr. Keim's statement was made with special Modem
reference to the Fourth Gospel ; and for this reason, cn 101sm
1 ' Es ist unser Jahrhundert, Jesu von Nazara, 1867, i. pp. 103
welches das Urtheil der Jahr- sq. English Translation, 1873, i.
hunderte kassirt hat.' Geschichte p. 142. b 2

4 LECTURE I.
and the as well as because the Fourth Gospel has been made
Gospel. the central position upon which the forces of modern
criticism have been directed, and because it stands
out pre-eminently among the treasures of the New
Testament writings, I propose to confine our atten
tion to this chief problem of present-day thought.
Thus limited, our subject becomes ' Modern Criticism
considered in its relation to the Fourth Gospel.'
Further limitations will be imposed by the scope of
this course of ' lecture -sermons,' and it will be found
necessary, in order that your patience may not be
unduly taxed, to add in notes, details and refer
ences in support of the principles which will be
submitted.
Divisions The method of examination is marked out for
subject: us m *ne terms of the subject. The first step will
be to ascertain what, as a matter of fact, the ' judg-
The'judg- ment of centuries ' on the Fourth Gospel is. With
ment of . , ^
centuries,' this end m view, the dawn of real knowledge in
the last quarter of the second century will be a
convenient starting-point, from which we may look
backwards into the twilight of the preceding decades,
and forwards into the history of sixteen centuries.
Three short lectures will not allow us to take more
than the most cursory review of these periods ; but
of the time at our command this may be considered
a sufficient proportion. It will be the less necessary
for us to enter into fuller detail, as the position of
the Fourth Gospel in the second century has been
the subject of much recent examination ; and the

LECTURE I. 5
histor}'- of the sixteen centuries which follow is for
the most part a history of unquestioned acceptance.
After arriving at an estimate of what the 'judg- « our age.'
ment of centuries ' is, we shall be in a position ta
inquire how far ' our age ' has cancelled it. For the
purpose of this inquiry, and with the limits laid
down for it, ' our age ' dates from the close of the
last century ; and I propose to devote two lectures
to an examination of the negative positions which
have been asserted during this period. The names
Evanson, Bretschneider, Strauss, Baur, Hase, Weisse,
Ritschl, Keim, Scholten, Loman, Renan, will for the
present sufficiently indicate the course which this
examination is intended to take ; and it will probably
be found convenient to make the divisions which are
demanded by a system of lectures, so as in the
fourth lecture to take the period from Evanson to
Strauss, and in the fifth, the work of Baur with the
school which this master created. One lecture, at
least, must be given to a brief sketch of the work of
positive criticism, and one to the additions which have
been made to our actual knowledge by the discovery
and investigation of MSS. and other fresh materials.
An opportunity will then be left for a concluding
lecture, in which we may consider the influence
which modern thought should have on our concep
tions of the Fourth Gospel.
Many who hear me will know well, that the width of
plan which is thus roughly marked out embraces a mqmiy-
wide field of inquiry, in which views, differing from

6 LECTURE I.
each other by every degree of difference, and crossing
each other at every conceivable angle, have been put
forward with the claim for each that it alone could
represent the truth. Some writers, indeed, have
looked so exclusively to the origin of their own
theories, and along the line of their own investi
gations, as to believe not only that all other theories
and results are wrong, but that their authors must
have been blinded by prejudice, or have even con
sciously and deliberately chosen error. Now con
traries may both be wrong, and of contradictories one
cannot be right ; but it does not follow that the
holder of either one or the other is not perfectly
Tone of sincere. From a man's antecedents and position we
sion: may know what general value to put upon his
judgment, and may in special cases feel bound to
discount it ; but we have no right to impute motives
to him, or to brand him with names which he would
be unwilling to apply to himself. We have heard
more than enough — and painful has it been to hear—
of ' counsels for creeds,' of ' ecclesiastical bigotry,' of
' professional convictions.' ' Mr. Wendover,' it will
be remembered, ' in spite of his philosophy, had never
been proof all his life against an anti-clerical instinct
worthy almost of a Paris municipal councillor.' 2 We
have heard also more than enough— and painful indeed
has it been to hear — of ' advocates of atheism,' of ' criti
cism made subservient to party,' of ' light rejected in
the interests of darkness.' A divine Judge speaking
2 Bobert Elsmere, vol. ii. p. 243.

LECTURE I.

with the certainty of omniscience can say, ' Ye love
darkness rather than light, because your deeds are evil ; '
but human ignorance should judge no man. Human
charity will believe all things, and even when it
cannot believe, will hope all things ; and if there is
no room left even for hope, it will endure all things.
But in our own generation it has strangely come Anti-theo-
to pass, that in questions of biblical and theological prejudice.
knowledge, one who holds the views which have
been held, and are held, by mankind at large, especi
ally if he holds them so strongly that he thinks it
his duty to give up all else that he may teach them,
and if he has devoted the best years of his life and
the best thoughts of his mind to the study of them,
is supposed to be ipso facto disqualified to judge of
them. A truth is thought to be less certainly true
because it is held by a man who is ready, if need be,
to die for it, or — and the martyrdom is far more real
— is ready to live for it ; while a man is often
supposed to be specially qualified to judge of alleged
truths which he has hardly examined, because he
thinks them a priori to be impossible, or because he
has attained eminence in a wholly distinct region of
inquiry.3 To deny that a miracle has happened or
can happen — that is, to deny that there is a divine
Being, or that He has revealed or can reveal Him
self to man — is a strange qualification, but it has been
widely accepted as a real one, by which a man is
fitted to judge without bias, of the authenticity or
3 See opinion of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Lecture VI. p. 298.

8 LECTURE I.
historic truth of a writing which asserts that miracles
have occurred, and that God has revealed Himself to
man. To have held, and to have ceased to hold, a
public position as a teacher in the Christian Church,
to have passed through all the throes of a crisis in
faith, is a strange qualification by which a man is
fitted to judge, without feeling or prejudice, of the
new and fuller evidence of one of the sacred writings
of the Church ; but this is the position of many of
the leaders of the negative criticism with which we
shall have to deal — the position of Evanson, of
Strauss, of M. Renan, of Dr. Davidson.
m. Kenan. M. Renan tells us, in a well-known passage, how
acnroma- he had learnt from Descartes
that the first condition for discovering truth is to be free from
all party. The eye must be completely achromatic if it is to
find truth in philosophy or politics or morals.4
But is the eye completely achromatic to be
attained ? Is not the extreme delicacy of the optic
organs in danger of being injured in the effort
to attain it? Has not blindness rather than
clearness of vision been sometimes the result ? If
complete mental achromatism, in despite of all laws
of heredity and environment, were attainable, would
those who could attain it be better fitted to see truth,
or is the pure light of truth the result of the harmony
of complex views, as the pure light of physical
vision is the harmony of all the colours of the rain
bow ? Has the eye of the animal world, in all the
' Souvenirs d'Enfanae et de Jeunesse, 1883, p. 285.

tism.

LECTURE I. 9
gradations of genera and species, in all the width
and variety of time, place, climate, light, atmosphere,
temperature, been adapted to the exact object of its
vision, and has the mental eye, in similar width and
variety of conditions, been adapted not to clearness
but to confusion, not to truth but to prej udice ? Has
it come to be that the primary condition of seeing
truth in this nineteenth century is to break with all
the training of the past, to declare the years of child
hood and receptivity, the years of youth and educa
tion, the existence of schools and universities, a fatal
mistake in the economy of the human race ? Is the
untrained eye of the untutored savage more to be
trusted in the use of the complicated instruments of
our modern knowledge, than the skilled eye of the
observatory or the museum ? That M. Renan does
not mean this, is clear from more than one passage
of his writings. In the preface to the book from
which I have quoted, for example, he asserts that
The true men of progress are those who have for their start
ing point a profound respect for the past.5
That his own effort to secure the achromatic eye
which can find truth, is not an example that would
induce us to follow him, is seen from the fact that,
upon the subject of our present thoughts, he has in
different works, and in different editions of the same
work, so often changed his opinion, that one is
tempted to think that the mind may itself indeed
be colourless, but, like the chameleon, assuming
6 Souvenirs, ut supra, Preface, p. xxii.

10 LECTURE I.
the colour of the tree upon which it is for the
moment resting. That the attempt to divest the
mind of every tinge of feeling, to make it necessary
to scoop out the emotions before admission to the
order of critics, as it was necessary to pluck out
the will before admission to the order of Jesuits,
may result in paralysis of the muscles of our moral
nature, and unman the man who is trying to be
manly, appears from such words as the following : —
For myself, when people deny these fundamental dogmas,
I have a strong desire to believe them; when they affirm
them, unless it be in good verse, I am seized with invincible
doubt.6
This But that the attainment of the purely achromatic
achroma- .
tismim- mental eye is as a matter or tact impossible, is a
commonplace of every-day life which is illustrated
in the whole history of literature. I take some in
stances from English books which happen to lie close
to my hand ; and if I devote what may seem an
undue proportion of our time to this part of the sub
ject, it is because it lies at the root not only of the
present lecture, but also of those which are to
follow.
sir James Sir James Mackintosh is ordinarily supposed to
IVT3 pic- -¦
iniosh, be a philosophical historian of calm and excellent
judgment. He has occasion to refer to the works
of Sir Henry Vane, and does so in the following
terms : —
6 Seance de VAcademie Fran- de M. Pasteur. Beponse de M.
gaise du 27 Avril 1882. Discours Benan, p. 41.

LECTURE I. 11
Sir Henry Vane was one of the most profound minds
that ever existed, not inferior, perhaps, to Bacon. His works
which are theological display astonishing powers. They are
remarkable as containing the first direct assertion of liberty
of conscience.7 Sir Henry Vane, when seen through the mind of David
the historian David Hume, appears in the light
which follows : —
This man, so celebrated for his parliamentary talents, and
for his capacity in business, has left some writings behind
him : They treat, all of them, of religious subjects, and are
absolutely unintelligible : No tra.ces of eloquence, or even of
common sense, appear in them. A strange paradox ! did we
not know, that men of the greatest genius, where they relin
quish by principle the use of their reason, are only enabled,
by their vigour of mind, to work themselves the deeper into
error and absurdity.8
It is a little difficult to realize that it is the same
man and the same works ; and yet Sir James
Mackintosh proposed to continue the ' History of
England by David Hume.'
This example is from Dr. Hawkesworth's Ad- tu Ad
venturer,
venturer : —
Two men examining the same question proceed commonly
like the physician and gardener in selecting herbs, or the
farmer and hero looking on the plain ; they bring minds
impressed with different motions, and direct their inquiries
7 North American Beview, Oct. Cromwell, ii. p. 6. Hosmer, Life
1832 ; Report by A. H. Everett of young Sir Henry Vane, 1888,
of a conversation between him- pp. 492 sq.
self and Mackintosh in London, 8 History of Great Britain,
in 1817. Cf. Carlyle's deprecia- 1757, ii. 152.
tory estimate of Vane in his

12 LECTURE I.
to different ends ; they form, therefore, contrary conclusions,
and each wonders at the other's absurdity.9
•Cowardly This is the conclusion of a recent essay on what
cism,* the writer calls ' Cowardly Agnosticism ' : —
I have now gone through the whole case for duty and for
religion, as stated by the Agnostic school, and have shown
that, as thus stated, there is no case at all. I have shown
their arguments to be so shallow, so irrelevant, and so con
tradictory, that they never could have imposed themselves on
the men who condescend to use them, if these men, upon
utterly alien grounds, had not pledged themselves to the con
clusion which they invoke the arguments to support.1
Mr. Mark The late Mr. Mark Pattison stood before us as
Pattison, the very ideal of a man who had snapped asunder
every fetter of prejudice. We had forgotten, until
we were lately reminded of it, that he was the trans
lator of Thomas Aquinas's Catena Aurea on S.
Matthew's Gospel,2 and that he at one time lived in
terror of what would become of him if he died out
side the pale of the church of Rome.3 To some of us
at least he seemed to move in a higher atmosphere of
calm and severe reason, and had Oxford men been
asked to think of one who had attained the achromatic
mental eye, his name would have come unbidden
to many minds ; but this is how his collected
Essays strike a really able reviewer, whose right to
speak can hardly be unknown : —
If he fails, as he often seems to us to do, in the justice
and balance of his appreciation of the phenomena before him,
9 Adventurer, No. 107, Nov. Beview, April 1889, p. 551.
13, 1753. = Oxford, 1841.
1 W. H. Mallock, Fortnightly ' Memoirs, 1885, pp. 221-2.

LECTURE I. 13
if his statements and generalisations are crude and extrava
gant, it is that passion and deep aversions have overpowered
the natural accuracy of his faculty of judgment. . . . We
hear of people being spoilt by their prepossessions, their
party, their prejudices, the necessities of their political and
ecclesiastical position. Mr. Pattison is a warning that a
man may claim the utmost independence, and yet be maimed
in his power of being just and reasonable by other things
than party.4
While this reviewer was writing these words, an- Fort-
other was writing on the Great Missionary Success as lieviei,
follows : —
' Les prejuges,' it has been said, ' sont la defroque des
gens d'esprit,' and, indeed, prejudices, judging by the
general unwillingness to part from them, even when they are
quite worn out, seem to be as comfortable wear as old
clothes. With all of us, the accidents of early association,
the chances of relationship, are sufficient to make us accept
unquestioningly and hold tenaciously opinions for which we
have not the slightest ground.5
Yes : Pope is right — ¦ Pope.
'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.6
Dean Stanley, in his essay on The Creed of the Friendly
Early Christians, introduces a series of quotations verse
the matter of which does not affect the present ques- W1 ^e
tion, with the following formulas : —
It is not the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, it is
Matthew Arnold, who affirms, —
4 Guardian, May 1, 1889, p. view, May 1889, p. 677.
685. 6 Essay on Criticism, part i.
5 Lady Dilke, Fortnightly Be- lines 9, 10.

14 LECTURE I.
Dean It is not Bishop Lightfoot, it is the author of ' Super-
Stanley. natural Religion,' who asserts —
It is not Lord Shaftesbury, it is the author of ' Ecce
Homo,' who says, —
It is no Bampton lecturer, it is John Stuart Mill, who
says,— It is not Lacordaire, it is Benan, who affirms, — 7
Now these formulte show that the force of a
statement was in the opinion of Dean Stanley the
stronger, because it was not made by a person wdio
would naturally have been expected to make it, but
by one whose general habit of thought was in the
opposite direction, and by whom the opposite would
have been stated, if it could have been stated by any
one.8 And no one questions that in a large degree it
is so ; but the superior validity of evidence which
arises simply from the fact that it comes from an
adverse witness, may be more than balanced by the
superior knowledge of a friendly witness, or by his
consciousness of the enormous stake which is at issue
both for others and for himself, and his consequent
painful anxiety to state the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. Few who have followed
the whole course of the controversy will be prepared
to admit, that a statement favourable to Christianity
would, if made by the author of Supernatural Beli-
7 Christian Institutions, 1882, 8 Cf. Whateley, Elements of
cap. xiv. pp. 273 sq. Bhetoric, 1846, ed. 7, p. 64.

LECTURE I. 15
gion, be stronger than one made by Bishop Light
foot. The real question which lies at the root of an Advocate
inquiry such as we are undertaking is, Are we in the
spirit of our text, and without influence of purpose
or fear of result, seekers after truth ? Do we plead
as advocates, or weigh evidence as judges ? An
advocate is from his very position one-sided ; a judge
should be impartial : an advocate will present and
make prominent all the facts and arguments which
tell in favour of his own contention, and will sup
press or keep in the background, as far as he
honourably can, all which are opposed to it ; a
judge should take care that the facts on both sides
are equally present to his mind, and that nothing
which is important to the result shall be passed over
or unfairly dealt with. Now no one who realizes the
true issues in any question which affects Christianity,
or the position of one of its sacred books, could pos
sibly assume the character of an advocate unless it
were for the purpose of establishing the truth. I
shall not venture to state at this moment, but I hope Position of
„ . . aBampton
the statement will assert itself before these lectures Lecturer.
shall be concluded, that a Bampton Lecturer, if
indeed an advocate, is one who pleads in the temple
of truth, and before a Judge to Whom the secrets of
the thoughts of the heart are known. ' We can do
nothing against the truth, but for the truth.' He
has perhaps little right to complain if he is some
times supposed to be merely ' a counsel for creeds.'
The conclusions at which his investigations will

16 LECTURE I.
arrive are more or less fully known before they
are completed. If they are not such as can be with
propriety expressed in ' Divinity Lecture Sermons,'
in accord with ' the last will and testament of the
late Rev. John Bampton,' he has no right to deliver
them on this Foundation. But he may urge, that
no man is compelled to be Bampton Lecturer, and
that no man would accept the office if the honest
results of his own investigations were not in accord
ance with the conditions imposed. It is indeed con
ceivable that the more complete examination of his
subject may lead him to conclusions which are incon
sistent with the will of the Founder, but in that case
his duty would be clear. Upon the altar of truth
everything must be sacrificed: traditional beliefs,
friendships, office, position, prospects, everything.
Sacrificed ? Yes ; but it is only in the sacrifice that
the offerer knows what the chief blessing of life really
is. Sacrificed? Yes ; but 'the truth shall make you
free ' : —
Truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth, that the
Inquiry of Truth, which is the Love-making or Wooing of it ;
the Knowledge of Truth, which is the Presence of it ; and the
Belief of Truth, which is the enjoying of it ; is the Sovereign
Good of human Nature.9
I make no claim then to enter upon my subject
without definite convictions upon it, nor do I claim
freedom from the bias which necessarily accompanies
definite convictions, and from which I believe no
9 Bacon's Essays : 1, Of Truth.

LECTURE I. 17
man, and least of all the .discoverer of a new theory,
or the possessor of the completely achromatic eye,
to be free ; but I claim nevertheless to enter upon
it with the one purpose of seeking the truth, and
helping my younger brethren to seek it : —
Aufrichtig zu seyn kann ich versprechen : unparteiisch
zu seyn aber nicht.1
The first question which has been marked out for Evidence
inquiry is the evidence for the reception of the Fourth second
Gospel which is furnished by the second century; c"ILll>
and in examining a question which is admittedly
made difficult by the scantiness of the remnants of
literature which have come down to us, it will be
simpler to pass from the more known to the less
known, and to trace the lines of investigation back
wards. The main lines have during these later years
been sufficiently disclosed by the labours of many
eminent scholars, prominent among whom are Bishop
Lightfoot and our own Professor of Exegesis, the
Cambridge Professors Westcott and Hort, and the
Cambridge editor of Irenaeus the late Mr. Wigan
Harvey, Dr. Salmon of Dublin, Dr. Charteris of
Edinburgh, the too little known and too early lost
Dr. Ezra Abbot of Harvard ; and, on the Continent,
Drs. Baur, Credner, Schwegler, Von Otto, Oehler,
Ronsch, Hilgenfeld, Schtirer, Weizsacker, Lipsius,
Zahn, and Harnack. But almost every day sheds
its new side-lights on these mvestigations, and of
1 Goethe, Ethisches, 3te Abtheil.

18 LECTURE I.
some of them I hope to speak in a future lecture.
For our immediate purpose it will be sufficient to deal
with the main facts in the presence of these lights ;
and the facts may be conveniently grouped in three
periods, corresponding with the three generations of
human life at the end, the middle, and the beginning
of the century.
The third We will, in the first place, then, inquire of the
generation which lived towards the close of the
second century.

genera tion :

chmch of Irenaeus is the most important person in the
yons. iiLerary history of the Gospels. He stands at the
LreriEeus, J •> *¦
fi.m-189. very dawn of the period when this history emerged
from twilight into clear day ; and it is as certain that
the Fourth Gospel existed in substantially the same
form as that in which we now possess it, in the days
of Irenaeus, as that it exists in our present English
His work Bibles. We know moreover without doubt that
Gjiostt Irenaeus succeeded the venerable Pothinus in the
episcopal see of Lyons in the year a.d. L77 or 178.
His great work 2 against Gnosticism was probably
written during the early years of his episcopate, about
a.d. 180-185. The five books of which the work
is composed were not all issued at the same time ; but
the date of the third book, which is our most impor
tant witness, is roughly fixed by the statement that
2 "Ekcyxos Ka\ avaTponr/ rijj npo? ras alpco-eis, Contra Hxreses,
tytvoampox) yvao'ecos which is com- or Kara aipiaeav, Adversus Hsereses
monly quoted by the shorter title or Adversus Hsereticos.

cism

LECTURE I. 19
Eleutherus, the twelfth from the Apostles, was then
bishop of Rome. It was in any case therefore not
later than a.d. 189, and not earlier than a.d. 174 or
175.3 Now in this third book, Irenaeus not only His use of
quotes largely from the Fourth Gospel as he does else- Gospel"
where, but he also tells us in the most definite terms
that John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned
on His breast, put forth his Gospel while he abode in
Ephesus in Asia ; 4 that in the course of preaching
this faith, John, the disciple of the Lord, being
desirous by the preaching of the Gospel to remove
the error which Cerinthus had been sowing among
men, and long before him those who are called Nico-
laitans5 .... began the instruction which his Gospel
contains ; that the school of Valentinus made very
full use of the Gospel of John, and were from that
very Gospel shown to be wholly in error ; 6 and he
seeks to demonstrate by the fanciful analogy with the
four regions and the four winds and the four faces
of the Cherubim, the four forms of the living crea
tures,7 the four covenants, that there could be only
four Gospels ; and that the Gospel according to
S. John, which he places first in order, answers to
the character of the lion, which is the first living
3 Cf. Lipsius, Chronologie der natural Beligion, pp. 260 sqq.
BSmischen Bischbfe, pp. 184 sqq. ; 4 Adv. Hser. lib. iii. cap. i. § 1 ;
article Irenseus in Smith and ed. Harvey, torn. ii. p. 6.
Wace's Dictionary of Christian 5 Ibid. cap. x. § 1 ; ibid. p. 40.
Biography, iii. pp. 253 sqq. ; and 6 Lbid. cap. xi. § 7 ; ibid. p. 46.
Bishop Lightfoot, Essays on Super- 7 Rev. iv. 7. c 2

20 LECTURE 1.
creature, and is full of confidence, and therefore tells
in its openirig words of the princely and glorious
birth from the Father.8
The fact of the acceptance of the Fourth Gospel
by Irenaeus and by both Catholics and Gnostics of his
time, is placed then beyond any possible question.
church of While Irenaeus was thus presiding over the see
dria: of Lyons, and defending it from the Valentinian
auto's neresy which had invaded the valley of the Rhone,
Hisorigin, Titus Flavius Clemens, who was probably an Athenian
teachers, by birth, and was widely read in the philosophy and
literature of Greece, had passed, as he himself tells
us,9 from his other teachers in Greece and Italy and
Asia Minor and Palestine to his true master, last in
order but first in power, whom he found hidden in
Egypt. This was almost certainly Pantaenus who
was head of the catechetical school at Alexandria.
Clement became under his influence a presbyter,
and, after probably acting for a time as his assist
ant, succeeded him, and was eminent as the great
Alexandrian teacher for a period which cannot be
determined with certainty, but probably rather more
than covered the last decade of the second century.
His Origen was among his distinguished pupils, and per
haps Hippolytus learned of him as well as of Irenaeus.
Now Clement naturally asks no question and has no
doubt about the Fourth Gospel. He names the series
8 Loc. cit. cap. xi. § 8 ; ut supra, Klotz, torn. ii. p. 9. Cf. Eusebius,
pp. 47 sq. Hist. Eccles. v. 11.
9 Stromateis, i. 1. § 11 ; ed.

pupils.

LECTURE I. 21
and nationality of his teachers in order to lay stress
upon the fact, that these men ' preserved the tradition
of doctrine directly from the holy Apostles Peter,
James, John, and Paul, son receiving it from father
— though few were like their fathers — until by God's
will the seeds of truth from ancestors and Apostles
came unto them.'1 He tells us again how John, John and
writing after the other Evangelists, and perceiving tuai Spm
that the external facts had been set forth by them, Gospel-
being divinely influenced by the Spirit and encouraged
by his friends, composed a spiritual Gospel.2 In
another place Clement declines to give credence to an
apocryphal statement which was made on the autho
rity of the gospel of the Egyptians — and the passage
is of wider importance in the history of the Canon
and in the question of Clement's use of apocryphal
writings, than the inference which we are now de
riving from it — on the definite ground that it was
not to be found in the four Gospels which had been
handed down.3
The well-known story of John and the youth who
was captured by the robber band, is introduced by
the statement that it is a story, or rather that it is a
real record of John the Apostle, which was preserved
in the memory and handed down ; and that the
Apostle, after the death of the tyrant, had returned
from Patmos to Ephesus, and had gone to the heathen
regions in the neighbourhood, here appointing bishops,
1 Stromateis, ut supra. 3 Stromateis, iii. 13, § 93 ; ed.
2 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vi. 14. Klotz, torn. ii. p. 266.

22 LECTURE I.
there founding new churches, in a third place setting
apart for the ministry those who were chosen by
the Holy Spirit.4
The frequent use by Clement of individual
passages in the Fourth Gospel is unquestioned.
In the Exhortation to the Heathen, he quotes each
of the Gospels, and SS. Matthew, Luke, and John
frequently, but he mentions only S. John by name.5
churches Tertullian is almost , an unknown person, apart
of Rome .. . . .
and Car- from his writings and from the impression which
Tertullian ^nese "writings have produced upon the thought and
c 150-210. language of both the Church and individuals.
His posi- But what an impression it has been ! ' Give me the
tion as a t .
writer. Master, was the formula with which Cyprian, bishop
of Tertullian's native town, asked for his works
which he read daily.6 ' What can exceed the learning,
what the perception of Tertullian ? ' asks Jerome, and
he finds answer to his own question : ' His Apology
and his treatises against the heathen embrace all the
erudition of the age.' 7 And in our own day a master

4 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iii. 877. Cf. ' Et beatus Cyprianus
23. Tertulliano magistro utitur, ut
5 Protreptikos, § 59 ; ed. Klotz, ejus scripta probant ; quumque
torn. i. p. 52. eruditi et ardentis viri delectetur
6 ' . . . referreque sibi solitum ingenio, Montanum cum eo Maxi-
nunquam Cyprianum absque Ter- millamque non sequitur.' Ibid.
tulliani lectione unum diem prae- torn. i. p. 519-20.
terisse, ac sibi crebro dicere, Da ' ' Quid Tertulliano eruditius,
Magistrum : Tertullianum vide- quid acutius ? Apologeticus ejus,
licet significans.' Jerome, De Viris et contra Gentes libri, cunctam
illustribus, cap. liii. ; ed. Bene- saeculiobtinent disciplinary' Ibid.
diet., Verona, 1735, torn. ii. p. torn. i. p. 427.

LECTURE I. 23
of both thought and style calls him ' the most
powerful writer of the early centuries.' 8
We shall certainly be not far from right, if we His train-
place his life at from the middle of the second to ing'
about the third or fourth decade of the third cen
tury, that is from about a.d. 150 or 160 to a.d. 230-
240. We know further that he was born at Carthage,
and that he was a convert from heathenism ; and his
skill in argument, his judicial power of estimating
evidence, and his use of legal terms, all suggest what
is in itself likely in the case of the son of a captain of
a Roman legion, that he was trained for official, per
haps legal employment. Carthage and Rome are the
only centres in which we find traces of his life and
work as a layman, as a presbyter, as a Catholic, as
a Montanist. Eusebius tells us that, in addition to
his general eminence, he was specially distinguished
among the chief men of Rome ; and that his Apology,
which wras written for Roman Christians, was also
translated into Greek.9 Tertullian himself tells us
incidentally, when speaking of the value of gems
depending only on their rarity, of his own presence
at Rome.1 Jerome moreover accounts for his lapse
to Montanism by the treatment which he received
at the hands of the Roman clergy ; 2 but it was
8 Cardinal Newman, Tracts rumque gentilium suorum coram
Theological and Ecclesiastical, p. matronis erubescentem, nisi quod
220. nee ad ostentationem fere haben-
9 Hist. Eccles. ii. 2. tur.' De Cultn Feminarum, i. 7 J
1 ' Gemmarum quoque nobili- ed. Oehler, torn. i. p. 709.
tatem vidimus Bomse de fastidio s ' Hie cum usque ad mediam
Parthorum et Medorum cetero- setatem presbyter Ecclesise per-

24 LECTURE I.
in Carthage that he laboured as a Montanist, and
it was in North Africa that the ' Tertullianists '
took their rise.
His fre- Tertullian is then a witness speaking at once from
quotations the rival cities of Rome and Carthage, from the
Fourth e bosom of the Church and from the heresy of semi-
Gospei. Montanism. His writings contain constant citations
of Holy Scripture, and a reference to a good index 3
will show that there are quotations from every
chapter, and in some chapters from almost every verse,
of the Fourth Gospel.
Passages More important than these quotations are the
works : passages in which Tertullian dwells on the unity and
corporate life of the Church, and bases the reception
of her sacred writings upon their immediate deriva
tion from Apostolic sources. Thus in the Demurrer
against Heretics, he says : —
rule Prom this, therefore, we draw up a rule. If the Lord
agamst Jesus Christ sent forth Apostles to preach, no preachers are
to be received except those whom Christ commissioned, be
cause no one has known the Father but the Son and he to
whom the Son has revealed Him, and the Son does not seem
to have revealed Him to any but to the Apostles whom He
sent to preach ; and of course they preached that which He
revealed to them. But what they preached, that is what
Christ revealed to them, can be known — and here I must lay
down a rule again — only by means of those churches which
mansisset, invidia postea et con- bus, ut supra, cap. liii. torn. ii.
tumeliis clericorum Romanse Ec- pp. 875 Sqq.
clesise, ad Montani dogma de- s See especially the Index Scrip-
lapsus . . . .' De Viris illustri- turarum in Oehler's edition.

LECTURE I. 25
the Apostles themselves founded and themselves declared the
Gospel to them, both viva, voce, to use a common expression,
and afterwards by means of letters. But if this be so, it is
also clear that all doctrine which agrees with those Apostolic
churches which are the wombs and sources of the faith, must
be accepted as truth, for it undoubtedly contains that which
those churches received from Apostles, Apostles from Christ,
and Christ from God. It follows, on the other hand, that
all doctrine is known beforehand to be false which savours
of contrariety to the truth of the churches, of Apostles, of
Christ, of God. It remains, therefore, for us to show whether
this our doctrine, the line of which we have set forth above,
has its origin in the Apostolic tradition, and whether all others
do not ipso facto proceed from falsehood. We have communion
with the churches of the Apostles in that our doctrine is in no
way different. This is the witness of truth.4

the

A few pages later in the same tract, he expresses the
, . Apostolic
same thought m these wrords : — churches,

. run through the churches of the Apostles in which the
very thrones of the Apostles are still prominent in their
places, in which their own authentic letters are read, so that
the voice and face of each is recalled. You are close to
Achaia, and there you have Corinth. Or you are not far from
Macedonia, and there you have Philippi and the Thessalonians.
Or you are able to go as far as Asia, and there you find
Ephesus. Or again you are close to Italy, and there is Borne
from whence we also have our authority at hand. Happy
indeed is that church for which Apostles poured forth their
whole teaching as well as their blood; where Peter suffers
like his Lord, where Paul is crowned by a death like John's
[i.e. the Baptist's], where the Apostle John, after he had been
plunged into boiling oil and escaped unhurt, is sent back to
his island ! Let us see what this church has learned, what she
1 De Prsescriptione Hxreticorum, cap. xxi. ; ed. Oehler, torn. ii.
p. 19.

26

LECTURE I.

authors of
' Evangeli
cal In
strument,'

has taught, what communion she has had with our own
churches in Africa.5
In like manner, when replying to Marcion,
Tertullian takes the following position : —
We assert, to begin with, that the Evangelical Instrument5
has for its authors Apostles, on whom this duty of proclaiming
the Gospel has been imposed by the Lord Himself. And if
there are also some who are Apostolic but not Apostles, these
are not alone, but they are with Apostles and after Apostles;
for the preaching of disciples might be suspected of some
envying of glory if it were not supported by the authority of
their masters — yes, by the authority of Christ, which made the
Apostles masters. Of the Apostles then, John and Matthew
first plant faith in us, and of Apostolic persons Luke and
Mark renew it.7
Apostles A little further on in the same treatise, he sums
handed . ,
down that up m these words : —
which was
from the If it is clear that the earlier is the truer, and that the
egmmng, earuer js ^^ vvHicH was from the beginning, and that from
the beginning is that which was from the Apostles ; then at
all events it will be equally clear that that is handed down
from the Apostles which was sacred among the churches of
the Apostles. Let us see what milk the Corinthians drew
from S. Paul, by what standard the Galatians were corrected,
what the Philippians, the Thessalonians, the Ephesians read ;
what sound the Bomans give forth who are close at hand, and
to whom both Peter and Paul left a Gospel sealed by their
own blood. We have also the churches which are children of
John. For though Marcion rejected his Apocalypse, still the
order of bishops, when traced to its origin, will rest upon John

5 De Prsescr. Hmr. cap. xxxvi. ;
ed. Oehler, torn. ii. pp. 33 sq.
6 Tertullian uses Instrumentum,
perhaps because as a legal term it
implies validity, as equivalent to

Testamentum. Cf. Adv. Marc. iv.
1, 'alterius instrumenti vel, quod
magis usui est dicere, testamenti.'
7 Adversus Marcion. iv. 2 ; ed.
Oehler, torn. ii. p. 162.

LECTURE I. 27
as founder. In like manner is the noble origin of the other
churches recognised. I say then that among them, and not
only among those planted by Apostles, but among all churches
which are bound together in the Christian fellowship (de
societate sacramenti confcederantur) that Gospel of Luke which
we most earnestly defend, has stood its ground from its first
publication . . . The same authority of the Apostolic
churches will support the other Gospels which we have equally
through them and according to their use. I mean the
Gospels of John and Matthew, while that which Mark
published may be maintained to be Peter's, whose inter
preter Mark was. . . . These are the summary arguments
which we use when we do battle for the faith of the Gospel
against heretics, maintaining both the order of time which
sets aside the later works as belonging to forgers, and the
authority of churches which supports the tradition of the
Apostles ; because truth necessarily precedes falsehood, and
comes from those by whom it has been handed down.8
Or once again, when opposing Praxeas, he speaks theEvan-
of S. John in the following terms : — beloveddisciple.
In what way these things were said, the Evangelist and
beloved disciple John knew better than Praxeas.9
From Antioch, we have similar clear and definite Cmu-ch of
. . Antioch :
evidence. The sixth bishop of this see m succession Theophi.
from the Apostles was Theophilus.1 He addressed ^'^gg
three books on the elements of the faith to Autolycus,
and wrote a work, Against the Heresy of Hermogenes, His
in which he uses testimony from the Revelation
of S. John. He also wrote some catechetical works,
and a work of no mean order against Marcion,
s Tertullian, Adversus Marcion. 9 Adversus Praxean, cap. xxiii. ;
iv. 5 ; ed. Oehler, torn. ii. pp. ed. Oehler, torn. ii. pp. 686.
165-7. J Eusebius,. Hist. Eccles. iv. 20.

28

LECTURE I.

testifiedtoby
Jerome and Eusebius.

His Com
mentary
on the
Gospels
doubtful.

all of which were preserved in the time of Eusebius,
to whose History we are indebted for this description
of them.2 Jerome also refers to the works of Theophilus
from personal knowledge of them,3 and makes some
additions to the list in Eusebius. We know further
from the Chronicle of Eusebius that he stood out as a
writer of literary eminence, many of whose books
were in wide circulation.4 The only one of these
works which is now certainly extant is that addressed
to Autolycus.5 A lively controversy on the question
of the Commentary on the Gospels attributed to Theo
philus, to which I refer only to pass over it, has
engaged the powers of Professors Zahn and Harnack,
the former earnestly maintaining, and the latter not
less earnestly denying, the genuineness and authenti
city of the writing.6 Dr. Zahn returns to the battle

2 Hist. Eccles. iv. 24.
3 De Vir. illust. cap. xxv. ; ut
supra, torn. ii. p. 853-4.
4 Eusebius, Chron. ad ann. ix.
Marcus Aurelius —
' AvTio^elas eKTOS eVlO"K07TOr 060-
(pikos €ttj ty . QeocplXov tovtov
avyypappara Siatfiopd eliri Kal <be-
povrai. Sync. 665, 21.
' Antiochenorum ecclesife vi
episcopus constitutus est Theo
philus, cuius multi libri hucusque
circumferuntur.' Versio Armenia.
' AntiochenEe vi episcopus ordi-
natur Theophilus, cuius plurima
ingenii opera extant.' Eusebi
Chronicorum Canonum. Alfred
Schoene, Berolini, 1866, torn. ii.

pp. 170-1.
5 Ad Autolycum. It has been
excellently edited by Von Otto,
and forms the eighth volume of
the Corpus Apologetarum Chris-
tianorum sseculi secundi. The
prolegomena give full information
about the works of Theophilus.
Cf. Donaldson, History of Chris
tian Literature, vol. iii. pp. 63
sqq. ; and the interesting article
by Canon Venables in Smith and
Wace's Dictionary of Christian
Biography, iv. pp. 993 sqq.
6 Zahn, Forschungen, 1883-4,
2 Theil, 3 Theil, Beilage iii. ; Von
Gebhardt und Harnack, Texte u.
Untersuchungen, Bd. i. Heft 1, 2,

LECTURE I. 29
in his History of the Canon of the New Testament
which is now being published,7 and the last word has
not yet been spoken on the subject. But this part
of the testimony is at least open to grave doubts,
and our witnesses must be above suspicion.
The work, To Autolycus, is above suspicion.8 It Treatise
is an address in three books, written for a real or lycus,
imaginary heathen friend of wide learning and high
culture. It represents therefore, though not a formal
apology, the ablest apologetic literature of the time,9
that is, about a.d. 183-185, 1 and it gives its own
evidence of the kind of man who wrote it. This is
the author's view of testimony : —
It was fitting that writers should have seen with their
own eyes those things about which they make statements, or
else should have accurately learnt them from those who had
seen them. For those who write about things which are
uncertain are as if they were beating the air.2
And this is the witness which he himself gives His m>
about the Fourth Gospel.
pp. 282-298 ; Heft 4, pp. 97-175. catechiste doud d'un grand talent
Cf. Sanday, Studia Biblica, 1885, d'exposition, un poWmiste habile
pp. 89-101. selon les ideesdu temps.' Renan,
7 Geschichte des Neutestament- Marc Aurele, p. 386.
lichen Kanons, 1888, Bd. i. pp. ' The date is shown by internal
29 sq., and p. 177. evidence to be rather later than
8 ' Hiernach scheint ein ernst- a.d. 177 (ad ann. xvii. Marc.
hafter Zweifel an der Tradition Aurel.),whichisgivenforthedeath
des Eusebius, dass der Bischof of Theophilus in the Chronicle of
Theophilus von Antiochien der Eusebius. See Bishop Lightfoot,
Verf asser ser, nicht mehr moglich.' S. Ignatius, vol. ii. ed. 1, p. 466;
Von Gebhardt und Harnack, ut ed. 2, p. 468.
supra, p. 289. 2 Lib. iii. cap. ii. ; ed. Von Otto,
9 ' Un docteur tres fecond, un ut supra, torn. viii. p. 189.

30

LECTURE I.

referenceto the
Fourth
Gospel.

In the thirteenth chapter of the first book, he
speaks of the resurrection, and uses the following
analogy : —
When a grain of wheat or of any other seed is cast into
the earth, it first dies and is dissolved, and afterwards is
raised and grows into the ear.
This naturally reminds us of the similar analogy
in the Fourth Gospel,3 but it is not necessarily a
quotation from it, for some of the words are still
more nearly allied to the passage in the First Epistle
to the Corinthians : —
Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it
abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.4
The next chapter opens with the words, ' Be not
therefore without faith, but have faith,' which at
once reminds us of, though they are not quite iden
tical with, our Lord's words to S. Thomas, ' Be not
faithless, but believing.' 5
In the twenty-third chapter of the second book,
there is a reference to the
pains of childbirth which women suffer and afterwards forget,
that the word of God may be fulfilled and the human race
may increase.

5 KOKKOS CT1TOW Tj TU>V koiTTaV
(TireppaTaiv, inav (3\j)6rj els ttjv
yr\v, 7rpa>Tou air odvrjorKet Kal
kicrai, fira eyeiperat Kal ylverat
a-rdxvs. Theophilus, Ad Auto-
lycum, lib. i. 13 ; ed. Von Otto,
Corpus Apologetarum, viii. 38, 7.
4 1 Cor. xv. 36, sq.
5 M^ ovv ajr lo~T€t, dWa n i-
o-Tf ue. Ibid. i. 14 ; ed. Von Otto,
viii. 42, 1.

eav prj o kukkos tov crirov
neaav els ttjv yrjv airoddvrj,
airos povos peveC iav 8e diroBavrj,
nokvv Kaprrbv (pepei. John xii. 24.

Mij yii/ou aTTiaros
o-ror. John xx. 27.

dXXa

LECTURE I. 31
And it is at least probable that the writer had in
his mind the words of our Lord : —
A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her
hour is come : but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she
remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born
into the world.6
Perhaps also there is a reference, as Drs. Von
Otto and Zahn both think, in the twenty-ninth
chapter of the same book, when the writer speaks of
the entrance of death into this world as resulting
from Satan's causing Cain to kill Abel,7 to the decla
ration, ' He was a murderer from the beginning ; '
but here again, did the passage stand by itself, we
could not lay much stress upon it, as a similar
thought occurs in the First Epistle of Clement to
the Corinthians.8 But the passages do not stand by themselves.
The special interest of these references, which are
slight when taken alone — though, as will be seen, the
parallelism of the Greek words is very remarkable —
4 Kal pera tovto krjdrjv tov ttovov orav Be yeWr)0"n to naihiov, ovkcti
noiovvrai, ottois 7rXj/pw5>/ 6 tov Oeov pvrjpovevei tt/s 8\tyecos 8ia ttjv
Xoyos els to av£dvea-8ai Kal TrXrjdv- x«P"v °™ h*vvnS,l avdpamos els tov
vea-dat to yevos ra>v avdpanrav. Koopov. John xvi. 21.
Ibid. ii. 23 ; ed. Von Otto, viii.
120,3. 'Alluditadloann. xvi. 21.'
7 Kal ovtws apxr) davdrov eye'vero eKehos avdpanroKTOvos r/v an
els rovSe tov Koapov ohomopeiv eias dpxrjt- John viii. 44. Cf. ov
tov Sevpo eVi ndv yevos dv8pa- Ka8as Kalv e< tov novnpov rjv Kal
irtov. Ibid. ii. 29 ; ed. Von Otto, ?<r0a|ev tov d&ek<p6v airoi. 1
viii. 138, 8. John iii. 12.
8 St' ov Kal ddvaros elorjkBev els tov Koapov. Clemens Rom. 1 Cor.
iii. ad fin., Lightfoot, ed. 1, p. 42 ; ed. 2, ii. p. 21.

32

LECTURE I.

Gospel
includedamong
' Holy
Scrip
tures,'

author
among ' spirit-
bearingmen.'

and that which makes them of great importance, is
that they are found side by side with an undoubted
quotation from the Fourth Gospel. This is one of
the many instances which show the incidental way in
which reference may be made to a work which is well
known to the writer.
That the Fourth Gospel was well known is clear
from the quotation which occurs in the twenty- second
chapter of this same second book of the Apology,
where Theophilus says : —
Whence we are taught by the Holy Scriptures and all
spirit-bearing men, among whom John says : ' In the begin
ning was the Word, and the Word was with God,' showing
that at first God was alone and the Word in Him. Then
he saith, ' And the Word was God. All things were made
by Him ; and without Him was not any thing made.' 9
This distinct reference to S. John by name, this
inclusion of him among ' spirit-bearing men,' and this
exact citation of his words, occur in a context in
which the writer has been dealing with the Scriptures

9 "06ev SiSao-Kouo-iv tjpds ai
aytai ypacpal Kal irdvres ol wvev-
parofpopoi, e£ 3>v 'laidwr/s
Xeyei ' 'Ev dpxjj r}V 6 Xoyos, Kal
6 Xoyos rjv irpos tov Qeov'
deiKvvs on ev 7rpa)T0is pdvos r)v 6
Qeos Kal ev avrai 6 Xoyos. "TLireira
Xeyef Kal Qeos tjv 6 Xoyos"
irdvTa St' avrov eyeveTQ, Kal
X<*>pis avrov eyevero ovbe ev.
Ut supra, ii. 22 ; ed. Von Otto,
viii. 118, 120, 13-15.
nvevparoKpipoi is the accentuation of the codices. See Von Otto's
note 13, ad loc. ; and cf. cap. 9, note 1, and lib. iii. cap. 12 infra.

Ev dpxfj rjv o Xoyos, Kal 6
Xoyos r\v npos tov Qeov,

Kal Qeos r\v 6 Xoyos . . . iravra
hi avrov eyevero, Kal xa>pts avrov
e'yevero ov8e iv. John i. 1-3.
Westcott and Hort.

LECTURE I. 33
of the Old Testament, and it is impossible to deny
that he thinks and writes of the Fourth Gospel as a
divinely inspired work, which is to be placed on
a level with the Law and the Prophets. If there were
room for doubt as to his meaning, it would disappear
before such words as are found at the beginnmg of
the twelfth chapter of the third book : —
Now concerning righteousness of which the Law speaks,
the statements of the Prophets and Gospels are in harmony
because all spirit-bearing men speak by one Spirit of God.1
The churches of Asia Minor must necessarily Churches
. of Asia
appear as witnesses, when the question is the origin Minor:
of the Fourth Gospel. Nor are they silent in the
period to which our inquiry is directed. Two great
controversies, both of which took their rise from the
churches of Asia, then divided Christendom frorr,
Ephesus to Lyons, from Alexandria to Carthage and
Rome. One is known to us from the name of its
author, as Montanism ; the other from its subject,
as the Paschal controversy. Montanism, with its
central doctrine of the Paraclete, cannot avoid touch
ing the writings of S. John, in whicti alone of the
sacred Scriptures the term Paraclete occurs ; and the
disputants in the Paschal controversy, which is im
mediately concerned with the practice of the Asiatic
churches, cannot avoid some reference to the Scrip-
1 "Eti pr/v Kal irepl 8iKaioovvr)s, 7rvevpaTo<popovs evl wvevpari Qeov
ns o i/O/uos e'iprjKev, aKoXovda eipi- XeXaXr]Ke'vai. Ibid. iii. 12 ; ed.Von
o-Kerai Kal ra ra>v TrpotprjTav Kal ra>v Otto, Vlll. 218, 1.
evayyeXiav exeiv, 8id to tovs iravras D

34

LECTURE I.

Hiera
polis :

Witnesses tures which they received. Now towards the close of
disand the second century, two Asiatic bishops, Melito of
Sardis the capital of Lydia, and Apolinaris 2 of
Hierapolis in Phrygia, were voluminous and widely
read authors. Their writings are at present known
to us only by scanty fragments ; but Eusebius and
Jerome3 have preserved the titles of their works,
and we can form a probable opinion of the nature
and extent of their influence.
The period of Melito's literary activity may be
taken as from about a.d. 150 to 180. The area of
that activity may be estimated from the following
list of his works, which is given by Eusebius as an
imperfect one and based only on his own personal
knowledge : —

Melito, fl.150-180.

List in
Eusebius.

1. On the Paschal Fes
tival (two books).
2. On the right method of
Life and on the Prophets.
3. On the Church.
4. On the Lord's Pay.
5. On the Faith of Man.

6. On the Creation of Man.4
7. On the Obedience of
Faith. 8. On the Senses.
9. On the Soul and Body.
10. On Baptism.
11. On Truth.

2 'An-oXtvaptos constanter apud
Graecos dicitur, non 'ATroXXivaptos,
quod exspectabas, h.e. Latinorum
Apollinaris . . . Von Otto, Cor
pus, ix. 479.
3 De Viris illustribus, capp.
xxiv. xxvi. ; ed. Bened., utsupra,
torn. ii. pp. 851 sqq.
4 Trepl wXdo-ems. Rendered ' On
Creation' by Bishop Lightfoot,
Essays on Supernatural Beligion,
p. 225 ; and ' On the Formation

of the World' by Dr. Westcott,
On the Canon, ed. 6, p. 223.
But the word seems to have ac
quired a technical sense which
was limited to the creation of
man. Cf. Gen. ii. 7, LXX; 1
Tim. ii. 13; Justin, Dial. c.
Tryph. cap. 40. See esp. Von
Otto's note, Corpus, torn. ix. p.
392 ; and Von Gebhardt und Har
nack, Texte u. Untersuehungen,
Bd. i. p. 246.

LECTURE I.

35

17. On a Corporeal God.
18. An Apology to Anto
ninus. 19. Extracts from the
Law and the Prophets (six
books) .6

12. On the Creation and
Birth of Christ.
13. On Prophecy.
14. On Love of Strangers.
15. The Key.5
16. On the Bevil and the
Apocalypse of John.
Some other works which are ascribed to Melito other
by later writers are of doubtful authority ; but it is
probable that the treatise On the Incarnation of Christ,
from the third book of which Anastatius of Sinai
quotes, when writing in the seventh century, against
the Monophysites, and that On the Passion, which is
also quoted by Anastatius ; 7 and the writings On the
Faith and On the Cross, which are now known only
from Syriac fragments,8 are genuine works which
are not included in the Eusebian list. The Syriac
furnishes also fragments of an Apology to Antoninus,
which no less an authority than Dr. Westcott thinks
to be a ' genuine book of Melito of Sardis,' 9 and
which clearly shows the influence of S. John's
writings. Its authenticity cannot however be said
to be quite certain,1 and I do not therefore lay any
stress upon it.
5 This work does not exist in
the Syriac MS. version of Eu
sebius ; and the attempt of Car
dinal Pitra to prove that the
Clermont MS. contains a Latin
translation of the second century
Greek original, cannot be said to
be successful. Cf. Spicilegium
Solesmense, torn. ii. pp. 1-519 ; iii.
pp. 1-307 ; and Steitz, Studien u.

Kritiken, 1857, p. 584.
6 Hist. Eccles. iv. 26.
7 'OS^yos seu dux viae adversus
Acephalos, ed. Gretser, 1806,
c. xii. p. 216 ; xiii. p. 260.
8 Cf. Cureton, Spicilegium Syria-
cum, 1855, pp. 52-3.
9 Canon of the New Testament,
ed. 6, p. 222.
1 Cf. Lecture VH. p. 408.
D 2

36

LECTURE I.

Apolinaris, fl. 171.
Lists in
Eusebius,

Theodoret,

and Photius.

Claudius Apolinaris, a successor of Papias in the
see of Hierapolis, was a somewhat younger contem
porary of Melito. Eusebius speaks of him as a
strong and irresistible weapon against Montanism,2
and refers to several works by him which were
preserved by many, and gives the titles of four which
were known to himself : — 3
1. An Apology addressed 3. On Truth (two books).4
to Marcus Aurelius. 4. Against the Heresy of
2. Against the Greehs (five the Phrygians (Montanists).
books) .
Theodoret refers to a work Against the Severians,b
which is otherwise unknown, and notes the wide ac
quaintance of Apolinaris with general literature.6
Photius of Constantinople, writing as late as the
ninth century, relates that he had read three works
by Apolinaris, Against the Greeks, On Godliness, and
On- Truth, which may be wholly or partly identical
with parallel works in the list of Eusebius, and
adds : —
There are said to be other works of this author which are
worthy of notice, but we have not yet met with them.7

2 Hist. Eccles. v. 16.
3 Lbid. iv. 27.
4 ' Textus Vulgatus ap. Euseb.
addit : Kal 71736s *Iov8aiovs npcoTov
Kal 8evrepov. Sed hsec verba non
comparent in optimis codd. mstis
(BCDF'K Ra) neque apud Ruf-
finum et Hieronymum : qua-
propter, quum a librario quodam
moleste sedulo addita sint, recte
omittuntur a Lsemmero et Heini-
cheno.' Von Otto, Corpus, torn.

ix. p. 481, note 3.
6 Hxreticarum Fabularum Com
pendium, i. 21 ; ed. Migne, iv.
p. 372.
6 dvrjp af-uivaivoSj Kal irpbs 1-7)
yvaxrei t£jv Oelav kcu rr\v e£a>6ev
naiheiav 7rposeiX?/0a>y. Sxret. Fab.
ut supra, iii. 2 ; ibid. p. 404.
7 ' AveyvaxrSri ' Airokivapiov 7rpos
EXAqras" kol irepl zvaefisias Kal 7rep\
akrjQelas. «rri Se 'iepaTroXtrqy 6 <rvy-
ypaifievs, Trjs iv 'A en a 'lepairoXeais

LECTURE I. 37
Two extracts from a treatise by Apolinaris On His
the Paschal Festival are preserved in the Paschal to the110'
Chronicle, both of which contain references to the Gospel.
Fourth Gospel. They are quoted by Bishop Light
foot,8 whose argument I am here following, and also
by Dr. Salmon,9 but I do not produce them as wit
nesses, inasmuch as their authenticity, though in
the highest degree probable and admitted even by
Strauss l and Scholten,2 cannot be considered to have
been placed beyond doubt.3
The real significance of the evidence of these two Testimony
... . r . to writings
bishops arises moreover not from existing fragments of Melito
but from the extent of their writings, and the im- Apoiina-
pression made by these writings on contemporary ris' y
and succeeding literature ; from the fact that the
questions which occupied the anxious thought of the
Church, and in which they took a prominent part,
were questions which specially concerned Asia Minor
and Ephesus, and specially concerned the Fourth
Gospel ; and from the fact that there is nowhere the
slightest hint that in all the width of these volumi-
yeyoytbs eirioKoiros. fjv8j)o-e Se eVi 2 ' Ueber die Echtheit dieser
MdpKov 'Avruvivov Br/pov fiao-iXews Bruchstiicke, die Neander be-
'Papalav dgioXoyos Se 6 avfjp ko.1 zweifelte, ist jetzt kein Zwiespalt
(ppdo-eid^mXoya Kexpipevos. Xeyerai mehr.' Scholten-Manchot, Die
Se avrov Kal erepa o-vyypdppara dltesten Zeugnisse betreffend die
a^iopirqpovevra elvai, ols oi/Vo) repels Schriften des Neuen Testamentes
everixopev. Bibliotheca, cod. 14 ; historisch untersucht, p. 484.
ed. Bekker. p. 4. 3 Cf. Lardner, Credibility, part
8 Essays on Supernatural Beli- ii. c. 28, 11. Donaldson, History
qion, p. 239. °f Christian Literature, vol. iii.
9 Introduction, ed. 3, p. 264. p. 247.
1 Das Leben Jesu, 1864, p. 69.

38

LECTURE I.

Polycrates,

Hippolytus,

Tertul
lian,

Clement,

nous writings, which practically formed the theo
logical encyclopaBdias of the day, there is any doubt
whatever about the reception of the Fourth Gospel
in the churches of Asia.
To Polycrates of Ephesus, Melito is one
whose walk was entirely guided by the Holy Spirit, who now
rests at Sardis waiting for the episcopate from heaven when he
shall rise from the dead.4
Hippolytus asks
Who is ignorant of the works of Irenaeus and Melito and
the rest in which Christ is declared to be God and man ? s
Jerome quotes Tertullian as saying of him
that he was reckoned a prophet by most of our people.6
Clement of Alexandria wrote a treatise on the
Paschal Festival, which was suggested by Melito's
work on the same subject,7 and the opinion that
Melito was himself the Ionian who is included in
the list of Clement's teachers 8 cannot be considered
to be improbable.
In Carthage, in Ephesus, in Rome, in Alexandria,
Melito is then a recognized authority in the Church
at the close of the second century. His critical
inquiries about the Canon of the Old Testament
connect him also with the East, of which he speaks

4 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 24.
5 Ibid. v. 28.
6 ' Hujus elegans et declama-
torium ingenium Tertullianus in
septem libris, quos scripsit ad
versus Ecclesiam pro Montano,

cavillatur, dicens eum a plerisque
nostrorum Prophetam putari.'
De Viris illustribus, c. xxiv. ; ut
supra, torn. ii. p. 853-54.
7 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iv. 26.
8 Ibid. v. 11.

LECTURE I. 39
as ' the place where these things were proclaimed
and done.' 9
To Anastatius of Sinai he is Anasta
tius,
the divine and all wise among teachers.1
That is, in the monasteries of Sinai as late as the
seventh century, the echoes of the second-century
judgments are still heard, and Melito is esteemed as
a well-known and orthodox Father of the Church.
The reception given to the works of Apolinaris is
not less general. We have seen in what light they
were regarded by Eusebius, Theodoret, and Photius.
Serapion, who was bishop of Antioch at the close Serapion's
of the second century, and himself a considerable which is
theological writer, names Apolinaris in a letter wdiich
he wrote to Caricus and Ponticus, who were also
ecclesiastical writers, in the following terms : —
But in order that you may see that the influence of this
false school of new prophecy, as it is called, has been abhorred
by all the brethren in the world, I have sent unto you the
writings of Claudius Apolinaris most blessed, who was bishop
of Hierapolis in Asia.2
Eusebius relates that this letter was subscribed sub-
also by many other bishops, among them being other6 7
Aurelius Cyrenius, and iElius Publius Julius, bishop blshoPs*
of Debeltum, a colony of Thrace, in their own hand,3
so that it becomes a witness on the part of many
9 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iv. 26. supra, xiii. p. 260.
1 6 8elos Kal ndvo-ocpos ev St- 3 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vi. 12.
Sao-KaXois MeXlrcov, — 'O8r]yos, ut 3 Ibid. V. 19.

40

LECTURE I.

Jerome,

Socrates.

dioceses to the position and influence of Apolinaris.
The witness of Serapion himself is moreover of high
value, not only from his date and the honour in
which he was held as a bishop and as an author,
but also from his care in respect of the Canon, of
which we have an example in the fact that he recalled
the permission which had been given to the church
of Rhossus on the gulf of Issus to read the so-called
gospel of Peter.4
Jerome also classes Apolinaris with Melito and
others, as a writer who had full knowledge of heathen
literature, and used it in refuting heresies,5 while
Socrates places him with Irenaeus, Clement, and
Serapion, as teaching that our Lord, when He became
man, had a human soul.6
The general esteem in which both these great
Asiatic theologians were held by the churches of
Christendom at the close of the second century,
and in succeeding generations to whom that second-
century history was a living reality, makes it clear
what their own position was in relation to the

4 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vi. 12.
5 ' Quid loquar de Melitone
Sardensi Episcopo? quid de
Apollinario Hierapolitanse Ec-
clesise Sacerdote, Dionysioque Co-
rinthiorum Episcopo, et Tatiano,
et Bardesane, et Irenseo Photini
Martyris successore : qui origines
hsereseon singularum, et ex
quibus Philosophorum fontibus
emanarint, multis voluminibus
explicarunt 1 ' Epist. lxx. ad Mag

num, Opera, ed. Bened. ut supra,
torn. i. p. 426.
6 Kal yap Etpijfatdsre Kal KXrjprjs,
AnoXivapios re 6 'iepairoXiTrjs Kal
SapaffKov 6 tt/s ev 'Avrto^eta
rrpoeo-ras eKKXrjcrias epfyvxov tov
evav8pG>Tn]o~avTa, ev rots novr]8eio~iv
avrois Xoyois o)s opoXoyovpevov
aurots (pdo-Kovcriv. Socrates, Hist.
Eccles. iii. 7 ; ed. Hussey, torn. i.
p. 398.

LECTURE I. 41
Fourth Gospel ; while that position is on the other
hand a declaration, not only that the churches
of Asia, but also that the best scholarship and
criticism of the day, accepted the Fourth Gospel as
the work of S. John, without even a hint that any
other view is possible.7
Polycrates of Ephesus is another witness from the Polycrates
churches of Asia at the close of the second century. Ephesus,
A letter was addressed by him in the name of these T' ,1,90'
churches to Victor of Rome, in reply to an inquiry addressed
about their practice in keeping Easter, and a large of Eome.
extract from this letter has been preserved in
Eusebius. He bases the Asiatic practice, as he tells
us, on the teaching of the great luminaries of Asia,
Philip of Hierapolis, John of Ephesus, Polycarp of
Smyrna, Sagaris of Laodicea, Papirius, and Melito.
He was the eighth bishop of his own family, and had His
been sixty-five years in the Lord; he had studied pos
every Holy Scripture, he had taken counsel with
brethren in all parts of the world. The bishops who
were assembled with him were a great number, and
knew that he did not bear his grey hairs for nought,
and that he had always ruled his life by the Lord
Jesus.8 This venerable bishop, writing for himself
7 On Melito and Apolinaris, cf. 511; Routh, Beliquix Sacrss, torn.
generally, Dr. Salmon's articles i. pp. 111-174 ; and especially the
s.v. in Smith and Wace's Die- remarkable monograph by Dr.
tionary of Christian Biography, i. Adolf Harnack, Von Gebhardt
p. 132, iii. p. 894 ; Bishop Light- und Harnack, Texte u. Untersuch-
foot, Essays on Supernatural Beli- ungen, Bd. i. pp. 232-282.
gion, pp. 223 sqq., 237 sqq.; Von 8 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. v. 24.
Otto, Corpus, torn. ix. pp. 374-

42 LECTURE I.
Histesti- and his episcopal brethren and sons, describes S.
the Fourth John in the exact words of the Gospel, as ' he that
'°spe ' leaned on the bosom of the Lord ; ' 9 and although
we are perhaps not justified in asserting that this is
necessarily a reference to the Fourth Gospel,1 it is
natural to believe it to be so, and it is impossible to
doubt that this Ephesian bishop was in harmony
with ' the great luminaries of Asia ' in accepting the
Gospel as the work of S. John.
old Latin It has been customary to attest the position of
Peshito the New Testament Canon, and therefore of the
Fourth Gospel, in the closing decades of the second
century, by the Old Latin and Peshito Syriac
Versions, and by the Muratorian Fragment. The
Dr. Bampton Lecturer for 1866, for example, quotes with
approval approval the opinion of Dr. Westcott, that the Old
Westcott's Latin must have been made before a.d. 170, and that
opinions: m , ii- 7 e •, i
lertullian s use ot it shows,
on the that at the end of the century the Latin translation of St.
a in' Johns Gospel had been so generally circulated in Africa, as
to have moulded the popular theological dialect.2
Few among us will question the high authority — I
9 eVt 8e Kal 'icaai/j/iys 6 eVt to dvaire.o'ai v eKewos ovras enl to
(rrr/dos tov Kvpiov dva7reo-av, os orij 8 os tov 'lyo-ov . . . John xiii.
eyevrjdrj lepeiis to TieraXov we(popeKa>s, 25. bs Kal dveireo-ev ev rto SeiTrva
Kal paprvs Kal StSdwKaXos' ovros ev tirt ro o-Trj8os avTov . . . John
'E<beo-a KeKoiprjrai. Eusebius, Hist. xxi. 20.
Eccles. v. 24.
1 But see Bishop Lightfoot, 2 Liddon, Bampton Lectures,
Essays on Supernatural Beligion, 1866, ed. 13, 1889, p. 215.
p. 249.

LECTURE I. 43
should certainly be very far from doing so — of the
Oxford Lecturer who quotes, or that of the Cambridge
Professor who is quoted. The opinion weighed and
re-weighed with fulness of knowledge and fairness of
judgment during a quarter of a century, has been
expressed again quite lately by Dr. Westcott,3 to
gether with the allied opinion that
the Latin translation of Irenasus was probably known to
Tertullian,4 and the belief that
Tertullian and the Translator of Irengeus represent respectively
the original African and Gallic recensions of the Vetus Latina.5
The same Bampton Lecturer, following the same 0n the
Cambridge Professor, says of the Peshito Syriac,
That it was complete then in a.d. 150-160, we may assume
without risk of serious error.6
And in the latest edition of his work On the Cation,
published last year, Dr. Westcott has seen
no sufficient reason to desert the opinion which has obtained
the sanction of the most competent scholars, that its formation
is to be fixed within the first half of the second century.7
The same high authorities claim in the same way ™u*^
that at Eome St. John's Gospel was certainly received as being
the work of that Apostle in the year 170. This is clear from
the so-termed Muratorian fragment ; 8
3 On the Canon, ed. 6, 1889, 7 On the Canon, ut supra, p.
p. 251. 243.
4 Lbid. p. 256. 8 Bampton Lectures, ut supra,
5 Ibid. p. 257, note. p. 214, based upon Westcott, On
6 Op. cit. p. 214, note. the Canon, p. 214.

torian Fragment.

44 LECTURE I.
and in 1889, Dr. Westcott again expressed the view
that The statement in the text of the Fragment is perfectly
clear, definite, and consistent with its contents, and there can
be no reason either to question its accuracy or to interpret it
loosely.9
Force of Now, here are witnesses of the first importance
evidence, ready to our hands, and if these statements about
the Versions, and the Fragment of Muratori,1 with all
that would follow from the texts of the Versions and
the antecedent conditions of the Fragment, could be
established beyond question — and perhaps they will
be established — we should be far on the way to
render any discussion of the acceptance of the Fourth
Gospel in the second century wdiolly unnecessary.
if their And if I do not deduce from this testimony all that
early date
is esta- would seem to follow from it, it is not because I am
convinced that it is not trustworthy, or that I should
in any case venture to assert my own opinion against
the opinion of those who believe that it is ; but
because I cannot claim more than a small fraction
of the completeness of knowledge of this subject
which ought to be the substructure of a definite
statement upon it ; and because, as far as I can follow
the currents of present criticism, it cannot be re
garded as settled beyond question that any known
Version of the New Testament or any distinct portion
of it, was committed to writing before the close of
9 On the Canon, ut supra, p. 1 But cf. Salmon, Introduction,
212 1888, pp. 46-53.

blished.

LECTURE I. 45
the , second century, or that the Muratorian Frag
ment is of quite so early a date as that which critics
have generally assigned to it. These matters are
still before the judgment of experts. For my own
part, I should like to await the verdict, which the
not-distant future must almost certainly give, with
out offering any opinion — though I am far from not
having one — as to what that verdict will be.
Meanwhile, few among the theologians or critics Recent
_ opinions :
of this century will be regarded as entitled to speak on
this question with greater weight than the lamented
and revered Bishop Lightfoot and Dr. von Dollins'er. Bishop
1 ° ° Lightfoot,
One of Bishop Lightfoot' s latest articles shows it to
be at least probable that the original of the Fragment
must have been in Greek verse, and confirms the view
that it was almost certainly in the Greek language.2
Dr. Dollinarer was kind enough but a short time Dr- TOn
& ° DoUinger.
before his death, to give me permission to state his
opinion on the Fragment in the following terms : —
I regard it as certain that the Muratorian Fragment is
to be placed between a.d. 150 and A.D. 175, and that accord
ingly the Pastor of Hermas falls in the period from a.d. 130
to about A.D. 150. This is also the prevailing and best sup
ported opinion among German theologians, both Catholic and
Protestant.3 2 The Academy, September 21, dass also der Pastor des Hermas
1889, pp. 186 sqq. See also reply in die Zeit von 130 bis etwa 150
by the author of Supernatural falle. Diess ist auch unter den
Beligion, in The Academy, Sep- deutschen Theologen be'ider Con-
tember 28, p. 205. fessionen die ueberwiegende und
3 ' Ich halte fur sicher, dass das best vortretene Ansicht.' Ign.
Fragm. Muratorianum in die Zeit Doellinger, Miinchen, 5 Aug.
von 150 bis 175 zu setzen sei, und 1889.

46 LECTURE I.
Result in- But the question which is at present occupying
of these13 our attention — the reception of the Fourth Gospel
opinions. towards ^ie ci0se 0f the second century — will not be
seriously affected by any verdict on these points.
If it should be proved that the Versions and the
Fragment belong to the early years of the third
rather than to the closing years of the second
century, it will not take from the abundant evidence
which we already possess ; and if it should be proved
that they belong to the second century, it cannot
make more certain that which is quite certain now.
And quite certain it is ; for every witness who has
been brought before the tribunal of modern criticism
has testified to it, every cross-examination has con
firmed it, every re-examination has brought out some
new point in favour of it. No advocate known in
the courts of criticism has ventured to call rebutting
evidence. Hilgenfeld and Volkmar, Scholten and
Loman, Strauss and Eenan, Davidson and the author
of Supernatural Religion, all admit it ; and there is
no more reason to doubt that the Fourth Gospel
was known and read as the work of S. John in the
closing decades of the second, than that it is so known
and read in the closing decades of the nineteenth
century.
Summary: Why then have I taxed your patience with even
the outlines of evidence — many who hear me will
know how much I have spared you — to prove that
which is undoubted ? Partly because the longer

LECTURE I. 47
a man lives, the more does he learn to take nothing
for granted ; and the more does he find that the
force of the well-known is not always felt, and that
references to authorities are not always followed out.
But chiefly because the importance of the facts which
are admitted, lies not so much in themselves, as in
the evidence on which they are based.
It is not that the Fourth Gospel was known and strength
read as the work of S. John in the year a.d. 190 or mony.
180 or 170 ; but that it was known and read through its extent
all the extent of Christendom, in churches varying fmity.n "
in origin and language and history, in Lyons and
Rome, in Carthage and Alexandria, in Athens and
Corinth, in Ephesus and Sardis and Hierapolis, in
Antioch and Edessa ; that the witness is of churches
to a sacred book which was read in their services,
and about which there could be no mistake, and of
individuals who had sacrificed the greatest good of
temporal life, and were ready to sacrifice life itself as
a witness to its truth ; that these individual wit
nesses were men of culture and rich mental endow
ment, with full access to materials for judgment, and
full power to exercise that judgment ; that their
witness was given in the face of hostile heathenism
and opposing heresy, which demanded caution in
argument and reserve in statement ; and that this
witness is clear, definite, unquestioned.
It is not that the Fourth Gospel was known at the The
end of the second century, but that it was received corpora e
as divine in churches each of which had a corporate

48 LECTURE I.
life of life and unity, stretching back to the foundation by
Church. Apostles and Prophets ; and that its chief witnesses
are men whose lives bridge wide intervals of place
and time. The witness of Irenaeus is the product
of a life spent in Gaul and Pome and Asia Minor,
and extending backwards for threescore years and
ten from the close of the second century. For a quarter
of a century he was a contemporary of Polycarp, who
must have been for a like period a contemporary of
S. John. Tertullian's witness is that of a life spent
in North Africa and Rome. Clement's witness links
together Greece and Italy, the far East and Egypt,
and teachers of almost every nation. These writers
all claim, in terms which cannot be mistaken, and
with a force which cannot be resisted, their unity
with those who had preceded them even to Apostolic
times.
Answer of The author of Supernatural Reliqion in his general
author of ... l -,--,,¦
Super- reply to criticisms on his work, which he issued as a
Religion, preface to the sixth edition in 1875, and repeated in
the seventh and complete edition in 1879, and aerain
last year, cannot avoid some answer to the question
how, if no trace of their existence is previously discoverable,
the four Gospels are suddenly found in general circulation at
the end of the second century, and quoted as authoritative
documents by such writers as Irenasus.
lie admits the fact in the terms which I have just
read, and adds,
My reply is that it is totally unnecessary for me to account
for this. No one acquainted with the history of pseudo-

LECTURE I. 49
nymic literature in the second century, and with the rapid
circulation and ready acceptance of spurious works tending
to edification, could for a moment regard the canonical posi
tion of any Gospel at the end of that century either as
evidence of its authenticity or early origin. That which
concerns us chiefly is not evidence regarding the end of the
second but the beginning of the first century. Even if we
took the statements of Irenaeus and later Fathers, like the
Alexandrian Clement, Tertullian and Origen, about the
Gospels, they are absolutely without value except as personal
opinion at a late date, for which no sufficient grounds are
shown. Of the earlier history of those Gospels there is not
a distinct trace, except of a nature which altogether discredits
them as witnesses for miracles.4
Now an author has a perfect right to decide what is
necessary and due to his subject and to himself, but
if he thinks it totally unnecessary to account for the
most important and best established fact in the whole
case, and then proceeds to make general remarks
which certainly do not account for it, he abandons
the judicial inquiry of a critic, and assumes the posi
tion of a special pleader for a desperate cause.
We stand on the banks of a river which we are Con.
tracking to its source. We can follow it here by cluslon-
rapid stream, and there by calmer deep, now through
fertile plain, and now over mountain rock. Our way
is blocked. Beyond is the gloom of an almost im
penetrable forest ; but here, as it emerges from the
forest, our river is broad, full, well defined. What
traveller doubts that if he could make a way through
4 A Beply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays, 1889, p. 43.

50 LECTURE I.
the forest he would find the river again ? It is here,
and is in strength and volume such as prove it to
be far from its source. It must be, it is, yonder.
It will be our task in the next lecture to follow
some of the tracks which have been made in the
forest, and see if we come upon 'our river.

LECTURE II
THE 'JUDGMENT OF CENTUEIES'
THE SECOND CENTURY: EARLIER GENERATIONS

'IT DESERVES LIKEWISE TO BE ATTENDED TO ON THIS SUBJECT, THAT
IN A NUMBER OF CONCURRENT TESTIMONIES, CIN CASES WHEREIN THERE
COULD HAVE BEEN NO PREVIOUS CONCERT) THERE IS A PROBABILITY DIS
TINCT FROM THAT WHICH MAY BE TERMED THE SUM OF THE PROBABILITIES
RESULTING FROM THE TESTIMONIES OF THE WITNESSES, A PROBABILITY
WHICH WOULD REMAIN EVEN THOUGH THE WITNESSES WERE OF SUCH A
CHARACTER AS TO MERIT NO FAITH AT ALL. THIS PROBABILITY ARISETH
PURELY FROM THE CONCURRENCE ITSELF. THAT SUCH A CONCURRENCE
SHOULD SPRING FROM CHANCE, IS AS ONE TO INFINITE; THAT IS, IN OTHER
WORDS. MORALLY IMPOSSIBLE. IF THEREFORE CONCERT BE EXCLUDED,
THERE REMAINS NO OTHER CAUSE BUT THE REALITY OF THE FACT.'
Principal Campbell.

LECTURE II.
Bemember the days of old.
Consider the years of many generations ;
Ask thy father, and he will shew thee;
Thine elders, and they will tell thee. Deut. xxxii. 7.
Flavius Justinus, philosopher and martyr, is for Evidence
the middle what Irenaeus is for the later decades of second
the second century, the chief ecclesiastical author and TAeSirf
the most important witness for the sacred writings of £™'
the Church. We know few details of his life, and Justin Martyr,
these come for the most part from himself. He tells fl.130-160.
us that he was by descent a Samaritan,1 but he does
not mean by this more than that his ancestors had
settled at Flavia Neapolis, a town which had been
built near the ruins of Sychem, and is now known
as Nablous. The town was named after Flavius
Vespasian, and so was Justin himself, and perhaps
he belonged to the colony planted there by the
emperor after the destruction of Jerusalem. His
father's name, Justinus Priscus, was, like his own,
Latin ; his grandfather's, Bacchius, was Greek.2 He
1 Dialogus cum Tryphone, cap. cxx. ; ed. Von Otto, Corpus, torn. i.
p. 432. 3 Apologia, i. 1 ; Von Otto, i. 4.

version.

54 LECTURE II.
describes himself as a Gentile, who was uncircumcised
and had been trained as a Greek.3
His con- Xhe story of his conversion as told in his own words
vprKinn *
is familiar, but always interesting, and is for our
present inquiry important. It is not Justin only who
speaks, as we hear the record of the soul in search for
truth at any cost, and telling how he sought it in
every creed of philosophy ; how he spent a good deal
of time with a Stoic, but found that he acquired no full
knowledge of God because his agnostic tutor did not
know God himself, and therefore did not think such
knowledge necessary ; how he then tried one who
was called a Peripatetic, and was a shrewd fellow
in his own opinion, but was after a few days too
anxious for his fee, and was therefore in his pupil's
opinion no philosopher at all ; how, impelled by
intense desire, he next tried a very famous Pythago
rean, who made a great show of wisdom, and assumed
that his hearer would have passed through the pre
liminary courses of music, astronomy, and geometry,
and as soon as he confessed that he knew nothing
about them sent him away ; how, in his disappoint
ment and helplessness, he thought he would try the
Platonists, who had great fame, and was able to do
so because a leading Platonist had lately come to live
in his city ; how he got on rapidly in his studies,
and rose by intelligence of incorporeal things, and by
contemplation of ideas, as on wings of the mind, until
3 Apol. i. 53 ; Von Otto, i. pp. 142-4. Dial. capp. ii. and xxix. ;
ibid. i. pp. 6 Bqq., and 96-8.

LECTURE II. 55
he thought that he was wise, and in his folly expected
at once to attain the end of philosophy, the vision of
God ; how one day, in a field not far from the sea,
chosen as fitting for his contemplative walk, he met
an old man, rather striking in appearance, gentle and
grave in manner, who entered into conversation with
him, and led him step by step as in a Platonic
dialogue, to doubt all human wisdom ; how, since he
was unable himself to resist the questions closing
around him, he endeavoured to shield himself behind
authority, and asked whether these things had escaped
the wisdom of Plato and Pythagoras, who were as a
wall and fortress of philosophy ; how he received the
answer that truth is independent of what these or any
men have held, that long before any philosophers there
existed prophets who did not demonstrate truths but
witnessed to them, being filled by the Holy Spirit,
and speaking the things which they saw and heard ;
how, after telling him these and other things, the old
man left him alone, and bade him think of them ; and
how a flame was forthwith kindled in his soul, and
he found this philosophy alone to be profitable and
safe.4 Such was the training of our present witness. His ethics
Here is his view of the ethics of opinion : —
Reason dictates that men who are indeed good and
worthy to be called philosophers, should give honour and
regard only to the true, refusing to follow the opinions of
those who have gone before, if these opinions are worthless.
The same sound reason dictates also, that we should not
4 Dial. capp. ii.-viii. ; Von Otto, i. pp. 6-34.

56 LECTURE II.
follow those who have done or taught anything wrong ; but
that a lover of truth must by all means, even if it be at the
cost of life, and in the very presence of death, choose both to
say and do the right.5
That in this statement we have no mere form of
words, but the convictions of a true man, the term
Martyr, which has been always associated with
Justin, will serve to remind us.
His writ- Justin was a voluminous writer, and not a few
works which bear internal evidence of a later date
have claimed the support of his name. Men who are
attracted by the microscopic investigations of the six
teenth or seventeenth, as well as of the nineteenth
century, will find here an abundant field for them
which has been by no means neglected ; but there is
now little disagreement among scholars of the most
opposed general positions, as to the genuine writings
of Justin. The two Apologies and the Dialogue with
Trypho are his ; more than this cannot be said with
confidence. The Second Apology, which consists of
only a few pages, is not free from difficulties, but
it has no connexion with the present question, and
they need not be considered here. The First Apology
and the Dialogue are documents of primary import
ance.
chrono- The chronology of Justin's life, and the dates of
acrarateiy ms writings, have not been, perhaps cannot be, accu-
known. rately established, and with our present knowledge
we must remain content with approximations ; but
4 Apol. i. 2 ; Von Otto, i. pp. 6-8.

LECTURE II. 57
it is admitted that this imperfection has no practical opinions
effect on the evidence. Credner, of whom his pupil credner,
and editor, Dr. Volkmar, speaks with hardly too
great confidence when he predicts that ' his name
will remain honoured as long as the science of Intro
duction to the New Testament shall exist,' 6 places
in his chief and, alas, posthumous work, the writings
of Justin soon after a.d. 130, and his death soon
after a.d. 166.7 Volkmar, in a note to this passage, Volkmar,
naturally calls attention to later investigations of his
own,8 by which the possible limits of the writings
had been narrowed from a.d. 130-166 to a.d. 140-
150, but adds that this does not affect the result.
You will remember that both Credner and Volkmar
represent distinctly liberal and negative lines of
thought. Side by side with Volkmar, and indeed
earlier — for the main conclusions of the article were
worked out in 1852, though it was not published
until 1857 — Dr. Hort had been making independent Dr. Hort.
inquiries, which issued in results that were consist
ent with Volkmar's, but gave still narrower limits.9
The chief difference in the course of the investiga
tions consists in the fact that Dr. Hort accepts, and
Volkmar does not accept, the evidence of Epiphanius
about Tatian.1 This gives ' a.d. 149 or 150 as the
6 Geschichte des Neutestament- 9 Journal of Classical and
lichen Kanon, 1860, Vorwort, Sacred Philology, iii. pp. 155-193.
Dec. 1858. -1 Ibid. p. 156. Epiphanius,
7 Ibid. § 3. p. 5. Panaria, i. 391 ; ed. Oehler,
8 TheologischeJahrbiicher, 1855, Corpus, ii. pp. 708 sqq.
pp. 227 sqq. and 412 sqq.

58 LECTURE II.
posterior, or rather post-posterior, limit of Justin's
life ; ' and Dr. Hort concludes that
We may without fear of considerable errour set down
Justin's first Apology to 145 or better still to 146, and his
death to 148. The second Apology, if really separate from
the first, will then fall in 146 or 147, and the Dialogue with
Tryphon about the same time.2
This is practically a return to the older position of
Pearson, who was followed by Dodwell, Massuet, and
others. Modern critics had, for the most part, given
considerable weight to the absence of the title Caasar
from the names of Marcus Aurelius (Verissimus
Philosophus) and Lucius Verus (Lucius Philosophus)
in the dedication of the First Apology, and had con
cluded that it could not have been written after their
adoption by Antoninus Pius in July a.d. 138. The
earlier date, a.d. 138 or 139, has the high authority
of M. Waddington,3 and is also accepted by, among
others, Dr. Caspari of Christiania,4 and Dr. Adolf
Harnack.5
The First The position of Justin is a key- stone in the eccle
siastical history of the second century, and you will
feel therefore that some details of his date are essential
to our purpose, but it is unnecessary to enter at any
greater length on a discussion which is after all chiefly
of literary interest,6 and, as we have been reminded
2 Journal, ut supra, p. 191. Taufsymbols und der Glaubens-
3 Memoire de I'Academie des regel, Thl. iii. 1875, pp. 362 sqq.
Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, 1867, 6 Theologische Liter aturzeitung,
torn. xxvi. pt. i. pp. 264 sqq. 1876, No. 1, col. 14.
* Quellen zur Geschichte des 6 'Au reste, c'est Ht une

Apology,

LECTURE II. 59
by Dr. Volkmar, does not really affect the result, and the
As far as the writings with which we shall have to f 138-150.
deal are concerned, that is, the First Apology and the
Dialogue, we have a consensus of opinion that they
fall within the ten or twelve years from a.d. 138
to a.d. 148 or 150. It will not escape your atten
tion that every year by which they are shifted back
wards increases their importance as early evidence,
while every year by which they are pressed forwards
welds more closely the essential unity of Justin and
Irenasus as witnesses for the use of the Gospels.
The period included in the composition of the
Dialogue itself, probably covers at least the dozen
years which have just been marked out as our limits.
It must have been written before the First Apology,
for this work contains a distinct reference to it ; 7
but in the first chapter of the Dialogue, Trypho
describes himself as a fugitive from the war,8 and in
the ninth chapter, when Trypho' s friends fall into
conversation among themselves, the natural subject
is the war in Juda3a. We may suppose therefore
that the Dialogue took place at no great interval after
the insurrection of Bar-Kochba, that is, not much
later than a.d. 135. Justin intimates in the course of
the discussion,9 that it is his intention to draw

question de pure curiosite litte'- laid on the expression tov vvv
raire.' Aube, Saint Justin, p. 39. yevopevov iroXepov. Cf. Apol. i. cap.
7 Dial. cap. cxx. ad fin. ; Von xxxi. ; ibid. p. 94, note 8.
Otto, i. p. 432. Cf. Apol. cap. 9 Dial. cap. lxxx. ; ibid. pp.
xxvi. ; ibid. i. pp. 76 sqq. 286 sqq.
8 Too much stress must not be

60

LECTURE II.

up a statement of the arguments on either side,
and early in the Dialogue 1 addresses an unknown
friend who is disclosed at the end as Marcus Pom-
peius,2 for whose benefit the account of the discussion
seems to have been written some years after it actu
ally took place. How far the account is strictly
historical, and how far it has been cast by the writer
into its present shape after the fashion of a dialogue
of Plato ; whether Trypho is really the renowned
Rabbi Tarphon,3 whether portions of the Dialogue
have been lost, are questions which need not here
concern us.4 Our witness is Justin, and the evidence
is not affected by the doubt whether Justin or Trypho
really said certain things in a certain definite form

1 Dial. cap. viii. ; Von Otto,
pp. 32 sqq.
2 Ibid. cap. cxli. ad fin. ; ibid.
p. 496.
5 ' flB-lB Tarphon, ut Judsei
pronunciant, sive ut Carpzovius
in Introd. ad Theol. Jud. p. 84,
mavult, Truphon, vel potius Try-
phon, quod nominis in Oriente,
Syria inprimis et ^Egypto usita-
tissimum fuisse ex Scaligeri Ani-
madverss. ad Euseb. p. 146, et
Ezech. Spanhemio de Usu et
prsestantia Numism. p. 454,
observat Belandus ad Othonem
p. 131. . . . Disputatur alioquin
inter eruditos, noster ne Tryphon
cum Judseo illo, contra quem Jus
tinus Martyr disputat in dialogo,
idem sit, an minus. Affirmant
id Bartoloccivs Parte II. p. 862,
Drusius de Sectis Judseorum lib.
ii. c. ii. (8), Jo. Lightfootus torn.

ii. Opp. p. 144, Belandus ad
Othonem, p. 129, Cavius in
Histor. Liter, p. 28 et alii, qui
de Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis ex-
posuerunt : ex nostratibus autem
Carpzovius 1. c. Sententise huic
applauserunt plerique, quia in
primis temporis ratio earn com-
mendare videbatur. Tryphon
enim hie a Judasis Akibse statui-
tur aequalis, Akibae scilicet illius,
qui princeps rebellionis Judaicse,
Coziba Pseudo Messia prseeunte,
in urbe Bitter excitatse, pars fuit,
et in isto bello vitam finiit
secundum Judfeos a.m. 3880,
vel 3901, i.e. a.c. 120, vel 141.'
Wolf, Bibliothecx Hebraex, part
ii. 1721, pp. 836-7.
4 See esp. Zahn, Studien zur
Justin in Zeitschrift fiir Kirchen-
geschichte, 1886, pp. 1-84.

LECTURE II. 61
about a.d. 135, or whether Justin, writing some years
later, describes them as saying these things at that
time. Justin's representation of the position in which
the interlocutors stood towards the Gospels, would be
his own testimony to the position of the Gospels at
the time when the Dialogue took place. A dramatist
of contemporaneous events does not introduce ana
chronisms. What then is the evidence of Justin, as furnished Their evi
dence to
by his First Apology and the Dialogue with Trypho, to use of the
the existence and use of the Fourth Gospel in the Gospel.
fourth and fifth decades of the second century ? What
traces have we a right to expect in these writings,
on the assumption that the work was then known
and accepted, and what traces do we as a matter of
fact find ?
It will not be forgotten that the Apology is a Nature of
an apo-
short defence of Christians, addressed to the emperor, logy.
•senate, and people of Rome. It is not a treatise on
doctrine for the use of Christians, nor yet a declara
tion of the truths held by the Church in opposition
to the perversions of heresy. It will not be expected
therefore to contain full and clear statements, such as
are found in the great work of Irenaeus Against
Heresies ; nor would those to whom it was addressed
care much about the Christian writings. The ques
tion for them was the nature of Christianity itself,
and its relation to the empire. The writer of the
Apology would limit himself to such materials as
would serve the purpose in hand, and would keep

62 LECTURE II.
before the mind his august but heathen readers. He
had himself been a heathen, and had been largely
influenced in accepting the truth of Christianity by
the fulfilment of Hebrew prophecy, and the moral
elevation of Christians. On both of these he will
naturally dwell in addressing other heathen.
The The Dialogue with Trypho is, in like manner, an
anapXgy apology for Christianity addressed to the Jews ; but
to Jews. Trypho would not admit the authority of the Gospels
any more than a heathen emperor would. For him
the Old Testament is the book of oracles, and to this
the appeal is therefore constantly made. To no writing
of the New Testament can there be any such appeal.
The facts of the Gospel history are referred to as
facts, and they are not disputed ; but Justin cannot
claim any special value for them, nor would Trypho
grant any such claim on the ground that they were
related by inspired authors, or were contained in
documents of more than human authority.
Position An apologist of the second century cannot more-
iogistm°" over, from his very position, refer to books which
century^ ne himself considers to be sacred, as inspired or
authoritative. This would be to beg the question at
issue. Nor would the names of the writers give any
weight to statements which might be quoted from
them. On the contrary, to omit the names of the
sacred writers, and to avoid all reference to their
writings, may be taken as the normal use in apolo
getic treatises of this period, by men whose other
works show a familiar acquaintance with them.

LECTURE II. 63
This will appear from two or three examples.
Justin's own pupil Tatian was, as we shall have Tatian,
occasion to see presently, the compiler of a harmony
of the four Gospels. He also wrote an apologetic
Discourse to Greeks^ which nowhere refers by name
to any sacred writing or any author of such writing.
Athenagoras presented an Apology 6 to Marcus Aure- Athena-
lius in the last quarter of the century, when there
was no question as to the Gospels, but he makes no
reference by name to them or to their authors. Ter- Tertuiiiar,,
tullian constantly refers to the Gospels and their
writers in his other works; but if we stood to
Tertullian in a similar position to that in which we
stand to Justin — that is, if only his Apology 7 and
address To the Gentiles* were extant — we should have
no proof that he had any knowledge either of the
Gospels or of their writers. Cyprian, to whom the Cyprian.
Gospels were as familiar as they are to ourselves, in
his address to Demetrian nowhere names the Gospels
or the Evangelists. He quotes the New Testament
writings, and in three instances quotes the Gospels ;
but Lactantius is of opinion that even this is a wrong
method of treatment, for Demetrian was in his view
' not to be confuted by authorities from that scripture
which he regarded as false and fabricated, but by
arguments and reason.' 9 It is not, therefore, a mark
5 Oratio ad Grsecos. Von Otto, torn. i.
Corpus, torn. vi. 8 Ad Nationes. Ibid.
6 Supplicatio pro Christianis. 9 Lactantius, Institut. lib. v.
Ibid. torn. vii. § 4. Norton, Genuineness of the
7 Apologeticum, ed. Oehler, Gospels, ed. 2, pp. 137 sq.

64 LECTURE II.
of higher knowledge, but of ignorance, to seek verbal
quotations in apologists of the second century.
Direct re- To expect then in these writings of Justin any
f Gr6HC6 to
Evange- formal claim to inspiration or Apostolic authority for
to be"0 the Gospels, or any reference by name to the Evan-
ezpec e ' gelists. is to ignore the essential conditions under
which they were written ; to expect that, in works in
which fulfilment of prophecy is the central idea, the
subject-matter of the Fourth Gospel should be as
prominent as that of S. Matthew, or that, in works
in which the outlines of our Lord's teaching are ne
cessarily to be presented in their simplest form, the
deeper teaching of the Fourth Gospel should be as
prominent as the Sermon on the Mount, is to fail
wholly in the historic imagination, which is a first
requisite to the understanding what these apologies
really were ; and to expect that quotations from the
Gospels should be made by Justin with minute and
verbal conformity to the text of any one Gospel, is
to demand from him what is found in no ante-Nicene
Father, and is much less frequent in writers of every
age than is generally supposed to be the case. A
smile of contempt has not seldom been indulged in at
the expense of simple Christian folk who have some
times spoken as though, at the close of the first and
in the earlier years of the second century, the whole
New Testament was collected into a volume of con
venient size, and was in this form widely circu
lated throughout Christendom. But the demand
for quotations, as it is often formulated, implies

LECTURE II. 65
such a volume with chapters and verses, or at least
some collection with simple methods of division and
reference ; and it cannot possibly be satisfied by the
condition of things which existed at that time.
Let us turn then to the pages of Justin, with a Traces of
. Fourth
correct impression of what may fairly be expected, Gospel
and see what traces of the Fourth Gospel are actually
found there. If our limits will allow us to make
only a brief examination of a very wide subject, it
will be a satisfaction to remember that in the present
state of modern criticism, a detailed treatment of this
point is less necessary than that of some others.
Now, one of the first things which strike the Recur-
' ° rence of
student of Justin is the recurrence of the term term Memoirs :
Memoirs of the Apostles, which, with some variations,
is found alike throughout the Apology and the Dia-
loque. We find the term now in the simplest The
J Memoirs,
form : —
... it is written in the Memoirs. l
Again, we have ' Memoirs of the Apostles ' : — Memoirs
o > x of the
... the Apostles in the memoirs composed by them which post es'
are called Gospels . . .2
And upon the day called Sunday all who live either in
town or country meet together at one place, and the memoirs
1 ev toXs diropvrjpovevpao-i ye'- 2 Ol yap dirocrToXoi ev rois yevo-
ypairrai' Dial. cap. CV. ad fin., pevois vir avrcov cmopvr)poveipao-iv,
quoting Matt. v. 20. Von Otto, a KaXelrai evayyeXia, Apol. i. cap.
1 Corpus, i. p. 378. yeypawrai ev lxvi. Then follows the Eucha-
rdis mropvrjpovevpaoiv, cap. cvii. ristic formula from Luke xxii. 19 ;
ad init., quoting Matt. xvi. 1, 4, cf. Matt. xxvi. 28. Ibid. i. 182.
cf. xii. 39. Ibid. i. 382.

66

LECTURE II.

Memoirs
of His

Memoirs.

of the Apostles and the writings of the prophets are read as
long as time permits.3
For this devil ... is said in the memoirs of the Apostles
to have drawn near to Him, and to have tempted Him.4
Then again we have the form ' Memoirs of His
Apostles,' where 'His' distinctly refers to our Lord: —
... we find it recorded in the memoirs of His Apostles that
He is the Son of God.6
. . . which things are also written in the memoirs of His
Apostles.6 ... as has been shown in the memoirs of His Apostles.7
. . . which things indeed are reported to have happened in
the memoirs of His Apostles.8
Then the form ' his Memoirs ' : —
It is said that one of the Apostles was called Peter after his
name was changed, and this is recorded in his memoirs — 9
where ' his memoirs ' may mean the ' memoirs of
Peter,' i.e. the Gospel of Mark, where the change of
name is recorded, or the ' memoirs of Christ ; ' but
neither usage has any parallel in Justin, and there is

3 Kal rfj roil 'HXiov Xeyopevg rjpepa
wdvrwv Kara iroXeis rj aypovs pevdv-
tcov eirl to aiiro o-vveXevois ytverai,
Kal rd dnopviqpovevpaTa rwv airo-
o-rdXa>v rj rd o-vyypdppara rav
¦npoaSrp-wv dvayivma-Kerai pexpis
iyx<opei. Apol. i. cap. Ixvii. ; Von
Otto, i. 184-186.
4 ev rois diropvrjpovevpao-t tcov
duoo-ToXoov yeypanrai Trpoo-eXBav
avra> Kal neipdfav pexpi tov elneiv
avra>- Then follows a citation
from Matt. iv. 9, 10. Dial. cap.
ciii. ; ibid. i. 372. Cf. another
reference to this chapter infra.
5 ev rois diropvrjpovevpaai Ttov

anoo-ToXoyv avrov. Dial. cap. C. ;
ibid. i. 356.
6 Dial. cap. ci. ad fin., The
mockery on the cross, Ps. xxii.
Ibid. i. 362.
7 Dial. cap. cii., The silence
before Pilate. Ibid. i. 364.
8 Dial. cap. civ., The prophe
cies of Ps. xxii. 15-18. Lbid. i.
374. Kai to emetv peratvopaKevai
avrov Herpov eva to>v drroo-ToXav,
Kal yeypd(p8ai ev rois dwopvrfpovevpa-
a-w airov . . . Dial. cap. cvi., Mark
iii. 16, 17 ; ibid. i. 380. See esp.
Von Otto's note 10 in loc.

LECTURE II. 67
every reason to think with Von Otto that the reading
is wrong, and that the word ' his ' should be ' their,'
referring to the preceding ' Apostles,' or, better still,
that ' Apostles ' has dropped out. With this emen
dation it becomes another instance of ' memoirs of
His Apostles,' forms of which we have just noted in
this immediate context.
The Memoirs are further described in two impor- Memoirsfurther
tant passages :  described:
They who have written memoirs of all things which
relate to our Lord Jesus Christ . . -1
In the memoirs which I say were composed by His
Apostles and those who followed them . . .2
The first reflection which will occur on examin- con
ing these quotations is, I think, that Justin regards
the Memoirs as a whole, and that he regards them a written
as an authoritative written record of the life of our ot the
Lord. To them, and to them only, is the appeal made. Lord'
They are ' memoirs of all things which relate to our
Lord Jesus Christ.'
The description of the Sunday service, moreover, sacred
shows that the Memoirs are regarded as sacred books.
They are read — and it is clear from the context that
a general use is referred to, not that of any particular
church — together with the writings of the Prophets.
1 i>s ol diropvrjpovevo-avres ndvra 2 'Ev yap rois diropvi)povevpaa-iv,
ra nepl rov o-a>rrjpos rjpav lqaov a (brjpi vtto tSjv anoaroXav avrov
Xpio-roC e8i8a(-av, . . . Apol. i. Kal rav exelvois irapaKoXovSrjo-dvraiv
cap. xxxiii., where the corre- o-vvreraxdai, . . . Dial. cap. ciii. ;
sponding verb is used ; ibid. i. ibid. i. 372.
102. p 2

68 LECTURE II.
They are placed in order before the writings of the
Prophets, and had obtained therefore the position of
first in honour and importance. It will not escape
notice, though the line of thought must not now be
followed, that this position of the Memoirs carries
any possible date which can be assigned to them, to
a time long before that of which Justin is speaking.
of Another obvious reflection is, that in Justin's
authority, thought there lies behind these Memoirs the authority
of the Apostles. They are to him not only ' memoirs,'
but ' memoirs of the Apostles.' And behind the
coming Apostles there lies the authority of the Lord. They
from the „ . , . ,
Lord. are not only memoirs ot the Apostles, but memoirs
of His Apostles,' ' memoirs composed by His
Apostles, and those who followed them.' The
student will find that the successive steps by which
all teaching is traced through the Apostles to the
Lord Himself are quite as certain, if not quite so
definitely expressed, as they are in the passages of
Tertullian which were quoted in the last lecture.3
He will need therefore no guidance to an answer,
if he should meet with the assertion that Justin
derived any part of his doctrine from human teachers,
as, for example, the doctrine of the Logos from the
pages of Philo ; no guidance, I mean, other than the
pages of Justin himself.
Use by This reference to Tertullian brings another
Tertul-
Han, thought in its train. We know what Gospels he
used, and how he traced them back in the unity of
3 Lecture I. pp. 24 sqq.

LECTURE II. 69
the Church's life and teaching to the Lord Himself. Irenes,
We know, too, what language Irenaeus used about others.
the four-fold Gospel, and the Gospel according to S.
John, and we remember that Tertullian is a witness
from Rome, and that Irenaeus is a witness from
Ephesus and Rome as well as from Lyons. But
Ephesus is the scene of the Dialogue with Trypho,
and Rome is the place where both the Apology and
the Dialogue were written. And Irenaeus was for
a quarter of a century a contemporary of Justin, and
probably at one time a fellow-citizen with him in
Rome. In any case he was in immediate contact with
his life and work, and had a full and exact know
ledge of his writings ; for in the work of Irenasus
Against Heresies, the Apology and Dialogue are quoted
or referred to at least thirty times.4 Tertullian' s
references to Justin are known to be still more full,
and his works were used also by Tatian, Athenagoras,
Theophilus, Minucius Felix, Melito.5
The works of Justin are then in familiar use
by his contemporaries and followers. For the most
prominent of these writers, the four Gospels stand
out as clearly as they do for Origen or Eusebius.
Is it, therefore, within any possible limits of even
an unbeliever's credulity, that Irenaeus should be
minutely acquainted with Justin, should know all
4 Cf. Adv. Hxr. iv. 6. 2, Kal See the list in Von Otto's Index
KaXSis 'lovo-rivos ev tw wpbs Map- iv. Corpus, torn. ii. pp. 595-6 ; and
Kia>va o-vvrdypaTi q>T)o-iv, and v. 26. Von Gebhardt und Hurnack, Texte
2, KaXms 6 'lovo-rivos e(f>T). Ed. und Untersuchungen, Bd. i. p. 131.
Harvey, torn. ii. pp. 158 and 396. 5 See Von Otto, ut supra.

70 LECTURE II.
identified about the Memoirs of the Apostles, the Memoirs of His
with th? Apostles, the Memoirs composed by them which are
Gospels, called Gospels, the Memoirs which are read on the day
called Sunday, the Memoirs which were composed by
His Apostles and those who followed them,, the Memoirs
of all things which relate to our Lord Jesus Christ, and
should, without one word to indicate the change,
write all that he does write about the four-fold
Gospel and S. John, unless he himself believed, and
meant his readers to believe, that the four Gospels
are identical with the Memoirs of which Justin speaks
so much, and that the Gospel according to S. John
was widely read with the others in Church services
between the years a.d. 130-140 ? I will not waste
time by asking a similar question about Tertullian,
because I have already with some fulness quoted his
language,6 and that language read in the light of
his use of Justin, and of his connexion with Rome,
leaves no possible room for doubt. Nor will I seek to
answer questions which have sometimes been asked
about the interval between Justin and Irenaaus, be
cause in the truest sense there was no such interval.
Corporations do not die. The corporate life of the
Church flows ever on.
This But one visible link is so striking that it must
Tatlan's7 not be passed over. Tatian's relation to modern
?frf™~ criticism will meet us again,7 but the great fact
which seems to be now established beyond question,
that Tatian, the pupil of Justin, composed a har-
6 Cf. Lecture I. pp. 24 sqq. ' Cf. Lecture VII. pp. 375 sqq.

LECTURE IL 71
mony — a Diatessaron — of four Gospels, which are
practically identical with our own, is, apart from
every other consideration, sufficient to show what
writings were included under the term, Memoirs of
the Apostles. The Diatessaron of Tatian is the key
to the Memoirs of Justin.
In one of the passages which I have quoted 8 from The
the Apology, Justin himself identifies the Memoirs tion is
with the Gospels — 'the Memoirs . . . which are justm,
called Gospels.' 9 Some attempts have been made
to invalidate the force of this identification by sup
posing the words to be a gloss ; but there is no
MS. authority for doubting their genuineness,1 and
they are quite in accord with Justin's usage. In the
Dialogue, a passage which is apparently quoted from
S. Matthew is referred to as ' written in the Gospel ; ' 2
and in another place Trypho speaks of the Christian
precepts which are contained 'in the so-called Gospel.'3
The fact seems to be that Trypho is acquainted with
one or more of the individual writings which col
lectively formed the ' Gospel,' their use as lessons
being probably the bridge by which the term passed
from the good news which the writings contained,
to the writings themselves, and to him, as a student
of them, Justin uses the term Gospel ; while in
8 Cf. supra, p. 65. Ber. 1845, p. 71)glossam videntur
9 Apol. i. cap. lxvi. ; Von Otto, olere. Verum nihil muto.' Von
Corpus, i. 182. Otto, in loc. note 5.
1 ' Porte sunt qui audacter ilia 2 Dial. cap. c. ; Von Otto, i.
verba expungerent ac sibi gratu- p. 356 ; Matt. xi. 27. Cf. Luke
larentur de emendatione. Sane x. 22.
Schleiermachero (Einl. ins N. T. 3 Dial. cap. x. ; ibid. p. 38.

72 LECTURE II.
other portions of the Dialogue, in the presence
of Trypho's friends, he uses the term Memoirs.
But in the Apology, the regular term for the outside
world is Memoirs, which in this instance he identifies
with the Gospels of the inner Christian circle. In
the same way he explains ' Baptism ' 3 — the word itself
not occurring in the Apology, though not infrequent
in the Dialogue — 'Eucharist,'4 'Christos,'5 and the
technical use of ' brethren.' 6
and Irenasus,7 and Tertullian, when they wrote so
irenams, much about the Gospels, and used so fully this
others. Apology of Justin's, were perfectly aware that while
he employed the term Memoirs in addressing out
siders, he and other Christians used the term Gospels,
or, to express the unity of a collected plurality,
Gospel ; and that he formally asserted the two sets of
writings to be identical. The Gospels of Irenaaus
and Tertullian are thus further identified with the
Memoirs of Justin.
Fourth If these general statements are accepted, there
certainly remains no question about Justin's use of the Fourth
inthe6 Gospel. It is included in the Memoirs, which were
Memoirs. read -m ^ services 0f t]ie Church. It would seem
then to be an idle task to inquire whether in this
short Apology to Gentiles, for whom the elementary
terms of the Christian life have to be explained,
s Apol. i. cap. lxi. ; Von Otto, 6 Apol. cap. Ixv. ; ibid. p. 176-
Corpus, pp. 162 sqq. 180.
4 Apol. cap. lxvi. ; ibid. p. 7 Cf. Zahn, Geschtchte des
180-182. Neutestamentlichen Kanons, 1889,
6 Apol. cap. xxx. ; ibid. p. 90. Bd. i. 2 Halfte, p. 467.

LECTURE .II. 73
there are any references to the most spiritual repre
sentation of the doctrine of Christ ; or whether in
this Dialogue with an ideal Jew, his attention will
be formally directed to the writing wdiich, more
than any other, had tolled the knell of an exclu
sive Judaism. The task, moreover, has been very
adequately performed by others, as we shall see, and
my own special duty in these lectures is to estimate
modern criticism, not to add to it.
I will therefore pass over a somewhat full ex- Eecent
amination of the pages of Justin, which I had nryself tions:Iga'
made for this purpose, and that the more gladly as
a minute comparison of texts is not easily presented
in a 'sermon-lecture,' and will ask you to consider
some results of the more recent critical investigations
of this question. Part of them will be thought by
some persons whom my words may reach to be much
more authoritative than any induction which could
be made by a Bampton Lecturer.
Herr Albrecht Thoma is one of the ablest Herr
opponents of the view that S. John wrote the Thoma,
Fourth Gospel. In the year 1875 he discussed in
two long and important articles in Hilgenfeld 's Review,
the relation of Justin to Paul and the John-Gospel.8
The article devoted to S. John occupies seventy-
five closely-printed pages, and includes a detailed
examination of every chapter. The writer is not
convinced that S. John is included in the Memoirs — .
he does not approach this question, as we have done,
8 Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie, 1875, xix. pp. 490-565.

74 LECTURE II.
from the side of history — nor yet that he is quoted as
an authoritative historical source ; but taking chapter
by chapter, and verse by verse, he finds what he calls
a ' literary community of goods ' 9 which leaves, in
his opinion, no room for doubt that Justin knew
and used S. John. To adopt Herr Thoma's own
expressive phrase : —
He cites the Synoptists, he thinks and argues according to
John.1 Again : —
John is to the Martyr no historic writing in the sense
of the Synoptists. It is to him no book of history, but much
more a manual from which he draws precious materials for
his Christology.2 Again : —
The Fourth Gospel is to Justin in a similar position to
that of the Epistles [of S. Paul].3
The final conclusion is that : —
As a manual of Christian gnosis, but not as a source of
historical knowledge, it may after all be called a ' Gospel,'
and we may place it among the Gospels.4

9 'Eine literarische Giiterge- logie herausholt.' Ibid, pp.557,
meinschaft.' Zeitschrift, ut supra, 558.
p. 545. 3 ' Das vierte Evangelium steht
1 'DieSynoptikercitirter, nach Justin auf gleicher Linie, wie die
Johannes denkt und argumen- Episteln.' Ibid. p. 558.
tirt er.' Lbid. p. 554. 4 'AlsLehrbuchderchristlichen
2 ' Johannes ist dem Martyrer Gnosis, aber nicht als Quelle
keine historische Schrift im geschichtlicher Erkenntniss, mag
Sinne der Synoptiker, kein Ge- man's auch immerhin ein "Evan -
schichtsbuch, er ist ihm vielmehr gelium " nennen und unter die
ein Lehrbuch, aus dem er schatz- Evangelien stellen.' Ibid. p. 565.
bares Material fiir seine Christo-

LECTURE II. 75
Dr. Adolf Hilgenfeld is probably the best known Dr. Adolf
living representative of the negative Tubingen school, teiif1
and his Review, from which I have just quoted, took
the place of Baur and Zeller's Tubingen Year-book,
and has been for more than thirty years the leading
exponent of what has been considered to be advanced
teaching. In 1875 he published a critical and
learned Introduction to tlie New Testament, in which
he sums up the results of his previous studies. In
this work he admits the difficulty of denying Justin's
use of the Fourth Gospel, and adds : —
I have long recognized the possibility of Justin's acquaint
ance with the John-Gospel.5 . . .
Dr. Ezra Abbot, an American divine, whose too Dr. Ezra
early death in 1884 was regarded on both sides of
the Atlantic as a severe loss to the science of criti
cism, published in 1880 a work on the Authorship of
the Fourth Gospel,6 which was republished last year,
in a volume of Dr. Abbot's collected papers. Nearly
all subsequent writers on the subject have acknow
ledged their indebtedness to this essay. Perhaps no
other portion of it is so valuable as that in which,
with all the microscopic exactness and care of a
laboratory, he analyses, examines, and weighs the
quotations in Justin. This is how he states the
results of his examination : —
We are authorized then, I believe, to regard it as in the
highest degree probable, if not morally certain, that in the
5 Historisch-hritische Einleitung 6 Authorship of the Fourth
in das Neue Testament, 1875, p. Gospel. External Evidences. 1880.
67.

mond,

76 LECTURE n.
time of Justin Martyr the Fourth Gospel was generally
received as the work of the Apostle John.7
It will add to the value of these results in the
opinion of some persons, if they are reminded that
Dr. Ezra Abbot was a professor in the University of
Harvard, and that this essay was first read before the
Ministers' Institute, and was first printed in the
Unitarian Review.
Professor On this side of the Atlantic we have been not
Drum- less indebted on many questions connected with the
Fourth Gospel to the patient investigations of a
learned Unitarian minister. Professor James Drum-
mond has the honour of being one of the few English
theologians who are stated, in an article which has
attained some celebrity,8 to be in the van of modern
progress. He has the much higher honour of
worthily filling an office which was made great by
the intellectual and moral stature of Dr. James
Martineau. Professor Drummond discussed the re
lation of Justin to the Fourth Gospel in three articles
in an English Unitarian quarterly, The Theological
Review, in October 1875,9 and in April and July
1877.1 Dr. Ezra Abbot has expressed what is, I
believe, the general estimate of these articles, in the
7 Authorship, ut supra, p. 80. ' Lbid. vol. xiv. pp. 155, 323.
8 Mrs. Humphry Ward, The Cf. also Prof. Drummond's inte-
New Beformation : Nineteenth resting review of Von Engel-
Century, March 1889, p. 468, hardt's Das Christenthum Justin's
note. des Martyrers. Lbid. vol. xvi. pp.
9 Theological Beview, vol. xii. 365 sqq.
pp. 471-488.

LECTURE II. 77
following words which he applied to the first of the
series : —
He has treated the question with the ability, candor, and
cautious accuracy of statement which distinguish his writings
generally.2 The evidence of Professor Drummond as a wit
ness should have therefore exceptional weight in de
termining our opinion. It is expressed in language
which is clear and definite : —
It does seem to me surprising that anyone, in comparing
the passages in Justin and John, should doubt for one moment
that the dependence is on the side of the former. John has
all the impress of original genius, and gives his thoughts
with the terse suggestiveness of one who for the first time
commits them to writing. Justin never rises above the level
of a prosy interpreter of other people's ideas.3
On another page he says : —
There are two hypotheses by which to account for the
quotation in Justin : 4 (1) that a Gospel which in the genera
tion after Justin was, as we know, confidently believed to
have been in existence for the greater part of a century, was
really in existence sufficiently early to be used by Justin ;
and (2) that a Gospel with a precisely similar vein of thought,
a Gospel which in the generation after Justin had passed out
of ecclesiastical use, and the very existence of which is merely
inferred from the present quotation, was cited by Justin as
an apostolical authority. The latter hypothesis, being framed
for the express purpose, will of course explain the pheno
menon. If the reasoning in this paper be correct, the former
hypothesis, framed not for the purpose, but on the ground
2 Authorship, ut supra, p. 34, 4 'Apol. i. c. 61,' quoting John
note. iii. 3-5. Cf. Von Otlo, Corpus, i.
3 Beview,ut supra, vol.xii. p. 483. pp. 164-166.

78 LECTURE II.
of historic probability, also affords an adequate explanation of
the facts. Surely, then, it is the part of sound criticism to
accept an explanation which is founded upon what we know,
instead of resorting to the boundless field of conjecture, where
the severity of scientific study is in danger of being sacrificed
to the facile pleasure of piling up shifting and unsubstantial
hypotheses.5 And he sums up the results of the last article as
follows : —
I must conclude, therefore, as best satisfying on the
whole the conditions of the case, not only that Justin regarded
the fourth Gospel as one of the historical Memoirs of Christ,
but that it is not improbable that he believed in its Johannine
authorship. This is a very old-fashioned conclusion ; but I
have endeavoured simply to follow the evidence without any
ulterior object, and must leave the result to the judgment
of the reader.6
Dr. The writer of the article in the Nineteenth Century
Sanday, . •'
to which I just now referred, singled out our present
Professor of Exegesis as another of the few English
thinkers whose work was worthy of being classed with
that of modern Germans. I agree so fully at least in
the inclusive part of this opinion, that I will quote
Dr. Sanday's judgment on Justin's relation to S.
his view John. And first from his work on the Gospels in the
Second Century : —
' The word became flesh,' is the key by which Justin is
made intelligible, and that key is supplied by the fourth
Gospel. No other Christian writer had combined these two
ideas before — the divine Logos, with the historical person
ality of Jesus. When therefore we find the ideas combined
5 Theological Beview, xii. ut supra, pp. 487 sq. 6 Ibid. xiv. p. 333.

LECTURE II. 79
as in Justin, we are necessarily referred to the fourth Gospel
for them ; for the strangely inverted suggestion of Volkmar,
that the author of the fourth Gospel borrowed from Justin,
is on chronological, if not on other grounds, certainly unten
able.7 In his Inaugural Lecture on the Study of the New his view
Testament, delivered before this University in 1883, the
Professor marks the advance which had taken place
in the ten years which had passed since the publica
tion of his earlier work on the Authorship and His
torical Character of the Fourth Gospel, in 1872. Then
he had excused himself from dealins: with the ex-
ternal evidences on the ground that the results were
inconclusive. This cannot, he observes, be said now,
and among other changes he notes that Justin gives
no uncertain sound.8 He thinks also that the labours
of the two scholars to whom I have referred, Dr.
Ezra Abbot and Professor Drummond, had
placed quite beyond question Justin's acquaintance with the
Gospel ;
and he adds : —
Greater importance attached to the opinions of Professor
Drummond and Dr. Ezra Abbot, as they presented, perhaps,
a nearer approach to rigid impartiality than had yet been
seen in any English work dealing with the subject. Both
these writers are Unitarians — the one English and the other
American — and they are besides scholars, as it seems to me, of
singularly calm and balanced judgment.9
7 Gospels in the Second Century, 8 Inaugural Lecture, 1883, pp.
1876, p. 287. 28, 29.
9 Ibid. p. 8.

80 LECTURE II.
In addressing the Church Congress at Reading
later in the same year, Dr. Sanday returned to the
subject, and with special reference to the arguments
urged upon the other side by Dr. Edwin A. Abbott x ,
he writes : —
I have been lately reading Justin again, with a view
to test the force of this conclusion [that Justin regarded the
Fourth Gospel as not possessing Apostolic authority] ; and it
is impressed upon me more forcibly than ever that Justin
really implies the Fourth Gospel, and implies it, not only on
the surface, but deep down in the substance of his thought.
Frequently as Justin brings in the Logos doctrine, it is
almost always in immediate connexion with the subject of
the Incarnation. Page after page, time after time that the
one is mentioned, the other immediately follows, 6 \6yos
aap!; sjsvsto seems to be ringing in Justin's ears. But these
are the words of St. John and not of Philo.2
Dr. I am not sure that the last witness whom I am
Westcott, about to quote, fared quite so well in the article which
suggested those whom we have just heard, but few
names will seem of more weight to many of those
whom I am addressing than that of Dr. Westcott.
His studies of Justin and of the whole field of critical
and patristic learning are not of to-day or of yes
terday. It is now thirty-five years since the first
edition of his work On the Canon of the New Testament
was published, and it is hardly too much to say that
every leaflet which has appeared on this subject
during all these years has had the fullest weight
given to it in the sensitive balance of an exceptionally
1 Modem Beview, July and October, 1882.
a Official Beport, 1883, p. 93.

LECTURE H. 81
exact and widely read scholar's judgment. In 1881 bis view
. . J o & in 1881
he writes : —
It is unlikely that I shall ever again be able to revise
what now stands written ;
and under the impression — happily a mistaken one —
that his pen was touching for the last time the work repeated
of his life from early manhood onwards, he says : —
In one particular of some importance I have felt able
after a fresh consideration of the evidence to speak more con
fidently than in former editions. There is, I think, no reason
able doubt that the writings of Justin Martyr shew that he
was acquainted with the Gospel of St. John.3
I submit that in the remarkable consensus of Consensus of
opinion which I have j ust quoted, there is a solid foun- opinion.
dation for the belief that Justin knew and used the
Fourth Gospel. I submit that it is a necessary deduc
tion from Justin's clearly stated position in relation to
the Apostolate, as the channel through which truth
came to the Church from the divine Head, that he
could not possibly have used the Fourth Gospel as a
manual of doctrine without believing in its Apostolic
origin. I submit that in the historic nexus between
Justin and Irenaeus there is proof that the Gospels of
the Church in a.d. 130-140 were the same as the
Gospels of the Church in a.d. 170-180, and that
the Fourth Gospel was certainly included.
Shall I be asked by some of my younger hearers, J^in did
' Why, if Justin admitted the Fourth Gospel as he n°t i™te
3 On the Canon of the New Testament, Notice to ed. v. 1881, p. xliii ;
cf. ed. vi. 1889, pp. xiii, xliii. G

82 LECTURE II.
tne did the other two or three, did he not more fre-
FourthGospel quently quote it for matters of fact ? ' Why does
more . n • i • i i
fully. he even seem to avoid a quotation which was ready
to his hand in S. John, to find a much less appro
priate one in S. Matthew or S. Luke ? ' My answer
is simply that I do not know.
Reasons But I have already pointed out that a fully suffi-
suggested. _ . . .
cient reason may be found in the characteristics of the
writing and of the persons whom Justin addressed.
It is possible that two or more of the synoptic
Gospels had been formed into a harmony, such as we
know was arranged by Justin's pupil Tatian, in
which the Fourth Gospel had not yet found a place.
It is possible that a merely accidental reason made it
difficult for Justin to have access at the moment to a
roll which contained S. John. It is possible Dr.
Keim's explanation is right, and that Justin did not
make use of S. John because of its opposition to
chiliastic doctrine.4 It is admitted that the Fourth
Gospel did not pass into circulation until much later
than the others, and it is quite possible that it had
not so fully left its mark on the distinctly Pauline
church in Rome. All this is matter of more or
less uncertainty. The fact is that we really know
very little about Justin. He lived more than seven-
4 ' Ich zweifle nicht, dass ganz Schluss : eya) Se Kal ei rives elo-iv
vorziiglich der Bruch des Evan- op6oyvi>poves koto, ndvra Xpio-riavol,
geliums mit dem Chiliasmus Justin Kal o-apKos dvao-rao-iv yevr)o-eo-8ai
zuriickstiess. Hier ist Tryph. 80 ewio-Tape8a Kal xiXia err\ e'v 'lepov-
ungemein belehrend. So mild a-aXr/p, k.t.X.' Geschichte Jesu v.
er sich ausdriickt gegen die Nicht- Nazara, i. p. 140.
Chiliasten, so sagt er doch zum

LECTURE II. 83
teen hundred years ago, and most of his writings have
been lost in the wreck of time. , The Apologies with Existing
which we are dealing are but fragments which have frag-
been saved. But we know that he wrote other works men s'
which from their nature must have dealt more fully
with questions like that of the Fourth Gospel ; and
we know with certainty what men thought who were
contemporaries and immediate successors of Justin,
and were familiarly acquainted with his books.5 The
argument from ignorance is never worth much, but
it is worth nothing in the presence of this full know
ledge. It is impossible to overrate the importance of the The
. , ciemen-
testimony of Justin, but he no longer stands alone tines:
as a witness from the middle of the second century.
While he is defending Christianity against heathen
ism, there are by his side in Rome, representatives
of the extreme forms of Jewish- Christian teaching
which meet us in the so-called Clementines ; and
the rationalist Gnostic tendencies are represented by
Valentinus on the one hand, and by Marcion on the
other. All are in different ways evidence of the wide
acceptance at that time of the Fourth Gospel.
That the Clementine Homilies quote it, is scarcely They
now a matter of opinion. Professor de Lagarde, in the
the Prolegomena to his edition of the Clementina,6 gives Gospel,
fifteen instances of quotation from or reference to S.
John. The list is not quite complete and some of
6 Cf . supra, pp. 68 sqq. 6 Clementina, 1865, Preface, p. 30.
g2

84 LECTURE II.
the instances are of little importance, but they are as
a whole perfectly conclusive. Since the discovery
of the complete MS. of the Homilies in 1853, to
which we shall refer hereafter, their use of the
Fourth Gospel has been recognized on all sides. The
author of Supernatural Religion is of course not con
vinced, though even Strauss 7 was, and Dr. Hilgen-
feld has taken occasion, in a review of the work, to
express his own dissent from the writer's opinions,
and his own belief that he will find no support for
them in Germany or Switzerland.8 The question
their which we now have to ask about the Clementines is,
probable date, not whether they quote S. John, but what is their own
date, and what is therefore the value of their evidence.
Now we shall find that modern criticism has assigned
them to almost every period of the second century.
On the one hand a pillar of the papacy, and on the
other hand one of the momenta in the development
of Baur's scheme of the history of doctrine, no
writings have ever obtained a more entirely un
deserved fame, and no writings have ever been more
subject to the baneful influence of extreme partisan
ship. Their date cannot yet be considered as settled ;
but while the present Roman form is probably to be
assigned to the latter half or even to the close of the
7 Das Leben Jesu, 1864, p. 69. von Joh. 9, 1-3 unabhangig sein
Cf. Lectures IV. p. 210, and VII. sollte.' Review of Supernatural
pp. 374 sq. Beligion, ed. vi. in Zeitschrift fur
8 'In Deutschland und der tvissenschaftliche Theologie 1875,
Schweiz wird es kaum jemand xviii. p. 584. Cf. Einleitung 1815,
glauben, dass Clem. Horn. xix. 22 p. 43, esp. note 1, and j). 734.

evidence.

LECTURE H. 85
century, the original form, Eastern in origin and
Aramaic in language, cannot be later, and is probably
much earlier, than the middle of the century. The
student of these writings will remember their hardly- their
concealed antagonism to S. Paul, and therefore to
S. John, and will see that they are in the position of
an unwilling witness. This makes them for our
present purpose the more valuable ; as does the fact
that, speaking in Rome and under the name of
Clement, they are really the voice of the East
speaking the language of the Elkesaites.
Valentinus was the master of a school which vaien-
promulgated the most profound and wide- spreading a. 138-60.
system of Gnosticism, and numbered among his disci
ples, Ptolemseus, Heracleon, Marcus, and Theodotus.
He was probably by birth an Egyptian, by training
an Alexandrian,9 and by residence a Cypriote, before
he came to Rome, which he must have made his
head-quarters between a.d. 138 and a.d. 160. He
had not left the communion of the Church on his
arrival in Rome,1 but while there, according to what
seems to be the meaning of Irenaeus,2 he flourished
as a leader of his sect during the episcopate of Pius.
What led to the separation we need not inquire. It
may have had its root, as his opponents are not slow
9 Epiphanius, Hssres. xxxi. torn. ii. p. 34.
cap. 2, Panaria ; ed. Oehler, 2 Adv. Heer. iii. iv. 2 ; ed.
Corpus, torn. ii. pp. 306 sqq. Harvey, torn. ii. p. 17. Euse-
1 Tertullian, De Prsescriptione bius, Hist. Eccles. iv. 11.
Hsereticorum, xxxvi. ; ed. Oehler,

86 LECTURE H.
to tell us, in the disappointed ambition of an able
man who saw his inferiors preferred to himself —
a not infrequent cause of division in the Church,
or of perverted critical judgment; or it may be that
here, as certainly in other instances, the apologists of
the second century have set the unhappy example to
their successors in later years, of imputing motives
which had no real existence. Whatever the cause
may have been, it is obvious that, as a witness to
the use of the Fourth Gospel, Valentinus is of the
greater value to us just because he speaks from both
sides of this cleavage.
Followers Let us remind ourselves that the witness of his
form two
schools: followers is also of the greater value, because they
were divided into two schools — one spreading over
Syria and Egypt, the other and chief division having
its centre in Rome and its extensions through Italy
and Gaul.
in the From the East come the Excerpta Theodoti and
Doctrina Orientalis, a series of extracts with cri
ticisms, ascribed to Clement of Alexandria and
printed in his works, which contain frequent quota
tions from S. John.3

3 'Ek Tav Oeo86rov Kal rrjs dva- of the Analecta Antenicaena
ToXiKr/s KaXovpevrjs StSao-xaXias em- (London, 1854), pp. 205-278. . . .
ropai. Fabricius, Bibliotheca Clemens made use of a Valen-
Greeca, torn. v. pp. 134-178. tinian writing, which appealed to
Clem. Alex. Opp. ed. Dindorf, iii. Theodotus as its chief authority.'
pp. 424 sqq. ' The only useable Lipsius, art. Valentinus in Smith
edition (along with the older edi- andWace's Dictionary of Christian
tions of Sylburg and Potter) is Biography, iv. p. 1082. Cf. esp.
that of Bunsen in the first volume Heinrici, Die Valentinianische

East :

LECTURE II. 87
From the West we have Ptolemaeus and Hera- in the
cleon. Ptolemaaus was among the earliest disciples p^.'
of Valentinus and lived on to the time of Irenaaus, ^ns and
' Hera-
who represents him as the head of a party. It was °leon>
from the commentaries of these disciples of Valen- 170-iso.
tinus, and from personal intercourse with some of
them, that Irenaeus obtained his own knowledge of Evidence
the subject ; and it was to counteract the then iremsus,
existing form of the heresy — namely, the school of
Ptolemaeus, which he describes as an offshoot of that
of Valentinus — that he devoted his great work.4 One
section at least is an extract from Ptolemasus him
self.5 This is a connected exposition of part of
the Prologue of S. John, who is referred to as
' John the disciple of the Lord,' and it ends with
the words, ' et Ptolemaeus quidem ita.'6 A little
earlier in the same chapter there is a quotation with
an interpretative change of text by which our Lord's
question ' Now is my soul troubled ; and what shall
I say ? ' becomes ' (When He said) What I shall say,
I know not.' 7 There is also extant an Epistle of of Epi-
Ptolemmus to Flor a which is preserved by Epiphanius,8 p
Gnosis und die Heilige Schrift, pp. 6 These words occur in the
88 sqq. ; and Zahn, Forschungen contemporaneous Latin, but there
u.s.w. iii. p. 122. is no equivalent in the Greek or
4 Adv. Hser. i. Preface, § 2 ; in the account of Epiphanius
ed. Harvey, torn. i. p. 5. (Hser. xxxiii.) which is based on
5 Lbid. i. 8, § 5 ; ed. Harvey, it. It is certain, however, that it
torn. i. p. 80. is Ptolemaeus who is quoted.
7 iv rt3 elprjKevaf Kal ri ein a vvv r/ i/'u^iy ixov rerdpaKrai, Kal
oiic olSa ; Adv. Hser. i. 8, § 2 ad tL eiirio ; John xii. 27.
fin. ; ed. Harvey, torn. i. p. 70.
8 Hser. xxxiii. 3-7 ; ed. Oehler, Corpus, torn. ii. pp. 400-412.

88 LECTURE II.
and in which the words ' All things were made by
Him, and without Him was not anything made,' are
quoted with the formula ' The Apostle saith.' 9
Dr. Hilgenfeld, to whom we are indebted for the
most careful edition of this Letter to Flora,1 and whose
negative position will not escape your memory, recog
nizes the unhesitating acceptance of S. John by the
Valentinians.2
ofcie- Irenaeus mentions Heracleon in immediate con-
Origen" nexion with Ptolemaeus,3 and Clement calls him 'the
most esteemed representative of the school of Valen
tinus ; ' 4 Origen tells us that he was an acquaintance
of Valentinus,5 using the same term which Irenaeus
applies to Ptolemaeus. Now Heracleon wrote the
first known commentary on S. John, large portions
of which have been preserved by Origen,6 and have
been collected by Grabe,7 and in a more convenient
form by Hilgenfeld.8 These extracts give comments
9 en ye t!jv tov Kocrpov Srjpi- ndvra 6V avrov eyevero, Kal
ovpyiav ISiav Xeyei elvai (are ndvra ^upit avrov eyevero ov8e ev,
8V avrov yeyovevai, Kal xapis John i. 3.
avrov yeyovevai ov8ev) 6 diro-
trroXof , . . . Ptolemsei ad Floram
Epist. 1. D. a § 45. Epiphanius,
Hser. xxxiii. ed. Oehler, ut supra,
p. 402.
1 Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift fur 5 tov OvaXevrivov Xeyopevov elvai
wissenschaftliche Theologie, 1881, yvapipov 'HpaKXemva. Origen In
pp. 214-230. Joarmem, torn. ii. 8.
2 Ibid. p. 230. 6 In Joannem, ut supra.
3 Adv. Hser. ii. 4. 1 ; ed. 7 Spicilegium, ed. 2, 1714, torn.
Harvey, torn. i. p. 259. ii. pp. 87 sqq. and 237 sqq.
4 Strom, iv. 9. 73 ; ed. Klotz, 8 Ketzergeschichte, u. s. w., pp.
torn. ii. p. 316. 472-498.

LECTURE H. 89
on passages of considerable length, and it is certain
that the author of them regarded the text which he
was expounding as of divine authority.
The evidence which is furnished by Hippolytus, of of mppo-
whom I shall have to speak more fully in a subsequent ^us'
lecture,9 to the use of the Fourth Gospel by the Valen
tinians is also clear. When we read, ' On this account,
he says, the Saviour says, "All that came before me
are thieves and robbers," n we have no doubt that the
writer is quoting S. John, as he is also when he
uses the familiar Johannine phrase ' the ruler of this
world.' 2
But while this is positive evidence for the Valenti
nians, it is not quite certain that Valentinus is person
ally quoted by the formula ' he says.' The context
however makes it in the highest degree probable that
it is the founder of the school to whom reference is
made ; and we shall find later that the probability is
strengthened by a similar method of reference to
Basilides.3 9 Cf . Lecture VII. pp. 365 sqq.
and 392 sq.
1 Aid Toirro, (prjo't, Xeyei 6 o'curfjp- ndvres oaoi rjXdov jrpo
Tldvres ol irpo epov eXrjXv- epov uXfirrai eiolv Kal
Sores KXeirTai KalXrjcrral elo-i. Xrjo-Tai' John X. 8.
Hippolytus, Befutatio Omnium
Hseresium, vi. 35 ; ed. Duncker
et Schneidewin, p. 284.
3 SidBoXos, 6 apx&v rov KOo-pov vvv 6 apxaiv tov Koopov tovtov
^tovtov, . . . TJt supra, vi. 33, eKBXrjBrjo-eTai e£a>' John xii. 31.
p. 280. Cf. John xiv. 30 and xvi. 11.
6 SidBoXos 8e 6 apxa>vrov Koo-pov,
. . . Ut supra, vi. 34, p. 282.
3 Cf. Lecture VH. pp. 370 sqq.

90

LECTURE II.

Testimonyof Valen
tinus to
FourthGospel.

The Val
entiniansa school.

The Catholics
also a
school.

But that the system of Valentinus himself, and
the names of the aeons as expressed in the well-
known passage of Irenaeus in the eleventh chapter
of his first book, which is probably based upon an
earlier written statement,4 implies the Fourth Gospel,
just as do the thirty aeons of the Ptolemaean systems
in the first chapter, would seem to be beyond all possi
bility of doubt were it not for the fact that it has been
doubted. The question really is, Which comes first,
germ or development, the simple or the compound,
the source or the stream ? 5
The Valentinians, moreover, form a school. Pto
lemaeus and Heracleon were, as we have seen, personal
disciples of the master, and the teaching of master
and pupils forms a whole, developing indeed but
homogeneous, which occupied much of the best
thought of the second century from the fourth de-
cennium onwards. Through its whole history this
teaching implies the Fourth Gospel. A caricature
presupposes an original.
And as the school is one, so also the Catholics
who oppose it are one. Tertullian tells us that the
opinions of these heretics had been met in careful
works by holy men who had lived before himself,
and that some indeed were contemporaries of the
heresiarchs. He names, as we should expect, Justin,
the philosopher and martyr, and Irenaeus, the minute

* Cf. esp. Lipsius ; art. Valen
tinus in Smith and Wace's Dic
tionary of Christian Biography, iv.
p. 1080 ; and Heinrici, Die Valen

tin. Gnosis, ut supra, p. 40.
5 Cf . Excursus A. (Watkins) in
Ellicott's New Testament Com
mentary, 1879, p. 552.

LECTURE II. 91
investigator of all doctrines, and includes also Mil-
tiades whom he calls the sophist of the churches, and
Proculus the Montanist, of chaste old age and
eloquence.6 We remember that Irenaeus was the
younger contemporary of Justin, whose works he
knew well and quotes frequently, and Hippolytus
was the disciple of Irenaeus. But among the works
written by Justin, which are not now extant, was a
Syntagma against all Heresies, which may with very
great probability be taken to be the chief source
from which later writers derived their knowledge of
the heresies of Justin's time, and may especially be
assumed to be the written source from which Irenaeus
is drawing, in his account of Valentinus.7 Ter
tullian, moreover, had the works of both Justin and
Irenaeus before him, and his treatise Against the
Valentinians is little more than an expansion of the
account in Irenaeus. Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian
are a triad of Catholics, as Valentinus, Ptolemaeus,
and Heracleon are a triad of Gnostics.
We are now in a position therefore to estimate the
bearing of the following general statements : —
Irenaeus speaks of ' those who are followers of state-ments by
Valentinus and make very full use of the gospel irenaeus,
which is according to John.' . . .8
Tertullian contrasts Valentinus and Marcion in
6 Adversus Valentinianos, cap. Hist. Eccles. iv. 11. Cf. Caspari,
v. • ed. Oehler, torn. ii. p. 387. Quellen zur Geschichte des' Tauf-
7 Justin, Apol. i. 26, 58 ; symbols, iii. 363, note 171.
Irenseus, Adv. Hser. iv. 6, 2, ed. 8 ' Hi autem qui a Valentino
Harvey, torn. ii. 158 ; Eusebius, sunt, eo quod est secundum

92

LECTURE II.

and Ter
tullian.

their use of Scripture, in that while the latter used
the knife and not the pen, Valentinus perverted the
truth by misinterpretation, but accepted ' the whole
instrument.' 9

Conclusion as to
use of
Gospel by
Valentinus.

The conclusion which the inquirer for truth will
draw is, I think, not less than this : that, while we
cannot consider some of the subsidiary arguments to
be beyond doubt, the general position of the Valen-
tinian school of Gnostics in relation to the Fourth
Gospel is fully established, and that this evidence
carries it back to a time earlier than the division
from the Catholic Church. Here Theodotus is one
with Clement ; Heracleon is one with Tertullian ;
Ptolemy is one with Irenaeus ; Valentinus is one
with Justin. Here the unity of a school of dissi
dents is one with the unity of the Catholic Church,
in the higher unity of their earlier communion ;

Johannem plenissime utentes. . ,'
Adv. Hser. iii. 11. 7 ; ed. Harvey,
torn. ii. 46.
9 ' Alius manu scripturas, alius
sensus expositione intervertit.
Neque enim si Valentinus integro
instrumento uti videtur, non calli-
diore ingenio quam Marcion
manus intulit veritati. Marcion
enim exerte et palam machtera,
non stilo usus est, quoniam ad
materiam suam csedem scriptu-
rarum confecit : Valentinus autem
pepercit, quoniam non ad materiam
scripturas, sed materiam ad scrip
turas excogitavit, et tamen plus
abstulit et plus adiecit, auferens

proprietates singulorum quoque
verborum et adiciens disposi-
tiones non comparentium rerum.'
Tertullian, De Prsescr. Hseret.
xxxviii. ; ed. Oehler, torn. ii. p.
36. Cf . ibid. xxx. ; and De Besur-
rectione Carnis, lxiii., ed. Oehler,
torn. ii. p. 550.
For meaning of videtur = con
stat, cf. Oehler's note in loc, and
especially Adv. Marc. iv. 2 ; ibid.
ii. p. 162. ' Lucam videtur Mar
cion elegisse quem caederet.'
For meaning of instrumentum =
testamentum, cf. Lecture I. p. 26,
note 6.

LECTURE II. 93
and in that unity they accepted the Gospel according
to S. John.
Marcion was also a contemporary and fellow- Marcion,
citizen with Justin. The commencement of his work 139-142.
in Rome may be placed at a.d. 139-142. His
gospel is admitted to have been a mutilated S.
Luke, and we do not look for any traces of S. John,
though it is not quite certain that these are wholly
absent.1 The questions which meet us here are such
as these : ' Why was S. John not chosen ? ' ' Would
not the Fourth Gospel have suited Marcion's purpose
better than S. Luke ? ' 'Is not the fact that he
rejected it, so far evidence that it was not at that date
regarded as Apostolic and authoritative ? ' These
questions are to be answered in part by a careful
comparison of the teaching of Marcion with that of
S. John. The one is through and through opposed
to Judaism and to the Old Testament ; the other
presents a Gospel which has grown indeed as a tree
whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, but
all its roots are in the Jewish Scriptures. And in part
we find the answer in Marcion's principle of selection
as it is described by Tertullian. We read, for ex- Testi-
ample, that ' when Marcion observed how S. Paul in Te°°yC
the Epistle to the Galatians rebukes even Apostles
for not walking according to the truth, and accuses
false Apostles of perverting the Gospel of Christ, he
endeavoured to destroy the position of the Gospels
1 Cf . Zahn, Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons, 1889, i. pp.
678 sq.

94 LECTURE II.
which are peculiar to and published under the names
of Apostles or persons immediately connected with
them.' S. John is named in the context, and it
follows that, in Tertullian's opinion, Marcion rejected
the Fourth Gospel, not because it was not Apostolic,
but because it was.2
In another passage Tertullian addresses Marcion
in these words : —
If you had not carefully rejected some of the scriptures
which disprove your views and corrupted others, the Gospel
of John would have confounded you in this instance.3
and It is probable that Tertullian is following Irenaeus 4
Irenaeus. ... .
in his treatise Against Marcion, as he certainly was in
his treatise Against the Valentinians, and it seems to
be certain, that both Irenaeus and Tertullian assumed
that Marcion knew and rejected the Fourth Gospel.
They would not in controversial treatises have taken
for granted that which their opponents might have
2 ' Sed enim Marcion nactus 331, ad med. ; ' interpolatum a
epistolam Pauli ad Galatas, etiam protectoribus Judaismi.' Ibid.
ipsos apostolos suggillantis ut non iv. 4, p. 164, ad fin.
recto pede incedentes ad veritatem 3 'Si scripturas opinioni fuse
evangelii, simul et accusantis resistentes non de industria alias
pseudapostolos quosdam perver- reiecisses, alias corrupisses, con-
tentes evangelium Christi, conni- fudissette in hac specie evangelium
titur ad destruendum statum Joannis.' De Came Christi, iii. ;
eorum evangeliorum qua? propria ed. Harvey, ii. p. 430.
et sub apostolorum nomine 4 Irenaeus certainly planned a
eduntur, vel etiam apostolicorum, treatise Against Marcion : ' Nos
ut scilicet fidem, quam illis autem ex his quae adhuc apud eos
adimit, suo conferat.' Tertullian, custodiuntur, arguemus eos, don-
Adv. Marc. iv. 3; ed. Oehler, ante Deo, in altera conscriptione.'
torn. ii. p. 163. Cf. ' pseudapo- Adv. Hser. iii. 12. 12 ; ed. Har-
stoli nostri et Judaici evangeliza- vey, torn. ii. p. 67. Cf. Eusebius,
tores.' Adv. Marc. v. 19 ; ibid. p. Hist. Eccles. v. 8.

LECTURE II. 95
at once disproved. The fact that they assumed his
knowledge of the Gospel is itself proof of that know
ledge ; which indeed there is no real reason to doubt.
Now Marcion was the son of a bishop of Sinope,
in Pontus, and was so wide a traveller that Ter
tullian constantly calls him the 'ship-master.' His
evidence, which is obtained only by the cross-exami
nation of an adverse witness, strikes therefore alto
gether independent veins of corroborative testimony.
When we pass to the first generation of the second The
1 _ ° second
century, we have to do with persons many of whom century:
had themselves been, and whose parents had been, ge££™
contemporaries with S. John; some of whom had been twn'
his converts and his personal acquaintances ; some
of whom had been his disciples. Of the Christians
who died during this generation, many would have
known his life and work for from twenty to fifty
years. Let us take an example. Polycarp's martyr- Polycarp,
dom is now fixed by an increasing consensus of 155-6.
critical authorities, to which we shall have to refer
hereafter, at a.d. 155 or 156.5 Before his death he
testified that he had served Christ for eighty and
six years. This would place his birth not later than
a.d. 69. S. John lived on to the reign of Trajan ;
that is, he died not earlier than a.d. 98. Polycarp
was then about thirty years old at the time of the
Apostle's death, and men who died during the first
generation of the second century — that is, from thirty
5 Cf. Lecture VII. pp. 389 sq.

96 LECTURE II.
to fifty years earlier than Polycarp — might, without
exceeding the average of human life, have had a
longer personal knowledge of S. John than he had.
and Papias lived at a time when it was still possible to
Paulas fl. 130.' collect and test the oral traditions of those who had
themselves been followers of the elders ; and to ' learn
what was said by Andrew or Peter or Philip or Thomas
or James or John or Matthew or other disciples of the
Lord ; ' and he himself knew two of those who had
been personal ' disciples of the Lord, Aristion and
the presbyter John. ' 6 He was a bishop of Hiera
polis, and knew there the daughters of Philip ; 7 and
on the other hand there is nothing improbable in
the opinion that he was personally known to Irenaeus,
who makes frequent mention of him and had local
associations with him.
Their Of the five books which Papias wrote as an Ex-
writings. . . ,
position or Expositions of Oracles of the Lord, we pos
sess only a few lines which are preserved to us in
Eusebius, and some lately discovered fragments which
do not materially add to our knowledge.8 Of Poly
carp we have only part of one short letter which is
certainly genuine.9 That Papias and Polycarp both
made use of the First Epistle of S. John, and that the
Epistle cannot be really separated from the Gospel,
are among the data of the best modern criticism ; and
that Papias is made by the statements of Irenaeus and
6 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iii. 39. 8 Cf. Lecture VII. p. 394.
7 Ibid. loc. cit. 9 Cf. ibid. pp. 402 sqq.

LECTURE II. 97
Eusebius, and still more by the ' silence of Eusebius,'
a strong direct witness to the use of the Fourth
Gospel in the first generation of the second century,
has obtained a high degree of probability and accep
tance since Bishop Lightfoot published his Essays on
the Work entitled Supernatural Religion.1
The whole meaning of the history of this period
has often been missed, because men have looked at
the fossils of it as interesting specimens of an extinct
life, instead of clothing them with flesh and blood,
and seeing what that life really was. It is only the
man who will think out the Church life and work of
these years until the names Polycarp, and Barnabas,
and Clement, and Ignatius, and Papias, represent to
him actual living beings, who can understand the
first conditions of the problem before us.
I will not occupy your time by referring at greater Testi-
length to proofs which are now easily accessible. I ™en^ua
am more concerned to emphasize once again the
unity of the life, and therefore of the testimony of the
Church during these early years. Let me ask you,
then, to consider the bearing of the following state
ments of Irenaeus, writing towards the close of the
century. Of Papias he tells us that he was to Papias,
a hearer of John, a companion of Polycarp, and a man of
the olden time.2
1 Contemporary Beview, Jan. Kapnov 8e eraipos yeyovws, dpxaios
Aug. and Oct. 1875. Republished dvfjp, . . . Adv. Hser. v. 33-4 ;
Essays, 1889, ii. pp. v, vi. ed. Harvey, torn. ii. p. 418.
2 'liodvvov pev aKovo-rrjs, ILoXv-

98 LECTURE II.
to Poly- Of Polycarp he says : —
carp. And (so it was with) Polycarp also, who not only was
taught by Apostles, and lived in familiar intercourse
[awavaar panels'] with many that had seen Christ, but also
received his appointment in Asia from Apostles, as Bishop in
the Church of Smyrna, whom we too have seen in our youth
[iv rij irpwrr) rjfiSiv fjkiKuf], for he survived long, and departed
this life at a very great age, by a glorious and most notable
martyrdom, having ever taught these very things, which he
had learnt from the Apostles, which the Church hands down,
and which alone are true. To these testimony is borne by all
the Churches in Asia, and by the successors of Polycarp up to
the present time, who was a much more trustworthy and
safer witness of the truth than Valentinus and Marcion, and all
such wrong-minded men. He also, when on a visit to Eome
in the days of Anicetus, converted many to the Church of God
from following the afore-named heretics, by preaching that
he had received from the Apostles this doctrine, and this only,
which was handed down by the Church, as the truth. . . .
Moreover, there is an Epistle of Polycarp addressed to
the Philippians, which is most adequate (iKavwraTrj), and
from which both his manner of life and his preaching of
truth may be learnt by those who desire to learn and are
anxious for their own salvation. And again, the Church in
Ephesus, which was founded by Paul, and where John sur
vived till the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradi
tion of the Apostles.3
His Or let the mind portray the" scene which is thus
Letter to . . .
Fim-inus. described by Irenaeus in a letter to Florinus, who had
been his fellow-pupil in boyhood, but had now in old
age wandered from the faith : —
These opinions, Elorinus, that I may speak without
harshness, are not of sound judgment ; these opinions are not
* Adv. Hser. iii. 3, 4. Bishop Lightfoot, Essays on Supernatural
Beligion, pp. 100, 101.

LECTURE II. 99
in harmony with the Church, but involve those adopting them
in the greatest impiety ; these opinions even the heretics
outside the pale of the Church have never ventured to broach ;
these opinions the elders before us, who also were disciples of
the Apostles, did not hand down to thee. For I saw thee,
while I was still a boy (irals <ov sri), in Lower Asia in
company with Polycarp, while thou wast faring prosperously
in the royal court, and endeavouring to stand well with him.
For I distinctly remember (Sta/jivopiovsvco) the incidents of
that time better than events of recent occurrence ; for the
lessons, received in childhood (Ik Traihcov), growing with the
growth of the soul, become identified with it ; so that I can
describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp used to
sit when he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings
in, and his manner of life, and his personal appearance, and
the discourses which he held before the people, and how he
would describe his intercourse with John and with the rest
who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words.
And whatsoever things he had heard from them about the
Lord, and about his miracles, and about his teaching,
Polycarp, as having received them from eye-witnesses of the
life of the Word, would relate altogether in accordance with
the Scriptures. To these (discourses) I used to listen at the
time with attention by God's mercy which was bestowed upon
me, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart ; and by
the grace of God I constantly ruminate upon them faithfully
(lyvrjaioos). And I can testify in the sight of God, that if
the blessed and Apostolic elder had heard anything of this
kind, he would have cried out, and stopped his ears, and said
after his wont, ' 0 good God, for what times hast Thou kept
me, that I should endure such things ? ' and would even have
fled from the place where he was sitting or standing when he
heard such words. And indeed, this can be shown from his
letters which he wrote either to the neighbouring Churches
for their confirmation, or to certain of the brethren for their
warning and exhortation.4
4 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 20. Bishop Lightfoot, ut supra, pp. 96, 97.
h2

100

LECTURE II.

Papias
and

Basilides, fl. 125.

In the few lines which Eusebius has preserved
from the lost work of Papias, we learn that the
writer
did not delight in those who have very much to say, but in
those who teach the truth ; 5
and there is great probability in the suggestion that
he refers to the ' very much ' which was said by
Basilides, who, according to the account of his op
ponent Agrippa Castor, as given in Eusebius, wrote
twenty-four books upon the Gospels.6 These are
doubtless to be identified with the Exegetica, from the
twenty-third of which there is an extract in Clement
of Alexandria.7 The date of Basilides is admittedly
not later than the reign of Hadrian, a.d. 117-138.
The Groningen Professor Hofstede de Groot puts his
life at a.d. 65-135, and his floruit in the reign of
Trajan, a.d. 97-117 ;8 but this work, though not
without acute observations, leaves too much of the
impression of ah advocate to carry full conviction.
We shall probably not be erring on the side of too
early a date, if we put it, with De Groot's Leyden
opponent, Dr. Scholten,9 at a.d. 125. The important
question is whether Hippolytus, when he treats of the
system of Basilides, in which he admittedly makes
clear quotation from S. John, is dealing at first hand

5 Hist. Eccles. iii. 39.
6 Ibid. iv. 7.
7 Strom, iv. §§ 83 sqq. ; ed.
Klotz, torn. ii. p. 322.
8 Basilides w.s.w., Deutsche ver-

mehrte Ausgabe, 1868, pp. 4-8.
9 ' Er lebte zur Zeit Hadri
ans, um 125 zu Alexandrien.'
Scholten-Manchot, Die iiltesten
Zeugnisse, 1867, p. 64.

LECTURE II. 101
with the founder of the system or with a later dis
ciple.1 I shall not, at the close of a lecture, enter upon other
. . . ... points
this difficult and delicate question of criticism. I
shall for the present assume, without forgetting that
it will be my duty to justify the assumption here
after, that there is, at least, a distinct inclination of
the balance of probability in favour of the opinion
that Hippolytus is dealing with Basilides personally.
If I anticipate a later discussion only to add that this
view is strongly expressed by such critics as Mr.
Matthew Arnold and M. Renan, it will show, mean
while, that it is supported by thinkers of an inde
pendent position. We shall find that Mr. Arnold
further believed that Gnosticism in its primitive forms
is to be traced to a time earlier than the second cen
tury, and that the existence of Gnostic elements in
any writing is far from being proof of a second-cen
tury date ; a conclusion which is borne out by the
most recent discussions on the subject.2
Nor can I now do more than refer to results — the referred to
evidence for which I shall endeavour to present in a ing iec-
later lecture 8 — which have followed from recent in
vestigations of the position of Ignatius and other
Apostolic Fathers. Some among us may not be pre
pared to admit the earliest dates now claimed for the
Ignatian Epistles, but few will refuse to admit the
1 Hippolytus, Befutatio Omni- pp. 346, 356-378, 514 sq.
um Hseresium, vii. 2. 20-27, x. 2 Cf. Lecture VII. pp. 371 sqq.
14 ; ed. Duncker et Schneidewin, 3 Cf. ibid. pp. 395 sqq.

102 LECTURE n.
genuineness of the Vossian recension, or will fail to
see that if these seven letters are by Ignatius, they
connect the Fourth Gospel immediately with the age
of S. John. To these points we shall recur.
Result of Now, however, our study of the evidence of the
the evi- . .
dence of second century, brief and cursory as it has necessarily
century: been, must come to a close. What deductions are
we justified in drawing from it ?
What from the acceptance of the Third Generation
of the century, represented by Irenaeus, Clement,
Tertullian, Theophilus, Melito, Apolinaris, Poly
crates, the Gnostics ?
What from the acceptance of the Second Gener
ation, represented by Justin the Martyr, Tatian, the
Clementines, Valentinus, Marcion?
What from the acceptance of the First Generation,
represented by Papias, Basilides, Polycarp, Ignatius?
What from the acceptance alike by Catholics and
heretics ?
What from the acceptance alike in every part of
Christendom ?
What especially from the acceptance in Asia
Minor, the scene of the Apostle's labours, in the
generation which witnessed and immediately suc
ceeded the Apostle's life ?
What from the acceptance of the century taken as
a whole, for human life may be classed in generations
with sharply-marked divisions, but is lived in the unity
of a web whose threads intertwine at every point ?

LECTURE II. 103
What from the probability which arises from the
mere co-existence of these separate witnesses, and is
entirely independent of the witnesses themselves ? 4
What from the union of these distinct arguments,
which interpenetrate and support each other ?
The force of evidence will, of course, vary, as it The
-, -,.„. . , . T /. i Fourth
is presented to different mmds ; but 1 confess that Gospel
the fuller examination, which I have been able to as work of
submit to you only in outline, seems to my own mind j^n. e
to leave no possibility of doubt. I invite you to the
study — not of an outline, always imperfect, and in
present circumstances of time and person specially
so, but — of the evidence itself ; and to the earnest and
candid student of that evidence it will, I am confident,
appear, that it is as certain that the Fourth Gospel
was believed throughout every decade of the second
century to be the work of the Apostle John, as any
fact of the second century can to us be certain.
We have found, chiefly by aid of pioneers who have
Sfone before, tracks here and there in the unknown
forest of second-century history. Wherever we can
follow them we meet the stream which we are seeking
to trace. We are now near the source. The stream
which enters the century here must be — yes, it is —
one with the river which passes from it yonder.
In the next lecture we shall meet it again in the
flow of sixteen centuries of history.
4 See opinion of Principal Campbell, ut supra, p. 52.

LEGTUEE III
THE 'JUDGMENT OF CENTUEIES'
END OF SECOND TO END OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

'OLD THINGS NEED NOT BE THEREFORE TRUE,"
O BROTHER MEN, NOR YET THE NEW:
AH ! STILL AWHILE THE OLD THOUGHT RETAIN,
AND YET CONSIDER IT AGAIN I
THE SOULS OF NOW TWO THOUSAND YEARS
HAVE LAID UP HERE THEIR TOILS AND FEARS,
AND ALL THE EARNINGS OF THEIR PAIN,-
AH, YET CONSIDER IT AGAIN!
WEI WHAT DO WE SEE? EACH A SPACE
OF SOME FEW YARDS BEFORE HIS FACE;
DOES THAT THE WHOLE WIDE PLAN EXPLAIN?
AH, YET CONSIDER IT AGAIN I
ALAS I THE GREAT WORLD GOES ITS WAY,
AND TAKES ITS TRUTH FROM EACH NEW DAY I
THEY DO NOT QUIT, NOR CAN RETAIN,
FAR LESS CONSIDER IT AGAIN,'

ClougJl.

LECTURE III.
And . . . many . . . believed . . . because of the word of the
woman, who testified, . . . And many more believed because of his word ;
and they said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy
speaking : for we ha.ve heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed
the Saviour of the world. — John iv. 39, 41, 42.
When we pass from the second to the third and the Facts of
. . the recep-
succeedmg centuries, we pass in the critical history tion.
of the New Testament from the glimmering light of of sixteen
dawn to the full and clear light of day. Evidence
of the existence and use of the Fourth Gospel
now appears on every hand, and the validity of this
evidence is admitted by all competent judges. There
is a point at which the unconscious colouring of a
preconceived theory can no longer alter the com
plexion of facts ; and this point we have reached.
Our task to-day, therefore, is not to adduce the evi
dence in detail — that would be impossible ; but to
estimate it as a whole, and to examine the principles
on which it is founded. Even this would be impos
sible if we were to attempt more than a bird's-eye
view ; but more is not needed for our purpose.
On the threshold of the third century there meets Third cen
tury :
us much which cannot m any case be placed later,

108 LECTURE III.
and ought, in the opinion of many men of best
trained critical judgment, to have been placed earlier.
TheMura- Now at latest, the fragment of the list discovered by
torian .
Frag- Muraton and known by his name, not only testifies to
the acknowledged use of the Fourth Gospel in the
churches of Italy, but also supplies the first account
of its origin.
The Now, if not long before, come the Versions. How
Versions. far back do the churches which demanded transla
tions carry the existence of the original ! How highly
prized was that which each church, no longer content
with the voice of the preacher, or the interpretation
of the reader, took such pains to acquire ! How widely
spread, and therefore how deeply rooted, is the tree
which already has branches in the Greek of Ephesus
and Athens and Rome, the Latin of Carthage, the
Coptic of Egypt, the Syriac of the East ! Our
knowledge of the history reminds us that every
writing of the New Testament was not included in
all these Versions — not the Apocalypse, for example,
which some of our modern critics take to be the best
attested book of the New Testament, and an argu
ment from which to prove that the Fourth Gospel
cannot be by S. John — but that the now disputed
Fourth Gospel was then nowhere questioned.
Eastern Here is the evidence of Origen, in criticism the
Origen, greatest of the Fathers, whose manhood extends over
186-253. neariy tne first haif 0f the century. Scattered
through his voluminous writings are frequent refer
ences to questions of the Canon, many of which

LECTURE III. 109
are collected by Eusebius.1 He does not clearly His divi-
mark out his divisions, but in effect he foreshadows the sacred
the more distinct analysis of Eusebius and makes
three classes of writings — the genuine, the mixed, the
spurious. The last class includes no writing in our
present Bibles ; the second class includes the Epistle
of S. James, S. Jude, the Second Epistle of S. Peter,
the Second and Third Epistles of S. John ; the
first class includes the remainder, that is, nearly the
whole of our present New Testament. On the
Gospel of S. John he wrote commentaries, the
earliest portion of which belongs to his Alexandrian
life, that is, to a date before a.d. 231, as we may infer
from his own statement.2 He considers the Gospels
to be the ' first-fruits ' of Scripture, and the Gospel
according to S. John to be the ' first-fruits ' of the
Gospels.3 He knows that there are ' four Gospels
alone uncontroverted in the Church of God under
heaven,' and of the writer of the Fourth Gospel he
asks : —
Why is it necessary for me to speak about him who reclined
upon the breast of Jesus, John, who has left behind a single
Gospel, though he confesses that he could write so many as
not even the world could contain ? 4
Immediately after Origen, and in part represent- Dionysius
• ~ -i t-v of Alex"
iner him, comes his most eminent pupil Dionysius, andria,
to ' r r J ' c.195-265.
1 Hist. Eccles. vi. 25. § 6 ; ed. ut supra, torn. ii. pp. 5, 6.
* Origen, Commentaria in * Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vi. 25.
Ioannem, torn. vi. § 1 ; ed. Huet. , Cf . Reuss, Geschichte der heiligen
1668, torn. ii. p. 94. Cf. Euseb. Schriften, § 311 ; Davidson,
Hist. Eccles. vi. 24. Canon, p. 115 ; and Westcott,
3 Commentaria, ut supra, torn. i. Canon, ed. 6, pp. 358 sq.

110 LECTURE III.
president of the catechetical school and bishop of
Alexandria. Eusebius has preserved a portion of his
work On Promises, which contains the first example
of a considerable argument on one of the sacred
Scriptures based upon internal evidence. It is per
haps also an example of the unconscious bias of
party. Nepos, bishop of Arsinoe in Egypt, had
published a work against the allegorical school of
Alexandria, as Eusebius also tells us,5 and had sought
to establish the literal chiliastic interpretation of the
Apocalypse. Dionysius was strongly opposed to
this view, and in support of his arguments tries
The to show that the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse
Gospel could not, on account of differences in the character,
Apoca- language, and construction of the two writings, be
^^ by the same author. The writer of the Apocalypse
may have been, he thinks, a man named John.
He fully allows that he was a holy and inspired man,
but he could hardly concur in the opinion that he
was John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee, the
brother of James, who wrote the Gospel and the
Catholic Epistle.6 Dionysius is then the forerunner
of much later criticism which has distinguished
between these writings ; but his distinction leads to
results exactly the opposite of those of some critics
with whom we shall have to deal. For him the
Gospel is quite certainly the work of the Apostle,
and therefore the Apocalypse is by another, though
an inspired hand. For them the Apocalypse is quite
4 "EXeyxos ' AXXr/yopio-Tav, Hist. Eccles. vii. 24. 6 Ibid. vii. 25.

LECTURE III. Ill
certainly by the Apostle John, and the Gospel is
therefore by another, and not an inspired hand.
To the third century and the Eastern Church, The Apo
stolical
probably to the diocese of Ephesus, belongs also the Constitu-
first part of the ecclesiastical code which is known
as the Apostolical Constitutions. It contains the fol
lowing official reference to the Gospels : —
Afterwards let a deacon or a priest read the Gospels which
I, Matthew and John, have handed down to you, and which
Luke and Mark, the helpers of Paul, have left to you.7
In the Western Church we find the same con- western
sensus of statement. To Caius and Hippolytus of
Rome, whose period overlaps the close of the second
and the opening of the third century, it will be
necessary to refer later, but we may at once note that
their testimony to the Fourth Gospel is beyond ques
tion. Hippolytus indeed wrote a Defence or Exposi
tion of the Gospel and the Apocalypse ; 8 and Caius,
as we shall see, clearly admits the authenticity of the
Gospel. Of the African writers of the third century, Cyprian,
Cyprian is in every way the chief, and may be 246-258.
taken as the representative. For him there is no
doubt as to the four Gospels, which are symbolized
by the four rivers of paradise.9 A more formal list of
7 Constitutiones Apostolorum, ture VII. pp. 392 sq.
ii. 57, ed. Cotelier, Patres Apo- 9 ' Has arbores rigat quatuor
stolid, torn. i. p. 262. fluminibus, id est, evangeliis
8 'Y-rrep rov Kara 'icodvvrjv evay- quatuor, quibus baptismi gratiam
yeXiov ko.1 aTroKaXvyjfeas. Cf. Lee- salutaris caelesti inundatione lar-

112

LECTURE III.

the books which were generally read in the African
church of the third century is furnished in the Codex
Claromontanus ; x and here the four Gospels stand, as
a matter of course, at the head of the stichometrical
list, and S. John according to Western usage takes
the second place.

Fourth
and suc
ceeding
centuries :
East:Eusebius,
c. 260-
339.

Copies
prepared for Con
stantine.

The fourth century is marked out in the history
of the New Testament Scriptures by the investiga
tions of Eusebius ; and whatever opinion may be
formed of some of this writer's statements, there can
be no doubt that, in reference to our present subject,
he had access in both the East and the West to full
information as to the usage of the churches and the
opinions of individuals ; and that we have in him, for
the first time, a careful examination of evidence on a
distinctly historical principle. His division of the
books of the New Testament, founded in part on that
of Origen, is familiar to the beginner in the study of
ecclesiastical history ; and I need hardly pause to
note that among the books which he regards as un
doubted and generally acknowledged, come first of all
the holy quaternion of the Gospels, and among them
the Gospel according to S. John.2
Eusebius must have exercised in another way an
important influence on the Canon of the Greek church.
About the year a.d. 332, the emperor Constantine
gitur.' Cyprian, Epistolse 73. Neutestamentlichen Kanon, pp.
0pp. ed. Benedict. Venet. 1758, 175 sq.
p. 317. 2 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iii. 3,
1 Cf. Credner, Geschichte des 25, 31, 39; vi. 14.

LECTURE III. 113
directed him to have fifty copies of a collection
of the Scriptures specially prepared for public use.
They were to be written by caligraphists who knew
their work, in a readable hand, and upon parchment.
Everything necessary for this important task, inclu
ding two public carriages, was placed at the bishop's
command, and the commission was duly executed.
The choice of the contents was left to Eusebius as
best acquainted with the use of the Church.3 He
does not formally tell us how he fulfilled this difficult
and important trust, but his own writings give us
safe guidance, and we shall not be wrong if we follow
Credner 4 in supposing that the collections thus pro
vided included all our present books of the New
Testament, with the exception of the Apocalypse
which was not then generally received in the Greek
church. They would quite certainly have included
the Fourth Gospel.
Cyril of Jerusalem devotes part of his Catechesis Cyril of
to an examination of the books of Holy Scripture, saiem,
He advises that the works which are generally
acknowledged should alone be read ; and that works
which are not read in churches should also be omitted
in private reading. He places in the first rank the
four Gospels, the Acts, the seven Catholic Epistles ; 5
3 Eusebius, Vita Constantini, \{rev8e7riypa(pa Kal BXaBepd rvyxdvei.
iv. 36, 37 ; ed. Migne, torn. viii. "Eypa^av Kal Mavixdioi Kara Ocopav
p. 80. evayyeXiov,oirep eva8tq(al.oirep,
4 Credner, ut supra, pp. 205- minrep ev<o8ia) rr)s evayyeXiKrjs
213. enaivvpias eiriKexpino pevov
5 Trjs 8e Kaivrjs 8ia8rjKTjS, ra recr- (dl. wpoa-avvpias) 8ia(p6eipei ras
aapa pova eiayyeXia • ra 8e Xoiird \jrvxds toiv dtrXova'Tepiov. Aexov 8e
I

114 LECTURE III.
and when he has later to speak of the Antichrist, he
takes occasion to imply that he specially excludes the
Apocalypse from his authorities. It is not that he
denies its authenticity, but that he does not receive
it as a divinely inspired and Canonical work.
Athana- Athanasius was a contemporary of both Eusebius
sius,c.296-373. and Cyril, and represents Alexandria and Egypt,
as they represent Constantinople and Palestine. He
took the opportunity of an annual pastoral letter,
which the patriarchs of Egypt were in the habit of
addressing to their flocks, to enter upon the question
of the Canon. He does so with some hesitation, and
offers an apology for venturing to deal with the sub
ject, justifying himself by the example of S. Luke's
preface. His method of treatment is not that of the
critic entering upon an investigation for the benefit
of scholars ; but that of a bishop giving directions to
the clergy and others of his own diocese, upon a
matter which was still under discussion and upon
which they naturally looked to him for guidance.
' In these books alone,' he asserts, ' is the doctrine of
identity religion proclaimed. Let no one add to them. Let
of his °
Canon no one take anything from them.' The list of the
writings of the New Testament which is thus made
out is remarkable, in that it includes, for the first
Kal ras irpd^eis t£>v 8a>8eKa dnoiro- Xoirrd rravra, ev Sevrepat Kelo-8a>
Xa>v. npos rovrois 8e Kal ras eirrd (al. e£a> Keio-6a> ev 8evrepm).
'IcikooBov, ¦ Kal YLerpov, Kal 'ladvvov Kal oo-a [pev] ev eKKXrjo-iais pf)
Kal 'loi)8a KadoXiKas ewicrroXds • avayivito-Kerai, raiira pn8e Kara
e7Tio-<ppdyio-pa Se twv iravrav, Kal aavrov dvaylvao-Ke, Ka8a>s rJKOVo-as.
padrjrwv rd reXevraiov, ras TLavXov Catechesis, iv. 36, ed. Reischl,
SeKareo-crapas ewio-roXds. Ta 8e i. 128, 130.

LECTURE III. 115
time in an Eastern catalogue, the Apocalypse, in
opposition to both Eusebius and Cyril ; and that it
excludes all that is not contained in our present New with our
Testament. The Canon which Athanasius drew up
for his own people in the thirty-ninth year of his
episcopate, that is, in the year a.d. 365, is identical
with that which we commonly accept to-day.6
This direction of the bishop would meet with Didymusoil AIgx-
ready acquiescence throughout the diocese • but it andria,
did not of course affect other dioceses, nor did it
necessarily command the allegiance of all scholars
in Alexandria itself. On a question which was
still open, and which was one of literary criticism,
the director of the catechetical school might think
himself as much entitled to express an opinion as
a bishop and a patriarch. We accordingly find
Didymus, who lived in Alexandria at the same time
as Athanasius, publishing an exegetical work on the
Catholic Epistles, which is now extant in Latin only,
and teaching that the Second Epistle of S. Peter is
not Canonical. The work is one for use in public
service, its authenticity is not questioned, but it is not,
in the opinion of Didymus, of Canonical authority.7
Gregory of Nazianzus is another famous con- Gregory
temporary of Athanasius who dealt with the books of °
6 eK ttjs X8'. eoprao-riKrjs irrioro- satam, qua? licet publicetur, non
Xfjs. Opp. ed. Bened. 1777, torn. tamen in canone est.' Didymus
i. p. 765. Cf . the Syriac in Festal Alexandr. ed. Migne, p. 1774.
Epistles, Oxf. 1854, p. 139. Cf. Lticke, Qusest. Didymian. i.
7 ' Non igitur ignorandum, 13 ; Credner, ut supra, p. 230.
prsesentem Epistolam esse fal- i 2

116

LECTURE III.

Nazi anzus,
c. 325-390.

Amphi-lochius,
fi. 374-394.

the sacred Scriptures. Following the natural bent
of his own poetic fancy, and following perhaps
examples which go back as far as the Muratorian
Fragment,8 he composed his list of the Old and New
Testament in verse. ' Matthew,' in Gregory's view,
' described the wonders of Christ for the Hebrews ;
Mark, for Italy ; Luke, for Achaia ; John, the great
herald who had crossed the heavens, for all.' 9 The
list does not include the Apocalypse ; and the con
cluding lines prove that it is definitely excluded from
the undoubted writings.1 At the same time Gregory
quotes it,2 and the description of the author of the
Fourth Gospel which I have just read is taken from it.
Included in the same volume with the works of
Gregory has been commonly printed the catalogue
of his friend Amphilochius, archbishop of Iconium in
Lycaonia. He is aware of the doubts which some
have as to the Hebrews, but dismisses them in a
word. Whether three or seven Catholic Epistles are
to be received he is less certain. ' The Apocalypse,'
he tells us, ' some would include, but it is excluded
by most writers.3 The Fourth Gospel is, though

8 Cf. Lecture I. p. 45.
9 MaT&uos pev eypa-^rev 'EBpaiois
Oavpara Xpiorov'
MdpKOS 8' 'IraXir;, AovKas 'A^ai'-
dSi-
nScri 8* 'ladvvrjs, KTjpv£ peyas,
oiipavoipoiTTjs.
Gregory Nazianz. Carmina xii. ;
ed. Benedict, torn. ii. p. 260.
1 'Iov8a 8' earlv lB86pr\. Hdaras
eXeis.

Et ri Se tovtcov eKTos, ovk ev
yvrjo-lais. Lbid.
2 Oratio xvii. Opp. , ut supra, i.
p. 536.
3 Tiji' Se 'AnoKdXvyffiv rrjv 'ladvvov
irdXiv
Tives pev eyKplvovo-iv, ol TrXelovs
Se ye
N68r)v (y68ov) Xeyovo-iv.
Amphilochius, Iambi ad Seleu-
cum. Opera, ed. Cambefis, p. 134 ;

LECTURE III. 117
fourth in order, first in doctrinal importance, for
this son of thunder gives forth in mighty sound the
word of God.'4 In the concluding lines Amphi
lochius speaks of this Canon of the inspired Scrip
tures as the ' probably most unfalsified ; ' 5 by which
he seems to indicate on the one hand that no definitely
fixed rule had yet obtained official recognition in
the churches of Asia Minor, and, on the other hand,
that more or less imperfect or intentionally altered
lists were not unknown.
Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia or Salamis, is Epipha-
known to us chiefly as the historian of heresies, c. 326-403.
which he marks with a keen and ever-watchful eye.
While dealing with the Aetians,6 he introduces
parenthetically a list of the Scriptures, which is in
the New Testament almost identical with that of
Athanasius. But Wisdom and Sirach are also called
divine Scriptures,7 and the Apostolical Constitutions are
a ' divine word and doctrine,' 8 though both are de
scribed elsewhere as ' doubtful.' 9
The Greek church and school of Antioch is Theodore
represented by Theodore bishop of Mopsuestia, who
Gallandi, Bibliotheca vi. p. 495. Opera, ed. Benedict., 1840,
4 Upoo-8els, dpidpei tov 'laidvvrjv p. 1104.
Xpdva 6 Hseres. lxxvi. ; ed. Oehler,
Teraprov, dXXci irpoirov v\j/ei Corpus, torn. ii. pt. iii. p. 240.
Soypdrav 7 Cf. e.g. Hseres. lxiv. ; op. cit.
Bpovrrjsydp vlov tovtov eifcorus torn. ii. pt. ii. p. 316 ; and xxxiii.
KaXi>, op. cit. torn. ii. pt. i. p. 412.
Meyicrrov rjxV°'apTa TV ©e0" 8 Hseres. lxxx. ; op. cit. p.
Xayai- lbid. 474.
5 Ovros dtyev8ea-raros 9 Hseres. viii. ; op. cit. torn. ii.
Kavav hv e"a\ to>v 8eonvevo~ra>v pt. i. p. 58. Hseres. lxx. ; op. cit.
ypa<pS>v. torn. ii. pt. iii. p. 26.

118 LECTURE III.
Mop- was known as the Exegete. He is said by his op-
So-^W ponent Leontius of Byzantium, who wrote towards
the close of the seventh century, to have interpreted
the Scriptures in a poor and spiritless fashion ; by
which is meant probably that, after the manner of the
Antiochene school, he did not follow the exuberant
interpretation of the allegorists ; and he is further
said to have subtracted from the divinely prescribed
number of books. He rejected, Leontius tells us,
Job, the Chronicles, the Song of Solomon, the titles
of the Psalms, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, the
Epistle of S. James, the Second Epistle of S. Peter,
the Second and Third Epistles of S. John, S. Jude,
and the Apocalypse.1 This is, however, to be taken
as the statement of an opponent, writing after a long
interval and from a very different point of view.
But Theodore, free as he was in his treatment of
the Canon, wrote a commentary on the Fourth
Gospel which is largely preserved in the Catena of
Corderius,2 as are some important passages of the
twentieth chapter in the acts of the fifth council.3
It is said to exist entire in a Chaldee MS. version
in the Monastery of S. George on the Tigris, near
Leontius Byzantinus contra 2 Corderius, Catena Patrum

Nestorianos et Eutychianos, lib.
iii. ; Gallandi, Bibliotheca, xii. p.
687. Cf. Credner, Kanon u.s.w
p. 229, and Einleitung, § 239, p.
649 ; Fritzsche, De Theodori Mop
suesteni Vita et Scriptis, 1836, p
88 ; and especially Kihn, Theodor

Grsecoriim in sanctum Joannem,
1630. See especially the extract
from Theodore in the Proemium ;
and Fritzsche, Theodori in Novum
Testamentum Comm., Turici, 1847,
pp. 19-42. Labbd-Mansi : Conciliorum

vonMopsuestiaundJuniliusAfri- Collectio, ed. 1763, torn. ix. pp.
canus, 1880, § 54 sqq., esp. § 56. 207-209.

LECTURE III. 119
Maussul ; 4 but in any case it establishes beyond doubt
the fact that Theodore regarded the Fourth Gospel
as an inspired book which was written by S. John.
A better known and in many ways greater repre- John
sentative of the Antiochene school, but not greater stomf°
as an exegete and a critic, was John of the °-347-407,
Golden Mouth, afterwards patriarch of Constanti
nople. In the wide range of his works there is no
reference to the Apocalypse or to the four shorter
Catholic Epistles.5 Of the Fourth Gospel it need not
be said there is constant use. The synopsis of the
Old and New Testaments which is printed with the
works of Chrysostom 6 excludes the Apocalypse, and
expressly speaks of the three Catholic Epistles. An
anonymous homily belonging to the same age and
locality, printed also with Chrysostom's works, speaks
of the second and third Epistles of S. John as rejected
4 ' . . . Alter est fama inclytus qui Scriptures sacrse libros omnes
Theodoras Mopsuestenus a Nes- in Homiliis suis adhibet, quatuor
torianis Doctor cecumenicus, et illarum Epistolarum loca nusquam
Commentator per antonomasiam affert ; aut saltern hujusmodi loca
dictus et habitus, in suo Eruditis in ejus scriptis nondum depre-
desideratissimo Commentario in hendi : etiamsi vero deprehende-
Ioannem, cujus exemplar in rentur, non tamen inde sequeretur
codice unico Chaldaico, anno earn Scripturse partem canonicam
superiori a me, maximo cum haberi : nam illis temporibus non
gaudio, in Coenobio S. Georgii pauca erant in quibusdam Ec-
ad Tigrim, prope Maussul reper- clesiis, qua? legebantur quidem,
turn, nescio an uspiam alibi sed canonica esse non reputa-
habeat exemplum.' Khayyath, bantur : dvayivao-Kopeva pev, prj Ka-
Syri Orientates, p. 76, note. vovi£6peva 8e'.' Montfaucon, Chry-
Cf. Professor Swete's article in sostomi Opera, Paris, 1834, vi. p.
Smith and Wace's Dictionary of 635.
Christian Biography, iv. p. 940. 6 Synopsis Veteris et Novi Tes-
5 ' Et vere sanctus hie doctor, tamenti. Op. cit. vi. pp. 372-3.

120 LECTURE in.
from the Canon by the Fathers, whereas the first
Epistle all with one accord declared to be by S. John.7
It will be clear to the reader of Chrysostom that
for him the sacred Scriptures are books — Biblia —
in a special sense : and it is probable that the later
meaning of the word Bible arose from his frequent
use of the term. ' Obtain books,' he cries in an often-
quoted sermon — ' obtain a Bible — that medicine of
the soul ; and if you care for no other, get at least
the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles, the
Gospels, your perpetual teachers.' 8
The result of this inquiry into the Canon of the
Greek church in Syria in the beginning of the fifth
century is that we find it to be identical with that
which existed in the Peshito, the received Version of
the Syrian church, more than two centuries before.
Period of The third and fourth centuries are the golden
TTti C* 1 HA
mss. age of Greek theology and criticism. We need not
follow them into the ages of silver and lead ; we
need not pass to the extremer limits of the East ;
nor yet examine the period of the great Uncial
manuscripts — actually existing witnesses which go
back in material and form to the fourth, fifth, and
sixth centuries, tracing their text from the second
century onwards, and finding their local history alike in
Eastern and Western Christendom. It is nothing to
our purpose to examine the lists of Anastatius Sinaita,
7 Opera, ut supra, vi. p. 503. reading ra>v diroo-roXcov ras Upd-
8 Homil. IX. in Coloss. Op. cit. £eir, ra Eiayye'Xia, 8i8ao-KaXovs 8it]-
xi. p. 451. I follow Montfaucon's veKeis.

LECTURE III. 121
of the Apostolic Canons, of Cosmas Indicopleustes, Further
of John Damascene, of the Stichometry of Nicephorus, necessary.
of Photius of Constantinople, of the pseudo- Athan-
asian synopsis, of Zonaras, of Alexius Aristenus, of
Theodoras Balsamon of Antioch, of the monks
Arsenius and Matthew, of Nicephorus Callistus, of
Metrophanes Critopulus patriarch of Alexandria, of
Cyril Lukar patriarch of Constantinople. It is nothing close of
t n n n , t Canon in
to our purpose to discuss the Canons ot the earlier the East.
council of Laodicea in the fourth century ; or those
of .the Trullan council of Constantinople, which de
voted special labours to the settlement of the lists of
the sacred books ; nor need we pause at the second
Nicene council of the eighth century ; nor at the last
council of the Greek church, which assembled in
January of 1672 at Constantinople, and in March at
Jerusalem, and finally undoing the work for which
Cyril and Metrophanes had striven, followed the
Eoman decrees of Trent and canonized the Apocrypha.
It is nothing to our purpose to trace the growth of
the Syrian Canon in succeeding Versions ; or the list
which the African bishop, Junilius, framed from
knowledge which he derived from the Persian school
of Nisibis ; or that which Bar-Hebraeus formed from
the use at Antioch ; or that of the Ethiopian, or
Armenian, or Russian churches. These include
points which are of greater or less — some of them of
very great — interest for the history of the Canon and
of the disputed books ; but throughout them all no
word of discussion or doubt is ever raised as to the

122

LECTURE III.

No doubt
as to the
FourthGospel.

Borderland :

Hilary, t 368.
Philaster,t c. 387.

Eufinus, c.345-410.

In the
West :
Jerome,c. 346-
420.

Fourth Gospel. If it is singled out from the others,
it is to occupy a place of honour, and to be made
the chief, or ranked among the chief, of the sacred
writings which God has given to the Church.
If we turn again from the history of the East to
that of the West, we find similar results.
Three names are prominent as links between these
separate halves of Christendom : —
Hilary of Poitiers, whose Canon is almost iden
tical with that of Origen ; Philaster of Brescia,
chiefly known as the historian of heresies, who has
for us this special interest that he speaks 9 of the
heresy of those who rejected the Gospel and Apo
calypse of S. John, a heresy the knowledge of which
he almost certainly borrowed from Hippolytus, as
we shall have occasion to see ; Rufinus of Aquileia,
who follows Athanasius as closely as Hilary follows
Origen. But while the border -land was thus occu
pied, the general distinction that the Greek church
did not accept the Apocalypse, and that the Latin
church did not accept the Epistle to the Hebrews,
still remained.
The two great Fathers of the Western church in
the fourth century, Jerome1 and Augustine,2 both
wrote commentaries on the Fourth Gospel, which
was to each of them, without shadow of doubt, an

9 Hseres. Ix. ; Oehler, Corpus,
i. p. 60.
1 'Hieronymus Stridonensis,
florens a.c. 378, in Evangelia
quatuor Commentarium dedit,

unico volumine comprehensum,
qui periit.' Lampe, Commen-
tarius, torn. i. p. 251.
2 InJoannis Evangelium. Trac-
tatus cxxiv. ; ed. Migne, torn. iii.

LECTURE III. 123
inspired and sacred Scripture coming from the Apostle Augus-
John. Their works in relation to the Canon are full 354-430.
of interest, though we may not here dwell on them.
They found their completion in the synod of Hippo
in a.d. 393, the more decisive synod of Carthage in
a.d. 397, the decree of Innocent the First, the renewed close of
synod of Carthage in a.d. 419. For the West, the the west.
question of the Canon was settled at the beginning
of the fifth, to be opened again only at the beginning
of the sixteenth century.
There is one seeming exception to this universal The Alogi:
testimony which cannot be passed over, inasmuch
as attention has been recently directed to it. The
so-called Alogi are a shadowy people whose sub
stantial existence is doubtful, and whose position
in time and place, assuming that they did exist,
is necessarily more doubtful still. But during the
last few months they have again been brought into
prominence by references made to them in Dr.
Zahn's new History of the Canon 3 in which, follow
ing an earlier article of Dr. Harnack's,4 he assumes
that they were referred to by Irenaeus. Zahn's
treatment of the subject does not escape Harnack's
trenchant criticism ; 5 nor are either Zahn or Har
nack allowed to pass unheeded by Dr. Hilgenfeld,
pp. 1379 sqq. Cf . ' Ioannes quoque Halfte, pp. 220 sqq.
apostolus in Evangelistis quatuor i Zeitschrift fur die historische
eminentissimus.' De consensu Theologie, 1874, ii. pp. 163 sqq.
evangdistarum, torn. ii. cap. vi. ; 5 -Das Neue Testament um das
ibid. torn. iii. p. 1085. Jahr 200. Theodor Zahn's Ge-
3 Geschichte des Neutestament- schichte . . . gepriift, 1889.
lichen Kanons, 1888, Bd. i. 1

124 LECTURE III.
who thinks that both have drawn conclusions from
false premises, and that the Alogi of the second
century — the Ur-Aloger as he calls them — are nothing
more than the invention of Harnack.6 The name
Name occurs first in Epiphanius,7 who is proud of his
first in pun, and begs others to call those who denied
nius. the Johannine Logos by the name which he gave
them, A-logoi, creatures deprived of reason, as they
were. It is of course possible that he borrowed his
pun, as he certainly borrowed his matter, from Hip
polytus, who wrote, as we know from the inscription
on the chair of his statue, a work on the Gospel and
Apocalypse of S. John.8 Hippolytus may have
named the Alogi in his own now lost Syntagma of
Thirty-two Heresies, may have derived his information
from Irenaeus, and may have meant the persons whom
Irenaeus (though he mentions Marcion, with whom
he contrasts them in the same short paragraph) does
not think worthy of more than the following notice : —
But others, in order that they might make void the gift
of the Spirit which was in the last times poured out upon
mankind at the Father's good pleasure, do not admit that
idea which is peculiar to John's Gospel, that is, that the
Lord promised He would send the Paraclete, but they cast
away at once both the Gospel and the prophetic spirit.9
6 Zeitschrift fur ivissenschaft- aTroBdXXova-av 'ladvvov rds BiBXovs.
liche Theologie, 1889, iii. 330-348. 'En-el ovv tov Ao'yw ou Sexovrai tov
7 Tt (pdo-Kovoi roivvv ol ' AXoyoi ; irapa 'latavvov KeKrjpvypevov, ''AXoyoi
Tavrrjv yap avrois ridr/pi ri)V eiroivv- KXrj8r]o-oVTai. Hseres. Ii. 3 ; Oehler,
piav ' diro yap rrjs 8evpo ovto>s kXt]8y)- Corpus, ii. pt. ii. p. 50.
o-ovrai, Kal ovra>s, dyairqrol, eniBa- 8 Cf. Lecture VII. p. 362.
pev avrois ovopa, rovreariv "AXoyoi. 9 Adv. Hseres. iii. 11. 9 ; ed.
Eixov yap rrjv dipeoiv KaXovpevr/v, Harvey, ii. p. 51.

LECTURE III. 125
Heresy makers who are intent on extending their
catalogues do not find it difficult to create a sect out
of very doubtful materials, as anyone who will con
sult the pages of Philaster1 or Epiphanius,2 or the
histories by Lipsius 3 or Hilgenfeld,4 may readily see ;
and theory makers who are intent upon spinning
their webs do not find it difficult from a very small
amount of fact to cover a large field of fancy, as we
shall have more than abundant occasion to observe in
the course of these lectures.
But if the Alogi represent anything real at all, or They
anything more than an argument pressed here and the Gospel
there, on internal grounds alone, against the Fourth thus.
Gospel and the Apocahypse. by some stray persons
who did not approve the doctrine 5 which they con
tained, the whole line of the evidence, such as it is,
tends to confirm the Apostolic authorship. For it
ascribes these writings to the quite impossible Cerin-
thus, or in any case to his time ; and in doing so it
declares that objectors to the Fourth Gospel in the
second or the early third century, could find no place
or period for its composition, but that which is as
necessary to the Johannine authorship, as it is
vehemently denied by modern negative criticism.
But the whole position of the Alogi in this argu-
1 Oehler, Corpus, torn. i. christenthums, 1884.
2 Lbid. torn. ii. 5 ' Rein dogmatischer Art, und
3 Zur Quellen-Kritik des Epi- darum fur die historische Kritik
phanios, 1865. Quellen der dltesten bedeutungslos.' Credner, Einlei-
Ketzergeschichte, 1875. tung, 1836, § 103, p. 261.
4 Die Ketzergeschichte des Ur-

126

LECTURE III.

ment is not more than that of a weapon which is
seized in desperation to meet an opponent. As long
Rejection ago as 1845 it was openly cast aside by Dr. Zeller
by Zeller. . ° . 1 • , t i • i t •
m an article against the Johannine authorship of
the Gospel which was published in the Tubingen
Year-Book.6 And it is a weapon which is fatal to
the user when the opponent is armed by knowledge

c ' Wie wenig eine geschichtlich
nachweisbare Tradition iiber das
Johannesevangelium vorhanden
war, zeigt auch der Widerspruch,
welcher urn das Ende des zweiten
Jahrhunderts von den sog.
Alogern gegen dasselbe erhoben
wurde. Es ist wahr, dieGrlinde,
auf welche sich dieser Wider
spruch stiitzt, sind, so weit wir
von ihnen wissen, durchaus dem
Gebiete der inneren Kritik ent-
nommen, und auch das urspriing-
liche Motiv desselben scheint
das dogmatische gewesen zu sein,
den Montanisten die Stiitze zu
entziehen, welche ihnen die
Johanne'ischen Ausspriiche iiber
den Paraklet darboten. Insofern
mogen sich die Vertheidiger des
Evangeliums nicht mit Unrecht
dagegen verwahren, dass die
Aloger als Zeugen fur eine dem-
selben entgegenstehende Tradition
gebraucht werden. Ja auch das
mochte ich nicht geradezubehaup-
teu, dass die Aloger ihren Wider
spruch gegen eine allgemein als
apostolisch anerkannte Schrift
nicht halten wagen konnen : die
Apokalypse war diess in Kleinasien
ohne Zweifel, und doch wurde
sie von ihnen fur ein Werk des
Cerinth erklart. Der Verfasser

der Clementinen wagt sogar,
die Authentie der mosaischen
Biicher zu bezweifeln, was in
jener Zeit ungleich mehr hiess,
als die einer neutestamentlichen
Schrift in Anspruch nehmen.
Um so mehr zeigt aber der ganze
Verlauf dieses Streits, so weit wir
von ihm wissen, wie wenig es sich
hier iiberhaupt. um Fragen der
litterarischen Kritik handelte.
Die Aloger bestreiten das Evan
gelium wegen seiner inneren
Beschaffenheit, und Irenaus ant-
wortet darauf, es miisse unsere
vier kanonischen Evangelien
geben, weil es auch vier Himmels-
gegenden und vier Hauptwinde
gebe, und weil die Cherubim
viererlei Gestalten haben. An
die Frage, von der die Entschei-
dung des Streits doch zunachst
abhieng, die Frage nach den
Zeugnissen fur den apostolischeh
Ursprung des Evangeliums,
scheintNiemand gedacht zu haben.
Das ist das historische Bewusstsein
der Kirche am Ende des 2ten Jahr
hunderts.' Zeller, Die Uusseren
Zeugnisse iiber das Dasein und
den Ursprung des vierten Evange
liums. Theologische Jahrbucher,
1845, pp. 645-6.

LECTURE III. 127
and turns it back upon him. The records of the
past are searched and re-searched for men who reject
the Fourth Gospel. No living men can be found :
the ghosts of Alogi are said to be seen in the
darkness. But there were real men — Celsus, Julian,
Porphyry, Arius, are instances — to whose position
it was as vital to deny the authenticity of the Fourth
Gospel, as it is to their nineteenth century suc
cessors. History supplies no hint that any one of
them ever made the attempt. Their silence becomes Their
only the more emphatic when it is broken by the witness6
inaudible whispers of Alogi, and utters witness
more decisive than even the all-consenting voices
of the Church.7
Accepting then the fact, which is hardly ques- Principles
tioned, and with our present knowledge is really not reception.
questionable, that from the last quarter of the second
7 Since this was written I find own. He cites authors later than
that Dr. Salmon has lately ex- Hippolytus . Ephraem (c. 22) ;
pressed the following opinion : — Porphyry (c. 8). The system of
' In fact I now believe that chronology is not that of Hippo-
"the Alogi" consisted of Caius, lytus, nor does he agree with
and, as far as I can learn, nobody Hippolytus as to the duration of
else. ... I consider the work of our Lord's ministry on earth.
Hippolytus, of which Epiphanius The whole section gives' me the
made use, must have said very impression that Epiphanius, being
little about the opponents of the obliged by his title to answer
Gospel. When Epiphanius deals objections to the Gospel, and
with the opponents of the Apoca- finding none specified in his au-
lypse, the objections and replies thorities, was reduced to manu-
have every mark of antiquity, and facture objections, as well as
were no doubt derived from Hip- answers, by his own ingenuity.'
polytus. But the section on the Introduction to the New Testament,
Gospel is distinctly Epiphanius's ed. 4, pp. 229-31, note.

128 lecture in.
century to the close of the eighteenth century, the
Fourth Gospel was received throughout Christendom
as an Apostolic and inspired writing, we proceed
further to inquire, in order that we may have a clear
view of the 'judgment of centuries,' upon what prin
ciples this acceptance was based. The object of our
immediate inquiry is the Fourth Gospel only, and if
our principles prove to be often of wider application
than is necessary for the task which we are under
taking, and to refer to the New Testament generally,
we must be content to limit our inferences to our
own part of the subject. And perhaps to some
the inquiry will gain in clearness if we first approach
it from the standpoint of the present, rather than
from that of the past.
views Now if the question were put to a number of
now -1 l
commonly ordinary Christian men and women : ' What is your
held: J J
own ground for accepting the Fourth Gospel as a
sacred book coming to you from God, and in what
sense do you understand it to be so ? ', and if each
one tried to answer frankly and fully, exactly as he
thought, and not in the meaningless language of
platitudes, some would find that they had hardly
thought at all, and the answers of those who had
thought would be on widely differing lines. But the
most important of them would be something like the
following : —
One would say,
The 'I believe in the holy Catholic Church. I believe
in the pure and Apostolic branch of it, in which by the

LECTURE HI. 129
providence of God I was born, in which I live, in of the
which I hope to die. The Church has from the first
received this writing as part of her sacred Scriptures.
She has never had any doubt about it. She has not
only been a witness to its reception as part of history,
but has in her own sacred synods decreed its accept
ance as a doctrine. I recognize in the voice of the
Church the voice of my Lord who promised to abide
in the Church, and the voice of the Comforter whom
He promised, to guide the Church into all truth ; and
I accept this writing as vouchsafed unto me by God
in and through His Church.
' And I accept it in the exact sense in which the
Church accepts it. I do not find that she has ever
marked out a limit of inspiration, or that she has
ever defined the matter or method of inspiration, and
I do not draw lines where she has not done so. No
attack on the external form of the sacred writing
touches my faith in its inner substance as taught to
me by the Church. Nor am I in any way alarmed
by critical attacks upon the authenticity or genuine
ness of the book. I cannot judge of these subjects,
and I am not sure that it would be part of my duty
to do so if I could. Do you tell me that in obedi
ence to Apostolic precept it is my duty ' to be ready
always to give an answer to every man that asketh
me a reason of the hope that is in me ' ? Yes ; but
the Apostle adds, 'with meekness and fear,' and he
is addressing the body, not the individual member.
The command, moreover, has no special reference to

130 LECTURE III.
the reception of a sacred book, and if it had, the
knowledge of my fathers and brethren — the authority
of the Church — may be a better reason than my own
ignorance. There is an ecclesia docens, but I form
no part of it. The Church has always had, will
always have, doctors and teachers, and will always
have the divine Teacher. My duty is to obey,
not to judge. I have indeed the right of private
judgment and its responsibility. I exercise it by
submitting myself to the Church. Did I need other
inducements to follow this which seems to me the
only safe course, I should find them in the almost
countless number of divisions and subdivisions
of Christian people, all of whom base their often
conflicting faiths on their own views and interpreta
tions of the Bible, and in the strange alarm of even
Church people when some attack which for the
moment seems successful, and may be really success
ful, is made, not on a doctrine of Scripture or of the
Church, but on some accretion which is no part of
either. As a Churchman, I am a member of a great
household. The family has lived in the house for
centuries. The signs of its historic past meet the eye
at every turn — in the picture galleries, the libraries,
the heraldic quarterings, the chapel, the mausoleum.
There is an unwritten record going back beyond
knowledge in its institutions, customs, traditions.
Who will dare challenge its possession ? Who will
question its title ? And if anyone ignorant of its
claims and history does so, the question is not one for

LECTURE III. 131
me but for the heads of the family. I seek to do my
duty and live a peaceful life, anxious only about
what affects the family from within, disturbed about
nothing which threatens it from without. I know the
sweet blessings of a corporate life, and of the sub
mission which is necessary to my own union with it.'
Such has been the language, not of weakness, but
of strength ; not of ignorance, but of some of the
greatest intellects in our own and in preceding gene
rations, in our own and in other branches of the
Catholic Church of Christ.
Now, for the man who accepts the authority of
the Church, criticism upon such a question as the
authenticity of the Fourth Gospel has no point of
attack. The Church is for him 'a witness and a
keeper of holy Writ.' He does not believe the
Church to be infallible apart from Holy Scripture;
nay, he accepts her very creeds 8 because they ' may
be proved by most certain warrants of ' Holy Scrip
ture, and if he is an Anglican churchman, he believes
further that ' Holy Scripture containeth all things
8 ' Romanist writers admit the by Dr. Hawkins, especially to the
sufficiency of Scripture for the notes ; to the Bampton Lectures
proof at least of all the Articles in of Bishop van Mildert, 1815, to
the three creeds.' Dr. Hawkins, those of Mr. W. D. Conybeare,
Bampton Lectures, 1840, p. 317. 1839 ; and to Dr. Salmon's recent
On the general question of work, Infallibility of the Church,
Tradition and the Interpretation 1888. And for a fuller discussion,
of Scripture, which is quite to the works of H. J. Holtzmann,
another question from that of the Kanon und Tradition, 1859 ; and
Canon and the Church which is Tanner (a Romanist), Ueber das
noticed in the text above, the katholische Traditions und das
younger student may perhaps be protestantische Schrift - Princip,
referred to this standard treatise 1862. k 2

132 LECTURE III.
necessary to salvation.' But the Church is to him
the witness of what Scripture is ; she is ' the house
of God, which is the church of the living God, the
pillar and ground of the truth.' 9 Hostile critics
ask him to meet them and discuss these Scriptures.
Certainly not ; why should he ? He is quite com
fortable, and quite safe in his walled city, where he
has his life to live and his work to do. Is it because
there is no breach left in the wall that they ask him
to meet them in one of the villages ? But he is doing
a great work so that he cannot come down. Why
should the work cease while he leaves it to come
down to them ? x They threaten to attack his fortress
and drive him out of it. But their weapons are not
quite of the kind for this warfare. By all means let
them seek others, read history and philosophy, study
the Church's foundations and her wondrous super
structure, confer with her master builders. Per-
adventure the issue will be that they will themselves
see the only place of safety to be within her walls.
The inner Another answer which in more or less definite
language would be not unfrequently given, may be
stated in terms like these : —
' I believe on other grounds than those contained
in the Bible that God exists, and if He exists it is
a priori probable that He will reveal Himself to man.
There are other revelations of God, as in nature or
in history, but the revealed word of God is the full
utterance of the Creator to the creature. The Bible
9 1 Tim. iii. 15. ' Cf. Neh. vi. 1-4.

witness.

LECTURE III. 133
comes to me with the attestation of prophecy and
miracle and history, but the ultimate test of the
word of God to me is, that it is a word of God to
me. It finds me. It tells me of a Saviour. It
converts my soul. It changes my life. I take
counsel with my brother man and find that his expe
rience agrees with my own. I look at the work of
missions and of Bible societies. It is quite certain
that here is truth which human nature, as human
nature, needs ; and with which alone it is satisfied.
You ask me how I know all this ? How do I know
light from darkness, bitter from sweet ?
' I say nothing about the extent or method of
inspiration. That is inspiration which inspires me.
That is the word of God which speaks to my soul.
I would rather not draw distinctions where I reverence
all; but of course I know, as all Christian people
know, that there are portions of the New Testa
ment which have an influence that others have not.
The marked Bibles of devout Christians are a Bible
within a Bible ; the texts of a spiritual ministry are the
sacred words of life. No one would place the saluta
tions of the sixteenth chapter of the Romans, for ex
ample, side by side with the prologue to S. John. The
mass of Christian experience, as expressed in biogra
phies, letters, journals, asserts that the Fourth Gospel
is a writing which most fully meets the wants of the
great world of humanity. Tell the missionary to
the most civilized or to the most barbarous heathen
dom, that he can have at present only one book of

134 lecture ni.
the Bible translated into their new language. Which
will he choose ? Tell a Christian philosopher or a
Christian peasant, that he can only give one book of
the Bible to his child. Which will he choose ? Go to
the bed-side of some poor outcast in the slum of a
great city, and ask to be allowed to read to him
from a book of the New Testament ; endeavour to
interest him by asking which is his favourite book.
Which will he choose ?
' No question of criticism materially affects my
position. If the contents are divine, the vessel is of
comparatively small importance. If the word of
God is certainly spoken, it matters little in what
form or by what person it is spoken.'
Such is the language of a large number of men
of robust intellect, of holy and devoted lives, in our
own and in other communions.
And for the man who thus believes in the inner
witness as the true test of Scripture, external criticism
has no point of attack.
' Come and discuss with me,' says the critic,
' whether your Scripture is divine.'
1 Discuss with you that about which I am quite
sure, why should I ? There is no ground on which
we can meet. I know my wants and what satisfies
them, my life and what supports it, my inmost being
and what fills it through and through.'
' But I want to show you that the data of your
consciousness are not trustworthy. You are guided
by feeling ; I want to guide you by reason.'

LECTURE HI. 135
' That is shifting the whole position. It is not
the Fourth Gospel you wish to discuss, but human
nature. I am quite content with the practical ex
perience of my own inner life and of that of millions
who have gone before and of millions who are living
now. ' One thing I know, that whereas I was blind,
now I see. . . . Why herein is a marvellous thing,
that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath
opened mine eyes. ... If this man were not of God,
he could do nothing.' ' 2
A third answer, which I find more difiiculty in verbal
expressing because I have seldom known men who tion.
consistently hold it, though not a few profess it ; and
because I do not know any standard work of any
English body of Christians which declares it, is that
of verbal inspiration. It is not inconsistent with,
and as a matter of fact is sometimes held in conjunc
tion with, either of the previous theories ; though it
can be held by a loyal child of the Church who accepts
her authority only together with the conviction that
the Church herself holds it. A man who gives this
answer might use much of the language which we
have just supposed others to use, but he would
add : —
' When I speak of the Scriptures, I mean the whole
Scriptures, the Bible and nothing but the Bible.3 I
understand the language of the New Testament to
2 John ix. 25, 30, 33. Plumptre, in Masters in English
3 Cf. a striking lecture on Theology, 1877, pp. 113-145.
' William Chillingworth ' by Dean

136 LECTURE III.
teach me the sacredness of every jot and tittle of
the Old Testament, and to promise me a like full
and infallible, verbally, literally inspired word of
God. I mean that every statement and circumstance,
scientific and historical as well as doctrinal, is ne
cessarily and exactly true. If modern science and
history and literature disagree with any of these
statements, so much the worse for modern science
and histoiy and literature.4 I accept the Gospel
according to S. John, just as I accept the Epistle of
S. Jude. I do not trouble myself with details of
criticism or of authenticity, nor do I care much for
questions of text or translation. I take my fathers'
English Bible, which has come to me in the provi
dence of God, as the absolutely sacred and absolutely
perfect word of God, the unerring guide and chart
of my life. The Holy Spirit who dictated it will
protect it and will interpret it.'
Perhaps this state of thought and feeling is not
often expressed in definite forms of language ; but
it lies at the root of no small portion of the less
educated, it may be, but not the less real religious
life and activities of this and other countries.
The man who believes in this mechanical verbal
inspiration of Holy Scriptures must admit that dis
coveries in science, and investigations of history, and
the whole development of modern criticism, have
made his position, to say the least, exceedingly diffi-
4 ' Wer will wagen, die Auto- Calovius ; see Herzog-Plitt, Beal-
ritat eines Copernicus iiber die Encyklopddie, iii. p. 76.
des heiligen Geistes zu stellen ? '

LECTURE III. 137
cult ; but he must defend himself. We shall see that
his theory is no part of the 'judgment of centuries,'
no part of the Church's judgment at all.
One more answer would come to us from so many Canons of
. , historical
persons of high culture and attainment, that it would and
deserve the most careful attention at our hands, criticism.
This answer is also not inconsistent with some of
the language which we have already considered, and
as a matter of fact often co-exists with it : —
'The Fourth Gospel,' one of these persons
would say, 'must be judged primarily just as any
other writing would be, by the ordinary canons
of literary evidence and criticism, and I accept
it because it satisfies those canons. I have this
difficulty about the authority of the Church taken
absolutely alone — it may be the best authority for
the masses, and I have not a word to say against it
— but for myself, as a critic accustomed to weigh
evidence, there is the difficulty that I am asked to
accept the Fourth Gospel and other Scriptures on
the authority of the Church, and the Church on the
authority of the Scriptures. The world rests upon
the elephant, and the elephant rests upon the tortoise ;
the tortoise cannot then rest upon the world. The
argument is not free from the vice of the circle.
' And I have this difficulty about the inner witness
— that it varies with the individual. For example, if I
were making for my own edification a Canon of the
writings which were read in the Church in the early
centuries, I should include the Epistle of Clement or

138 lecture m.
the letter to the Laodiceans or the Epistle to Diogne-
tus, rather than the Second Epistle of S. Peter or the
Epistle of S. Jude. If I were drawing the line between
the Canonical and the apocryphal books of the Old
Testament, I should value the wondrous teaching of
the book of Wisdom more highly than some of the
records of the books of Chronicles. If I am to think
indeed of the Fourth Gospel only, the inner witness
has been so unanimous, and the verification in the life
of humanity so unique, that I am bound, regarding
them merely as historical phenomena which stand quite
alone, to accept the evidence as conclusive. Still my
general position is, that this writing is to be judged as
every other writing ; and I accept it as the authentic
work of S. John because this is the only theory which
explains all the complicated facts of the case. It is
not free from difficulty — but no question of historical
criticism of the first or second century is, or can be —
and it is infinitely more free from difficulty than any
other theory which has been suggested to explain the
same facts. As a mere question of history and criti
cism, and writing for writing, altogether apart from
the contents, I have much more reason to accept the
Fourth Gospel as the work of the Apostle, than I
have to accept the histories of Herodotus or Thucy
dides or Xenophon, of Tacitus or Livy or Caesar,5
as genuine documents. And if I am convinced that
5 It is, of course, generally ment date from the fourth to the
known, but it is not always re- sixth, and the Versions and text
membered, that while the great can be traced to the second and
Uncial MSS. of the New Testa- third centuries, there is no known

lecture iii. 139
<
it is the work of the Apostle, it follows that it is an
authentic record of the life and teaching of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and the fullest spiritual truth which
can be presented to the soul.'
The man who gives this answer would of course
feel that any challenge of criticism must be met upon
its own ground ; that the wounds of reason can be
healed only by reason ; that the authenticity of the
Fourth Gospel is a question of history and evidence
and not one of dogma ; that the witness and keeping
of the Church is a fact of first importance ; that the
consciousness of humanity is a fact of first importance,
but that these facts are to take their place with all
others ; that the objections of critics cannot be met
in the nineteenth century as Tertullian met the ob
jections of heretics in the second century by prescrip
tion or demurrer ; but that the whole case must be
brought into open court and tried at the bar of
justice and truth, wdth acknowledged experts as
judges, and for a jury honest men who will shape
their verdict by the evidence alone.
These general remarks upon the way in which the
manuscript of Herodotus or of Bekker, 1844, vol. i. p. 578.
Thucydides earlier than the tenth, Nor are the L atin classical his-
nor of Xenophon earlier than tories better attested. The first
from the eleventh to the thir- six books of the Annals of Tacitus,
teenth centuries. There is no for example, depend upon one
reference in existing literature to manuscript, which was written
Thucydides, the chief authority not earlier than the ninth century,
for the history of Greece, for and was discovered in Westphalia
two centuries after his ' death. in the sixteenth century.
See Polybius, Hist. viii. 13 ; ed.

140 LECTURE III.
question now presents itself will help us to under
stand the principles upon which this and other sacred
writings have been received at different periods in
the history of the Church.
Treatment In the Apostolic age, if we may draw conclusions
tion in from the New Testament itself, there is no traceable
age : idea of any new collection of writings for the use of
the Church. The only hint of a word having been
written by our Lord's hand, is of a writing upon
the sand of the floor ; and there is no suggestion
that He directed His disciples to write. Nor is
there in the special gifts of the Spirit to the Church,
the charismata which were to qualify men for the
service which God called them to render to mankind
— many and varied though they were — any reference
to writing or qualifications for authorship. The
Terms terms used in the history of the promulgation of
the Gospel and the foundation of the Church never
include the idea of writing, and they express every
cognate idea so fully that they must be taken to
exclude it. We read of 'proclaiming good news,'
of ' preaching,' of ' exhorting,' of ' speaking,' of
' hearing,' of ' testifying,' of ' handing down ' ; of
' the Gospel,' of ' the Word,' of ' tradition,' of
' witness,' of ' the opening of the mouth ' ; of
' the preacher,' of ' the evangelist,' of ' the mission
ary.' 6 S. Paul's question is : ' How then shall
they call on him in whom they have not. believed ?
6 Cf. Reuss, Geschichte der heiligen Schriften, Neues Testament, ed.
6, § 36.

used.

LECTURE HI. 141
and how shall they believe in him whom they have
not heard ? and how shall they hear without a
preacher ? ' And his answer is, ' So belief cometh of
hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.'
It does not appear that any one of the writers of 0ral tra-
the New Testament thought of his writing as one and
which would become of general use in the Church,
or would be read apart from the oral teaching which
had been already communicated, and which formed
the substance of the 'faith once delivered to the
saints.' No writing is addressed to persons to whom
the truth was not otherwise known. Many of the
writings are largely personal, and those intended
for public reading were for individual churches, and
for churches connected with them, and with the
writer. So far from setting before themselves the task of seasons
providing Scriptures for a future Church, there is no church
evidence that any of the Apostolic writers expected provide a
that there would be a Church on earth far beyond anon'
the generation in which they themselves lived. For
them, the sacred Scriptures are the writings of Moses
and of the Prophets. They would have shrunk,
with the reverence of Jews, from placing their own
writings by the side of the closed Canon of the Old
Testament. The only clear instance 7 in which the
7 A friendly critic invites my is worthy of his reward,' as
attention to 1 Tim. v. 18, ' For another instance, and one which
the scripture saith, Thou shalt disproves my assertion. But a
not muzzle the ox that treadeth careful study will show that it is
out the corn. And, The labourer exactly in accord with the asser-

142

LECTURE IH.

New Tes
tament
not re
garded as
' Scrip
ture.'

term ' Scripture ' is applied in the New Testament to
any part of the New Testament itself, is in the Second
Epistle of S. Peter,8 where reference is made to a
collection of Pauline Epistles ; and your knowledge
will prevent your laying too much stress upon this
passage. No part of the New Testament is quoted in
the New Testament, as an authority for a fact or for
a doctrinal statement. S. John must have been
acquainted with some form of one or more of the
earlier Gospels, of portions of the Acts of the
Apostles, of the teaching of S. Peter and S. Paul,
especially, as his writings show, with the Epistles to
the Ephesians, Colossians, and Timothy ; but he
never quotes or refers to them in the Fourth Gospel
or in his Epistles. They were not to him Scriptures.
S. Paul more than once appeals to a fact of the
Gospel history, and does so as late as the Second
Epistle to Timothy, but the reference is not made
to any writing, but to 'my Gospel,' that is, to his
own oral teaching of the truth.9

in the And as it was in the age of the Apostles, so was
Apostolic it also in the generation which immediately followed.
There is comparatively little of formal quotation from
the New Testament Scriptures in any of the Apostolic
Fathers. Sentences and words occur, some of which

tion. The term ' scripture ' is
applied to the quotation, if it be
one — cf. Alford's note m loco —
from the Old Testament, and is
not applied in the immediate

context, even to the word of the
Lord Himself.
8 2 Peter iii. 16.
9 evayyeXiov /not/- 2 Tim. ii. 8.
qf. Rom. ii. 16 ; xvi. 25.

LECTURE HI. 143
are so exactly parallel as to make it impossible to be
lieve that the writers were not making definite refer
ence to our present Canonical Scriptures of the New
Testament. I have elsewhere referred to the fact that Johannine
the Johannine current of thought coloured the teaching
and wording of the Didache, of Barnabas, of Clement,
of Ignatius, of the Shepherd ; though it did not leave
the writer's hands until the stream of traditional
teaching and of the synoptic Gospels was already
full and strong.1 But while we have this evidence of
the existence of the Gospels, they are not quoted by
name, they are not quoted as authorities, they are
quoted together with an oral traditional Gospel, and
perhaps together with written Gospels which are not
now extant. It will be remembered that there are
several sayings of our Lord known, which do not
occur in any Canonical writing.2 On the other hand,
the Old Testament Scriptures are quoted as they are
in the New Testament ; that is, in the circle of the
Apostolic Fathers as in the circle of the Apostles, it
is the Old Testament and not the New Testament
which is definitely regarded as Scripture,3 as the
' word of the Lord.' 4

1 Cf. Lecture II. p. 101 ; and 3 The passage in Polycarp,
Lecture VII. p. 402. cap. xii., which is referred to by
2 Cf . Westcott, Introduction to Bishop Wordsworth in his note
the Gospels, Appendix C ; and on 1 Tim. v. 18, is primarily a
especially Von Gebhardt und quotation of the LXX Version
Harnack, Texte und Untersuch- of Ps. iv. 4.
ungen, Bd. v. Heft 4. Resch, 4 ' The title the Word of God,
Agrapha Aussercanonische Evan- though common afterwards, and
gelienfragmente, 1889. especially in modern times, is

144

LECTURE IH.

Reference But in the Apostolic period there had already
to the n i i • -i /• -i < i
' Word of grown up quite naturally by the side ot the word
of the Lord,' contained in the Old Testament, the
custom of referring to the word of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He was the Lord. He was the Word.
What He said was the very word of God. The
Apostles could not place their own words as authori
tative by the side of the Old Testament Scriptures ;
but these sacred Scriptures were fulfilled in Him.
' The word of the Lord endureth for ever : and this
is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto

you

» 5

Again, the Apostolic period gives a rule of practice
to that which followed it. In the post- Apostolic
age, when the current of oral teaching in individual
churches was vigorous, and had been strengthened by
evangelic records and letters ; and now above all when
the tradition of the Ephesian church had been per
fected by the Fourth Gospel, and communion between
the churches was being established, and ecclesiastical
literature was putting forth its first efforts, the con
stant appeal is made to the ' word of the Lord,' to
Examples, the ' commands of the Lord,' to ' thus saith the

never used as a title of Scripture
generally by any of the New
Testament writers. No quotation
is headed " As it is written in the
Word of God," " What saith the
Word of God?" &c. No state
ment concerning Scripture is
introduced by mention of this
title. Yet it is a phrase used, in
one or other of its many forms,

some hundred times in all, and
clearly, therefore, could not have
been omitted as a title of Scrip
ture except on the ground that
in the Apostles' days it was not
so applied.' Warington, Inspira
tion, 1867, p. 46. Cf. the valua
ble Appendix, pp. 273-8.
5 1 Peter i. 25.

LECTURE HI. 145
Lord.' It will be remembered how emphatically
this is the case in the two works which are connected
with the name of the Eastern archbishop, Bryen-
nios, the so-called Second Epistle of Clement, and
the Didache. The latter writing is, indeed, entitled
' The Teaching of the Lord, by means of the Twelve
Apostles? 6 We have seen that the five books of Papias
are called ' Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord' 7
and that in Justin the Memoirs of the Apostles 8
are quoted for their constant reference to the sayings
of the Lord. The few lines from Papias which are
preserved in Eusebius are of special interest in illus
trating the thought of the post- Apostolic Church.
He seeks ' not for foreign precepts, but for those
which are given from the Lord to our faith,' and
tells us that he ' did not profit so much from books
as ' — and the phrase is very remarkable — ' from the
living and abiding voice.' 9 That is his comment,
as it is S. Peter's comment, on the text, ' The word
of the Lord endureth for ever.' It is the living
voice, the voice of the Lord in the Church, ' the word
which by the gospel is preached unto you,' which
abideth for ever.
This means, and the study of the Apostolic individual
¦n churches
Fathers and of the fragments preserved in Eusebius
6 ' Ai8axr) to>v 8a>8eKa cotoo-to'- 8 Cf. ibid. pp. 65 sqq.
Xa>v ' Kal ' At8a;(9 Kvpi'ov Sid rav 9 irapd. £a>ur\s (ptovrjs Kal pevovcrr]S.
8&8eKa diroordXtov rois edveo-iv.' Hist. Eccles. iii. 39. But cf. Zahn's
Ed. Bryennios, 1883, p. 2. interpretation of these words,
7 Aoylav KvpiaKwv e^rj-yno-is. Cf. Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen
Lecture II. p: 96. Kanons, 1889, Bd. i. p. 866. L

146 LECTURE III.
and will serve to remind us, that the Church in the first
mgs. y-gour Qf ^gj. Jj£e fell nQ nee(J £or^ an(J Jla(J no cauge to
form, a Canon of her writings. The writings, let us
bear in mind, were to a considerable extent the pro
perty of individual churches. Some of the Epistles
contained references to matters of a private and not
always very creditable nature ; some contained special
injunctions which had no meaning for other churches ;
some contained injunctions to individual persons.
Nor did all churches at first possess, or perhaps care
to possess, copies of all the Gospels. Each church
had its own founder, its own present teachers, its own
special characteristics, its own oral Gospel, in some
idea of a cases its own Apostolic Epistle. . The Catholicity and
church corporate life of the whole Church had from the first
realized, existed in idea ; but to work it out in practice was
still in the future. No one who knows the history
of the Church in the post- Apostolic age will demand
a Canon of her writings at that period ; and the
apologist who attempts to answer the demand is
doing no true service to the writings or to the
Church. There were canons of the churches, rather
than a Canon of the Church, side by side with
the 'living voice,' and the 'word of the Lord.'
The Canonicity of the New Testament could not be,
until the Catholicity of the Church was. The first
framers of a Canon, and the first who largely quoted
the Scriptures of the New Testament, were not the
Catholics, but the heretics. The Church had no
need to quote them. She had her full living voice

Lecture hi. 147
and her teachers to whom she could appeal in case ACathoiid,
of doubt or difficulty. But when the Gnostics and becomes
other heretics quoted texts of the Church's writings, neoessary-
and adduced other writings in support of their own
views ; and when they alleged a secret traditional
interpretation by which even the writings of the
churches were made to support their heresies, the
churches were driven to the task of comparing
and deciding upon their own Apostolical books ; and
the Church was obliged to draw up her Canon and
her own traditional interpretation, her rule of faith,
her first forms of creed, by which the meaning of
these books should be fixed.
The materials of the Canon in the second century,
then, were, the tradition of the Church in her living
voice, the written evangelic statements of the words
of the Lord, the Apostolic letters, the records of
Apostolic teaching in the Acts, and the prophetic
Eevelation of S. John.
The fundamental principle was to ascertain what The Canon
was truly the word of the Lord Jesus. This did not of history
necessarily imply any writing. As late as Irenaeus,
who thinks of the four-fold Gospel as consonant with
the natural order of things, it is still possible to con
ceive of a Church without a Bible, but not of a Bible
without a Church.1 But with this tradition, there
1 'Quid autem si neque Apostoli ecclesias? Cui ordinationi assen-
quidem Scripturas reliquissent tiunt multae gentes barbarorum
nobis, nonne oportebat ordinem eorum qui in Christum credunt,
sequi traditionis, quam tradi- sine charta vel atramento scrip-
derunt iis quibus committebant tarn habentes per Spiritum in
l 2

148 LECTURE III.
not of was the exercise of judgment upon the writings.
Did the so-called Gospels come from the earliest
direct sources of knowledge, that is, were they imme
diately or mediately Apostolic ? Were the other
writings from Apostolic sources ? The acceptance of
a writing did not rest upon the decree of any council,
for the time of councils was not yet. The Canon was
a question of history, not one of dogma ; and churches
might differ, and did differ, and Fathers of the
Church might differ from each other, and sometimes
be inconsistent with themselves — and did differ and
were inconsistent — as to the use of the doubtful
books or the exact principle on which a book should
be received. Tradition, but tradition critically tested
in the presence of heresy, was the first formative
principle of the Canon. The New Testament was
the child of the Church.
in the As we pass from the second century onwards, we
fourth find that the current of tradition flowed necessarily
in wider channels, but with less fulness and force.
Men were no longer in the presence of those who
had themselves known the immediate descendants of
Apostles ; and with the growth of Christian literature
there came the fuller power of criticism, and the
wider opportunities for exercising it. And there were
cordibus suis salutem, et veterem authorities in Tanner, Ueber das
traditionem diligenter custo- katholische Traditions - u. daspro-
dientes.' Irenaeus, Adv. Hser. testantische Schrift-Princip, pp.
iii. 4, 1 ; ed. Harvey, torn. ii. p. 4-8.
16. Cf. the valuable collection of

centuries,

LECTURE HI. 149
giants in those days. The sacred books stood out
more and more prominently, as the presence of the
original tradition was less fully felt, and they became
the centres round which that tradition was deposited
in continuous expositions and commentaries. The tradition
. . one with
tradition of the second century became in the third and Scrip-
following centuries, one with the sacred Scriptures.
Witness the commentaries and homilies of Origen,
Cyprian, Augustine, Jerome, Basil, Chrysostom, the
Gregorys of Nyssa and Nazianzus, and the Cyrils of
Jerusalem and Alexandria.
There is no fallacy of the vicious circle then in The
the paradox which is simply historical truth, that the depend
Scriptures depend upon the Church, and the Church church,
depends upon the Scriptures. The relation of the church
mutual dependence varied in different circumstances. g^f
There is a young mother carrying her boy who can- tures-
not yet walk alone. Years pass on. There is a
woman leaning upon the arm of a strong man whose
strength has been born of her and now supports her.
It is the same mother ; the same child.
How rapidly the sacred Scriptures of the New Testi-
Testament became part of the daily life of the
Church, and how precious men held them to be,
we recognize as early as the Diocletian persecution
at the opening of the fourth century, when they
chose to die rather than to part with them ; and
how fully tradition continued to hold its place side
by side with the Bible, as late as the close of the
century, is seen in the declaration of Augustine,

150 LECTURE III.
Augus- ' I would not believe- the Gospel unless the autho
rity of the Church should move me thereto.' 2 Here
we have language than which none could be more
plain, and it by no means stands alone, in which
Scripture is made to depend absolutely upon the
authority of the Church. While the same Father
declares also — and, again, the language by no means
stands alone — that ' all things necessary to faith and
morals are comprised in the sacred Scriptures,' and
' that the Christian system will come to an end if the
authority of these writings is allowed to waver.' 3
and Jerome, to take another example, when speaking
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, illustrates in this way
the general principle : —
It does not matter who the author is as long as he is a son
of the Church, and it is approved by being read in the daily-
lessons. But if the custom of the Latins does not receive it
among the sacred and Canonical books, and the Greeks do not
receive the Apocalypse, yet we receive both, for we are not
careful to adapt ourselves to the custom of the present, but to
follow the authority of the ancients.4
2 ' Ego vero Evangelio non ere- vacillat auctoritas : porro fide
derem, nisi me catholicse ecclesiee titubante, charitas etiam ipsa
commoveret auctoritas.' Contra languescit.' Lbid. i. 37; ed.
Epist. Munich. — Fundam. — cap. Migne, p. 35.
v. ; ed. Migne, torn. viii. p. 176. 4 Ep. ad Dardanum. ' Et nihil
s 'In iis enim quse aperte in interesse, cujus sit, quum Eccle-
Scripturispositasunt, inveniuntur siastici viri sit, et quotidie Eccle-
illa omnia quse continent fidem, siarum lectione celebretur. Quod
moresque vivendi, spem scilicet si earn Latinorum consuetudo non
atque charitatem.' . . De Doctr. recipit inter Scripturas canonicas ;
Christ, ii. 9 ; ed. Migne, p. 42. nee Grsecorum quidem Ecclesise
' Per fidem enim ambulamus, non apocalypsin Joannis eadem liber-
per speciem ; titubabit autem tate suscipiunt ; et tamen nos
fides, si divinarum Scripturarum utramque suscipimus ; nequaquam

LECTURE III. 151
We have seen that for the East the Canon was Canon
practically closed at the councils of Laodicea and onautho-
Constantinople, and for the West at the councils of
Hippo and Carthage.5
From that time to the Reformation — that is, for church
a period, in round numbers, of nine hundred years — Re-
there was no fresh investigation of the authority,
almost no fresh interpretation of the substance of the
Scriptures. They were the years of Catena?, of Postilion,
of commentaries, of compilations, which consisted of
little more than of extracts from the Western Fathers,
especially from Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, Hilary.
The Canon was now not a question of historical inves
tigation, but a dogma of the Church. From the time
of Gregory the Great onwards, the pope was in effect
the authority of the Canon throughout Western
Christendom. It is customary to speak of the earlier centuries Accept-
of this period as the Dark Ages ; on many departments the Jar*
of literature and thought they certainly shed no ges'
light. They make little addition to our knowledge
of the Bible. They received both the Scriptures and
the interpretation of them, as the earlier centuries
handed them down, without venturing to question
either; but their sons lived the lessons which they
received, with unhesitating faith, and in the spirit
of absolute devotion. And what deeds they wrought
hujus temporis consuetudinem, . . . Epist. cxxix. ; Opera, ed.
sed veterum Scriptorum auctori- Veronse, 1734, torn. i. 965 B.
tatem sequentes, qui plerumque 5 Cf. supra, pp. 121 and 123.
utriusque abutuntur testimoniis '

152

LECTURE III.

FourthGospel
received
above all.

by faith! These were the ages of missionaries, of
the great religious orders, of crusades, of schoolmen.
These ages founded monasteries and builded cathe
drals. These ages established schools such as there
were at Jarrow and York and Bee ; universities at
Oxford, Cambridge, Bologna, Paris. These ages
witnessed in their darkest years lives such as those
of Baeda and Alcuin, and as the light dawned it shone
upon Anselm, Roscelin, Abelard, Peter Lombard,
John of Salisbury, Alexander de Hales, Bonaventura,
Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas,
Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Bradwardine.
If it is night, there are at least many bright stars
in the firmament. It would be an interminable
task to seek to trace the influence of the Fourth
Gospel during this period. Where all were received,
and the Gospels more than all, the Fourth Gospel
was most of all. If here and there a critical spirit,
like Hugo of S. Victor, or Abelard, raises the ques
tion, it is never to do other than honour to S. John.6

Altered The position of the sacred Scriptures was not the
Scriptures primary question of the Reformation, but the struggle
at the with Rome soon led to the seeking and the finding
of an authority independent of the Roman church.

6 A full and able account of
the general position of the Holy
Scriptures in history is furnished
in Professor Ladd's Doctrine of
Sacred Scripture, 2 vols. 1883, and
in the same writer's What is the

Bible? New York, 1888. They
are a valuable addition to other
and better-known works, for the
student who reads not without
knowledge and thought.

LECTURE III. 153
There had been signs of an altered view of the Scrip- Reforma-
tural position in reformers before the Reformation,
and this fourtl a striking expression in the work of
Bodenstein of Caristadt.7 His principle is critical and Boden-
historical, and he is as wholly opposed to the un- caristadt,
hesitating acceptance on the authority of pope or i54i7
church, as he is to Luther's test of subjective con
sciousness. He has three orders of rank. In the
first he would place the Pentateuch — though he
does not accept the Mosaic authorship — and the
Gospels ; in the second, the Jewish Prophets and
the fifteen Epistles ; in the third, the Jewish Hagio
grapha and the seven Antilegomena of the New
Testament. He would exclude even from the
Apocrypha, the third and fourth books of Esdras,
Baruch, Manasseh, and portions of Daniel.
Luther's own views are expressed in different Luther,
• i • i • n • i r 1483-
passages in his works, especially in the prefaces to 1546.
individual books ; and although the expressions
were modified as years passed on, they remain, as a
whole, a definite outspoken assertion of his absolute
right to judge for himself what was and was not
sacred Scripture : —
What does not teach Christ, that is not Apostolic,
whether it be S. Peter or S. Paul who teaches it ; but, on the
other hand, what preaches Christ that is Apostolic, whether
it.be Judas, Annas, Pilate or Herod who teaches it.8
7 De Canonicis Scripturis, shorter form for popular use,
1520, 4to ; best ed. in Credner, Welche Biicher heilig und biblisch
Zur Geschichte des Kanons, pp. semd, 1520.
291-412 ; published also in 8 Preface to the Epistle of S.

154 lecture m.
Or let us take this view of the subjective recep
tion of God's word : —
It is true it is all God's Word. But with God's Word
here and God's Word there, I must know and consider to
whom the Word of God is spoken. We are a long way
still from the certainty that you are the people with whom
God has spoken.9
For Luther, that is, as for the Church of the first
generations, the Canon is a Canon of the word of the
Lord, and a writing is sacred and inspired just in
proportion to the measure in which it contains that
word. His test is the preaching of Christ, but of this
he is himself the judge.
Applying his test, he declares in his preface to
the New Testament of 1524 : —
To sum up, St. John's Gospel and his first Epistle, St. Paul's
Epistles, especially those to the Romans, Galatians, Ephesians,
and St. Peter's first Epistle — these are the books that will
show thee Christ and teach thee all that is necessary and
blessed, though thou never more seest or hearest any other
book or doctrine. St. James's Epistle is therefore a right
strawy Epistle, since it has no kind of Gospel.1
Calvin, The subjective position of Calvin is equally defi-
1564. nite, though at first he accepted the traditional
view. He says : —
Many are in this pernicious error, that the Scripture
has only that importance which is given to it by the consent
of the Church, as if the eternal and immutable truth of
God was founded upon the pleasure of men. . . . And as
concerns their question how do we know that the Scripture
James and S. Jude, 1522 ; Werke, 9 Werke, ed. Walch, iii. p. 14.
ed. Walch, 1744, xiv. pp. 148 sqq. J Ibid. xiv. p. 105.

LECTURE III. 155
proceeds from God, if we do not have recourse to the decree
of the Church, it is just as if anyone should ask us how we
learn to discern light from darkness, white from black, sour
from sweet.2
Zwingli is not less positive :• — Zwingii,
Whoever asserts that the Gospel is nothing without the 1631.
patronage and approval of the Church, errs and blasphemes
against God.3
Meanwhile the council of Trent had taken its un- couneii
happy step, April 8, 1546, of canonizing all the books i546ren
of the Vulgate, including the Apocrypha, basing the
decision upon the usage of the Church, making all
books of equal value, and anathematizing all who did
not accept the decree.
We are now concerned with these questions only
as they affect the Fourth Gospel, and we will not
pause to recall the history of the council, nor the
strong differences of opinion on this subject in the
council itself, and among Roman theologians without.
Still less is it needful to recall the fact that the
Anglican reformers were happily guided to avoid the
extremes of both Rome and Geneva.
One step was possible more fatal even than infain-
that of Trent , or the extremest position of a sub- scripture
jective decision. It was to declare the fallible, tuteV"
infallible ; the imperfect, perfect ; the human, divine.
The Reformation had cast to the winds the claims
to human infallibility as the outer form of the divine
2 Institutiones, 1559, lib. i. cap. rich, 1523 ; Werke, ed. Schuler u.
vii. p. 14. Schulthess, 1828, Bd. i. pp. 175-
3 Thesis for Conference at Zii- 179.

156 LECTURE III.
for in- infallibility of the Church ; but all her children had
of the not learnt her truest lessons, and for the infallibility
of man they substituted the infallibility of a book.
Scripture became, in the period from a.d. 1600-1750,
— first in the reformed churches, later in the
Lutheran, then in general public opinion — identical
with the word of the Lord. It was a new departure
in the history of the Bible. You see what a weapon
it gave the Protestant against the church of Rome.
You see what a weapon it gave him against the
sceptics. An infallible divine writing, the inspira
tion extending to words, letters, the Hebrew vowel-
points,4 the Greek breathings.5 The interpretation
still remained, but the spirit and the need which re
placed one infallibility by another quickly replaced
one tradition by another. Reguloe fidei, Confessions,
Articles, Institutes, Bodies of Divinity sprung up on
all sides, and became almost as sacred as the Scrip
tures themselves.

4 'In specie autem Hebraicus sive orientales, sive occidentales
Veteris Testamenti Codex, quem exigendaa, et sicubi deflectunt,
ex traditione Ecclesiee Judaicse, revocandse sunt.' Formula Con-
cuiolimOracula Dei commissa sunt sensus Helvetica. Canon ii.
(Rom. iii. 2), accepimus hodieque Augusti, Corpus Librorum Sym-
retinemus, turn quoad consonas, bolicorum, 1827, pp. 445-6.
turn quoad vocalia, sive puncta 6 ' It is impious and profane
ipsa, sive punctorum saltern potes- audacity to change a single point
tatem, et turn quoad res, turn in the Word of God, and to sub-
quoad verba Beoirvevarros, ut stitute a smooth breathing for a
fidei et vitae nostras, una cum rough one or a rough for a smooth.'
codice Novi Testamenti sit Canon Calovius quoted in Ladd, The
unicus et illibatus, ad cujus nor- Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol.
mam, ceu Lydium lapidem, uni- ii. p. 190.
versa?, qua? extant, Versiones,

LECTURE III. 157
A weapon against the Roman ! a weapon against This in-
the sceptic ! but it was a two-edged sword, and none attacked
suffered such fearful wounds as those who essayed criticism"
to wield it. It is against this modern human struc
ture that the science and criticism and history of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have directed
their shafts and pierced it through and through.
And men thought they were destroying the divine.
Little blame to them ; little blame to anyone ; but
tears of pity that men should raise their own puny
defences and call them God's, and that other men
should mistake these human frailties for divine
realities. He sitteth in the fortress of the eternal
truth which needs no buttress of human building ;
which men indeed have sometimes dared to attack,
but as they have drawn nigh, they have gazed upon
its wondrous strength and beauty, and have been
led in humblest submission to yield themselves to
the King.
I have called this identification of Scripture with Verbal h>
the word of God, this view of a mechanical, verbal, a new de-
literal inspiration — for though I am seeking to avoid
technical terms it is not possible to do so — a new
departure, because the Church had never, has never,
accepted it. Is it necessary to show that the
Anglican communion has never done so? Her
formularies and the works of her Fathers are in your
hands. Let me but quote a statement from one of
her trusted living teachers, whose nomination to the
bishopric of Durham during the last week has been

158

LECTURE HI.

Opinions
of

Dr.Westcott,

Bishop of
Carlisle,

CardinalNewman,

received with a harmonious chorus of thanksgiving
in which there is no discordant voice : —
The purely organic theory of Inspiration rests on no
Scriptural authority, and, if we except a few ambiguous
metaphors, is supported by no historical testimony. It is at
variance with the whole form and fashion of the Bible, and
is destructive of all that is holiest in man, and highest in
Religion, which seeks the co-ordinate elevation of all our
faculties, and not the destruction of any one of them.6
And let me remind you of the caution of one of
her living Bishops, spoken in a Hulsean Lecture now
thirty-five years ago : —
And indeed it is a question worthy of solemn considera
tion, whether almost as much mischief has not been done to the
cause of Christian faith, by those who have endeavoured to
force upon their brethren untenable views of the nature of
Holy Scriptures, as by those who have rudely treated them
as merely human books.7
That the Roman communion has never fully
decreed this doctrine, even in the fatal steps of Trent
and the Vatican, may be gathered from the following
words of Cardinal Newman : —
These two councils [the Tridentine and the Vatican]
decide that the Scriptures are inspired, and inspired through
out, but not inspired by an immediately divine act, but
through the instrumentality of inspired men ; that they are
inspired in all matters of faith and morals, meaning thereby,
not only theological doctrine, but also the historical and pro
phetical narratives which they contain, from Genesis to the
Acts of the Apostles ; and lastly, that, being inspired because

6 Westcott, Introduction to the
Study of the Gospels, ed. 4, p. 6.
7 Bishop of Carlisle, then Mr.

Harvey Goodwin, Hulsean Lec
tures, 1855, pp. 79-80.

LECTURE IH. 159
written by inspired men, they have a human side, which
manifests itself in language, style, tone of thought, character,
intellectual peculiarities, and such infirmities, not sinful, as
belong to our nature, and which in unimportant matters
may issue in what in doctrinal definitions is called an obiter
dictum* In a word, Inspiration of Scripture in omnibus suis par-
tibus is one thing ; in omnibus rebus is another.9
This opinion of Cardinal Newman is supported Bishop of
-r. i Amycla,
by a recent utterance of the Bishop of Amycla,
assistant to the Archbishop of Westminster : —
Catholics are under no sort of obligation to believe that
inspiration extends to the words of Holy Scripture as well as
to the subject-matter which is therein contained.1
That English Protestants did not always think Richard
. .... Baxter,
it necessary to accept the view of verbal infallibility, 1615-
and that they did not shrink from teaching what they
held, is proved by the following words from Richard
Baxter's Catechising of Families, and his opinion is
by no means singular : —
And here I must tell you of a great and needful truth,
which ignorant Christians, fearing to confess, by over-doing,
tempt men to infidelity. The Scripture is like a man's body,
where some parts are but for the preservation of the rest, and
may be maimed, without death : the sense is the soul of the
Scripture, and the letters but the body or vehicle. The doc
trine of the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Decalogue, and
Baptism, and Lord's Supper, is the vital part, and Christianity
itself. The Old Testament letter (written as we have it about
8 What is of obligation for a 9 Lbid. p. 23.
Catholic to believe concerning the 1 Inspiration, reprinted from
Inspiration of the Canonical the Homiletical "Magazine, 1884,
Scriptures, 1884, pp. 4, 6. p. 195.

1691,

160 LECTURE III.
Ezra's time) is that vehicle which is as imperfect as the reve
lation of those times was : but as after Christ's incarnation
and ascension the Spirit was more abundantly given, and the
revelation more perfect and sealed, so the doctrine is more
full, and the vehicle or body, that is the words, are less
imperfect, and more sure to us ; so that he that doubts of the
truth of some words in the Old Testament, or of some small
circumstantials in the New, hath no reason, therefore, to doubt
of the Christian religion, of which these writings are but the
vehicle, or body, sufficient to ascertain us of the truth of the
history and doctrine. Be sure, first, that Christ is the very
Son of God, and it inferreth the certainty of all his words, and
enforceth our own religion.2
Neander, That foreign Protestants have not thought it
1850. necessary to accept the doctrine of mechanical verbal
inspiration, may be seen from the words of Neander,
than whom no man has been held in higher honour
by the Protestant churches of Germany, France,
Holland, and America : —
It must be regarded as one of the greatest boons which
the purifying process of Protestant theology in Germany
has conferred upon faith as well as science, that the old,
mechanical view of Inspiration has been so generally aban
doned. That doctrine, and the forced harmonies to which
it led, demanded a clerk-like accuracy in the evangelical
accounts, and could not admit even the slightest contradic
tions in them ; but we are now no more compelled to have
recourse to subtilties against which our sense of truth rebels.
In studying the historical connexion of our Saviour's life
and actions by the application of an unfettered criticism, we
reach a deeper sense in many of his sayings than the bonds
of the old dogmatism would have allowed. The inquiring
2 Catechising of Families, cap. vi. question 11, answer. Practical
Works, 1830, vol. xix. p. 32.

LECTURE III. 161
reason need no longer find its free sense of truth opposed to
faith ; nor is reason bound to subjugate herself, not to faith,
but to arbitrary dogmas and artificial hypotheses/

3

But it would be to no purpose to multiply quota- Result of
tions to establish the view which the Church in all ment of
her history has held as to the facts of the reception of
the Fourth Gospel, or the principles on which that
reception has been based. We have now examined
both the facts and the principles, not indeed with
any degree of fulness in proportion to the subject,
but still with such enlargement as is possible under
present circumstances. At the risk of the objection Compre-
Quis negavit, Quis dubitavit? rising to many lips, I exempii-
have ventured to extend our instances over a large width
area of known facts ; and I now submit that they all tion! U°"
converge to the induction that, with the possible
exception of the Alogi, — and this exception we saw
to be really unimportant, and to be such as it is in
favour of the tradition of time and place and therefore
to support the induction, — there has been no decade
of any century of the Church's history, from the
end of the second down to the end of the eigh
teenth century, in which the undisputed acceptance
of the Fourth Gospel in the Church cannot be traced.4
Catholics — Anglican, Roman, and Greek ; Protestants
— Lutheran, Reformed, Nonconforming ; tradition of
the Church, consciousness of the individual, history,
3 Leben Jesu Christi, ed. 4, 4 For extension of this induc-
1845, pp. 12, 13. Eng. Trans. tion to the second century, cf.
1851, pp. 8, 9. Lecture II. pp. 102 sq. M

162 LECTURE III.
criticism, the practical test of use and effect in Chris
tendom during these hundreds of years all utter one
voice. Ask whom you will, examine on what prin
ciple you will. Here is a result in which all agree.
The Fourth Gospel is an Apostolic and sacred
work, coming to us from S. John, in the fullest
sense inspired, that is, inspired in the essence of its
inner realities, but not in the accident of its external
form — though some, with zeal which has outrun
wisdom or knowledge, have claimed even this — and
taking the very first place, if first place there be,
among the Scriptures of the New Testament.
Depth of I have invited your attention to the width of the
convic- „ . i • i i • • t
tion. area of instances on which this mduction is based.
Examples: Let me close this lecture by asking you to consider
in two instances the intensity of devotion to the
Fourth Gospel and of conviction of its Apostolic
authorship.
The In the eighth century, the Monastery of Jarrow
Bede, on the banks of the Tyne was one of the intellectual
lights of Europe, and Baeda was the pride of England
and one of the foremost scholars of Christendom.
He died in the year a.d. 735. This is the closing
scene of his earthly life : —
Two weeks before the Easter of 735 the old man was
seized with an extreme weakness and loss of breath. He
still preserved however his usual pleasantness and gay good-
humour, and in spite of prolonged sleeplessness continued
his lectures to the pupils about him. Verses of his own
English tongue broke from time to time from the master's

LECTURE III. 163
lip — rude rimes that told how before the ' need-fare,' Death's
stern ' must go,' none can enough bethink him what is to be
his doom for good or ill. The tears of Baada's scholars
mingled with his song. ' We never read without weeping,'
writes one of them. So the days rolled on to Ascension-tide,
and still master and pupils toiled at their work, for Baeda
longed to bring to an end his version of St. John's Gospel
into the English tongue and his extracts from Bishop Isidore.
' I don't want my boys to read a lie,' he answered those
who would have had him rest, ' or to work to no purpose after
I am gone.' A few days before Ascension-tide his sickness
grew upon him, but he spent the whole day in teaching, only
saying cheerfully to his scholars, ' Learn with what speed you
may ; I know not how long I may last.' The dawn broke on
another sleepless night, and again the old man called his
scholars round him and bade them write. ' There is still a
chapter wanting,' said the scribe, as the morning drew on,
' and it is hard for thee to question thyself any longer.' ' It
is easily done,' said Bseda ; ' take thy pen and write quickly.'
Amid tears and farewells the day wore on to eventide.
' There is yet one sentence unwritten, dear master,' said the
boy. ' Write it quickly,' bade the dying man. ' It is
finished now,' said the little scribe at last. £ You speak
truth,' said the master ; ' all is finished now.' Placed upon
the pavement, his head supported in his scholars' arms, his
face turned to the spot where he was wont to pray, Bseda
chanted the solemn ' Glory to God.' As his voice reached the
close of his song he passed quietly away.5
In the ninth decade of the nineteenth century — ¦ Bishop
the incident is rather later in time than the logical
fitness of our subject requires, but the parallel will
justify its use as an illustration — in the castle of Auck-
5 Green, History of the English rabilis Bedse ; Bede's Works, ed.
people, 1878, i. 66 sq. Cf. Giles, 1. clxiii-clxvi.
Cuthberti Epistola de Obitu Vene-
m 2

Lightfoot.

164 LECTURE III.
land on the banks of the Wear, lived a scholar bishop
of the English Church. Bishop of a populous diocese
and administering it as if he lived for the diocese
alone, he was, at the same time, a scholar like Baeda,
surrounded by pupils loving and beloved, and living
the humble student's devoted life. In the autumn of
1888, he lay sick, and, in the opinion of all who saw
him and of himself, the sickness was unto death. He
had long been urged by ' strangers and friends in
England and America alike ' to collect and reprint a
series of essays which are grouped around the Fourth
Gospel as a centre. But he had hoped to extend
the series, and had always declined the request. And
now, to use his own words, ' when I was prostrated
by sickness and my life was hanging on a slender
thread, it became necessary to give a final answer.' 6
His pupil and chaplain filled the office of the boy at
Baeda's hand. From the very presence of death his
testimony on the external evidence of the Fourth
Gospel was given to the world.
It pleased God for a time to restore him to some
measure of strength. Hours of weakness which
as we thought ought to have been claimed for rest
were devoted to work. ' It is hard for thee to ques
tion thyself any longer,' said those around him. ' It
is easily done,' was the constant reply. The late
autumn of 1889 found him again obliged to leave
his northern home. The last days were in part occu
pied by revising, as the hands of his chaplain copied,
6 Essays on Supernatural Beligion, 1889, preface, p. vii.

LECTURE III. 165
a lecture upon the Internal Evidence for the Authen
ticity and Genuineness of St. John's Gospel delivered
eighteen years before, and now to be re-delivered
with the weight of all these years of thought. ' His
sickness grew upon him.' On the festival of S.
Thomas he fell on sleep. On the eve of S. John
the Evangelist's day his remains rested beneath the
same roof with those of Cuthbert and Bede, on the
festival of S. John they were committed to their
resting-place in the chapel at Auckland. The lecture
on S. John was the last public document to which
he affixed his name, and it was given to the world
from the open grave. He being dead yet speaketh.
Let us hear him : —
Whatever consequences may follow from it, we are com
pelled on critical grounds to accept this Fourth Gospel as
the genuine work of John the son of Zebedee. ... As a
critical question, I wish to take a verdict upon it. But as
I could not have you think that I am blind to the theological
issues directly or indirectly connected with it, I will close
with this brief confession of faith. I believe from my heart
that the truth which this Gospel more especially enshrines —
the truth that Jesus Christ is the very Word incarnate, the
manifestation of the Father to mankind — is the one lesson
which, duly apprehended, will do more than all our feeble
efforts to purify and elevate human life here, by imparting to
it hope and light and strength, the one study which alone
can fitly prepare us for a joyful immortality hereafter.7
Such, in all the width of a comprehension, in all
the depth of an intension, which I am able simply to
7 Expositor, March 1890, p. 188.

166 LECTURE III.
indicate, is the 'judgment of centuries' upon the
Fourth Gospel.
Next term we will inquire into the judgments
of ' our age ' and consider how far they have can
celled it.

LECTUBE IV
'OUR AGE'
EVANSON. BRETSCHNEIDER. STRAUSS

'WITHOUT DOUBT HUMAN TESTIMONY IS TO BE DULY AND STRICTLY SIFTED,
AND EVERY DEFECT IN ITS QUANTITY OR QUALITY IS TO BE RECORDED IN
THE SHAPE OF A DEDUCTION FROM ITS WEIGHT. BUT AS THERE IS NO PRO
CEEDING MORE IRREVERENT, SO THERE IS NONE MORE STRICTLY IRRATIONAL,
THAN ITS WHOLESALE DEPRECIATION. SUCH DEPRECIATION IS AN INFALLIBLE
NOTE OF SHALLOW AND CARELESS THINKING, FOR IT VERY GENERALLY IM
PLIES AN EXAGGERATED AND ALMOST LUDICROUS ESTIMATE OF THE CAPACITY
AND PERFORMANCES OF THE PRESENT GENERATION, AS COMPARED WITH
THOSE WHICH HAVE PRECEDED IT.' Gladstone.

LECTURE IV.
Is there a thing whereof men say, See, this is new ? it hath been already,
in the ages which were before us. — Eccles. i. 10.
In the earlier lectures of this course we have endea- Criticism
voured to estimate the 'judgment of centuries ' on age.'
the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. It remains for
us to consider the criticism of ' our age,' which is said
to have cancelled it. That it should be so cancelled
is a priori not impossible, but if the facts and the
arguments to which I have invited your attention
have any real force, it is in a high degree improbable.
The convictions of the past may be wholly wrong; but
we are bound to demand proof of this, and those who
assert it have no right to feel aggrieved, if strength
and frequency of assertion are not accepted in the
place of proof. Still less have they any right to feel
aggrieved if, when some among them condescend to
personal attack upon their opponents, the opinion of
bystanders should be, in accord with the legal maxim,
that they have no case. If ' our age ' has come to
the knowledge of new facts, let them be adduced. If Assertion
new inductions from old facts have been established, accepted
let the inductions and the processes by which they aspr0'
have been arrived at, be stated. It will not produce
conviction to tell us in general terms that all this

170 LECTURE IV.
vast revolution has been accomplished, and that we
must therefore accept the new position. We have
lately read, to take an example of such statements,
the following words : —
He paused, and then very simply, and so as to be understood
by those who heard him, he gave a rapid sketch of that great
operation worked by the best intellect of Europe during the
last half century — broadly speaking — on the facts and docu
ments of primitive Christianity. From all sides and by the
help of every conceivable instrument those facts have been
investigated, and now at last the great result — ' the revivified,
reconceived truth — seems ready to emerge ! '
Now, we must necessarily inquire before we
accept this assertion, ' On what array of facts is the
generalization made ? ' And if we are held in a
momentary spell and are tempted to yield our
weaker judgment to one who can speak confi
dently of the fifty years' work of the best intellect
of Europe, and of the facts and documents of
primitive Christianity, and of investigations by every
conceivable instrument, the spell is soon broken
when we remember that the assertion is made by
a fictitious personage who represents a weak and
certainly ill-informed young clergyman ; and, instead
of absolute submission, we cannot help asking ' What
nor yet does he know about it ? ' Nor will the mere novelty
aiify? which is necessary to an original essay for a young
doctor's degree, or for the pages of a Zeitschrift wait
ing for the press, ingenious and interesting though it
1 Mrs. Humphry Ward, Bobert Elsmere, iii. p. 206.

LECTURE IV. 171
often is, be as convincing to all readers as it is to the
author. Originality may prove the cleverness of a
writer, but it may also take from the force of his
writing. The man who attempts to prove that history
has all through been a mistake, and the instincts of
humanity a delusion ; and expects that the one should
be rewritten, and the other abandoned, in conformity
with his own original essay, must not be surprised if
other men do not all at once agree with him. Perhaps
they will come to do so ; but some of them have
read a good many such essays, and still have not been
led to abandon the opinion that the world is wiser
than any one man in it. Time may be naturally
asked for in which to test his results, and meanwhile
the crop of original essays is not likely to cease, and
if he share the fate of his predecessors he may aban
don the views which now seem so certain, or his
own originality may be eclipsed by something more
original still. The child has often stood upon its
father's shoulders and has seemed to itself — but only
to itself — taller than the man upon whose strength it
rested. And Time's youngest child of the nineteenth
century may seem to itself — but only to itself — taller
than the great past on which it rests. Adults who
stand and watch will smile, for Time's children have
had a habit of thinking this in every age ; 2 and after
2 Examples of this abound on of the state of that science a
all sides. One which is of special hundred years ago, just before
interest from its connexion with the dawn of ' our age ' : —
biblical criticism, is found in the ' Whenever I reflect on the
opinion which Michaelis formed year 1750, when the first edition

172

LECTURE IV.

all individual men do not grow to be so much taller
in the nineteenth century than they were in the first.
Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi ; sed omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentur ignotique longa
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.3

Nor will the positive results of the 'judgment of

Destruc
tive criti- 1 1 - ,
cism centuries be cancelled by any criticism which is

of this Introduction appeared,
which I published at that time
chiefly as a guide for my academi
cal lectures, and compare it with
the more complete editions of
1765, and 1777, I feel a satisfac
tion, and even a degree of as
tonishment, at the progress of
learning in the present age : and
as during the last ten years in
particular the most rapid advances
have been made in literature,
the present edition of this work,
which is a kind of general re
pository, has received a propor
tional increase. I candidly con
fess, not only that my own private
knowledge at the time of my first
publication was inferior to what
it should and might have been,
but that the performance itself
was written in too much haste :
and yet this very imperfect edition
had the honour of being translated
into English, and of undergoing a
re-impression even at the time
when the second much more com
plete edition was already published
in Germany. The republic of
letters is at present in possession
of knowledge, of which it had no

idea in the middle of this century ;
and I may venture to affirm, that
the last-mentioned period bears
the same analogy to the year 1787,
as the state of infancy to that of
manhood. We were unable at
that time to form an adequate
judgement on many important
topics, and the opinions of the
learned were divided on the most
ancient and most valuable manu
scripts ....
' The system of biblical criticism
has been placed in a new light,
and reduced to a state of greater
certainty : but it is unnecessary
to swell the preface with a de
scription of the treasures that
have been opened, and the dis
coveries that have been made in
this enlightened age, as they are
arranged under their respective
heads in the course of the present
Introduction.' John David Mi-
chaelis' Introduction to the New
Testament, Eng. Trans, by Herbert
Marsh, 1793, vol. i. pt. 1 ; Preface
to German original of ed. 4,
quoted in Preface, pp. iii, iv.
3 Hor. Carm. iv. 9. 25.

LECTURE IV. 173
merely negative and destructive. There are cer- not
tain broad facts of human life and history to be
accounted for. If a man says, ' You are all mis
taken. You are all like children in the nursery.
Believe me, for I have attained to adult knowledge,
and know what I am talking about ; if you could
only see your delusion as I see it from the higher
platform on which I stand, you would abandon it in
a moment. It is really absurd for people in this
nineteenth century to be living in mud huts con
structed without any knowledge of the elementary
principles of architecture ' — he must not be sur
prised if he finds that there is a prejudice in favour
of general fact and in opposition to individual
fancy. Nor must he be surprised if he is asked to
show that his fuller knowledge provides not only a
theory, but a practical working rule by which the
past may be measured and the present be lived ; and
if ordinary men ask leave to remain in the mud
huts of their present ignorance until the house
which he would build for them has got a little
beyond the plans.
If, then, ' our age' is to cancel the 'judgment of construc-
t -• . ... tion de-
centuries, it must be by the destructive criticism of manded.
clear, consistent, measured proof that this judgment
is wrong ; and by the constructive criticism of a defi
nite, established judgment, which it is prepared to
substitute for that which it would destroy. How
far has it hitherto succeeded in this double task with
regard to the Fourth Gospel ?

174

LECTURE IV.

Evanson, 1731-1805. The Dis
sonance.

The
author.

It has been customary to date the commencement
of the destructive criticism of the Fourth Gospel from
the appearance of a small work on The Dissonance of
the Evangelists, by Edward Evanson, which was pub
lished in 1792.4 The work consists of two hundred
and eighty-nine small octavo pages, of which thirty-
three are devoted to S. John, and deal with the usu
ally alleged discrepancies between this Gospel and
one or more of the other three, especially that accord
ing to S. Luke. The author's previous career was
scarcely such as to qualify him for the task which he
undertook, though he himself thought that it was. He
had for reasons not connected with the present ques
tion, resigned his position as a clergyman in 1778, and
trusts his mind has been perfectly unbiassed and impartial
in its investigations ;

because he had been
unconnected for above fifteen years with any religious sect
or party whatsoever, disdaining the office of a teacher of so
plain a thing as Christianity, considered as a lucrative occu
pation, and too far advanced in life to have any temporal
interest in view.5
The work, He admits the authenticity of S. Luke and of the
Acts of the Apostles in terms which must sound
strange to some of his successors : —
We have here, then, every kind of evidence, whereof the
nature of the case admits, to convince us of the genuine

4 The Dissonance of the Four
generally received Evangelists, and
the Evidence of their respective
Atithenticity examined. By Ed

ward Evanson, A.M., Ipswich.
MDCCXCII. 5 Ibid. Preface, p. ix.

LECTURE IV. 175
authenticity and veracity of both these histories ; and with
these, for my own part, I am abundantly satisfied.6
On the other hand, he had long been induced
to reject three of the four generally received Gospels, as
spurious fictions of the second century, unnecessary and even
prejudicial to the cause of true Christianity, and in every
respect unworthy of the regard which so many ages have paid
to them.7
This preference for S. Luke is the more remarkable,
as in the author's opinion
Prophecy is by far the most satisfactory and the only lasting,
supernatural evidence of the truth of any Revelation.8
Of the author's critical discrimination you will form
a sufficient opinion from the following sentence : —
I think it my duty to add briefly my reasons for expunging
also, out of the volume of duly authenticated scriptures of the
New Covenant, the Epistles, to the Romans — to the Ephesians
— to the Colossians — to the Hebrews — of James — of Peter —
of John — of Jude, — and, in the book of the Revelation, the
Epistles to the seven churches of Asia.9
Of the cogency of the reasons for rejecting the Epistle
to the Romans, which, as far as I know, no modern
critic in England or Germany rejects, and as a final
example of the author's critical powers, let us take
the following comment on the salutation to ' Rufus
chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine ' : — :
6 Dissonance, ut supra, p. 111. 9 Lbid. p. 256.
7 Ibid. p. 255. ' Rom. xvi. 13.
8 Ibid. p. 6.

176

LECTURE IV.

unworthyof the
subject.

The
replies.

And if there is any reason to believe that St. Paul's
mother was then living, is it credible, that an old woman
of Tarsus in Cilicia, whose son was so wonderfully appointed
to preach the Gospel, and who was occupied in that com
mission in Asia and Greece, should leave her native country
and such a son, and ramble after other preachers of the
Gospel, at so advanced an age, to the far distant metropolis
of Italy ? 2
The whole work is indeed quite unworthy of its
subject, and would be unworthy of your attention
were it not for the conspicuous position which has
been assigned to it. There is some difficulty in
avoiding the suspicion that it has been referred to
and quoted much more frequently than it has been
seen or read. It is now rare, and, except as a name
with which to head a list, has passed into merited
oblivion ; but it caused no small stir when it was
published. Several answers at once appeared, among them
one by Dr. Joseph Priestley,3 the well-known Unita
rian minister, and one by Mr. David Simpson.4 A

2 Dissonance, ut supra, p. 260.
3 Letters to a Young Man,
part ii., 1793.
4 An Essay on the Authenticity
of the New Testament (1793). As
an example of the state of biblical
knowledge in the last century,
which is important to us as account
ing for the spread of the opinions
of the English Deists and others,
it may be noted that when Mr.
Simpson, who had completed his
course at one of the best classical
schools in the country, and at St.

John's College, Cambridge, and
taken his degree, became a can
didate for the ministry, he did not
possess a Bible, and that when he
bought one he hid it from his
friends lest he should ' incur the
imputation of Methodism.' Me
moir of the Author by Edward
Parsons, pp. vi, vii, in Simpson's
Plea for the Deity of Jesus, 1812.
The above is an example from
Yorkshire. It may be interesting
to supplement it by one from
Somerset which is furnished by

LECTURE IV. 177
second and posthumous edition of Evanson's work
appeared in 1805, and certain, principles in it were
discussed in the Bampton Lectures of 1810, and the
Lecturer gives in his preface some facts about the
book for an ' obscure student of the history of re
ligious controversies.' 5

The battle was soon shifted from English to German

German ground. The opening years of the nineteenth
century were in Germany fruitful alike in literature,
criticism, patriotism, philosophy, religion. Fichte at
Jena, and later at Berlin, Jacobi at Munich, were in the
fulness of their power, and Schelling was foreshadow
ing his still greater influence. The Romanticists,
Herder, Novalis (Hardenberg), La Motte Fouque,
Schlegel, were modifying the currents of cultured
thought.6 The University of Berlin was founded in
1810, when Halle had become subject to France, and
the following letter from Miss H. <£e.,' examined in Eight Discourses
More to Mr. Wilberforce, in preached in 1810. Thomas Fal-
which she describes her work in coner, Bampton Lectures. Ox-
Cheddar : ' We found more than ford, 1811. Appendix, 1822. Pre-
two thousand people in the parish, face, p. v.
almost all very poor. . . . We 6 See the interesting chapters
went to every house in the place, on the influence of these writers
and found each a scene of the in Hagenbach's History of the
greatest ignorance and vice. We Church in the 18th and 19th
saw but one Bible in all the parish, Centuries. Eng. Trans, by Dr.
and that was used to prop a flower- Hurst, New York, 1869, vol. ii.
pot.' Roberts, Memoirs of the Cf. Schwarz, Zur Geschichte der
Life and Correspondence of Mrs. neuesten Theologie, pp. 3 sqq. ;
Hannah More, ed. 3, 1835, vol. Gervinus, Nationalliteratur, vol. v.
ii. pp. 295-96. p. 600 ; and esp. Baur, Geschichte
5 Certain Brinciples in Evan- der christlichen Kirche, Bd. iv.
son's dissonance of the Evangelists, 2te Aufl. pp. 55-60. SI

influences.

178 LECTURE IV.
numbered among its first teachers Schleiermacher,
Neander, and De Wette. Three years later the
students were singing in every street Korner's songs,
which both expressed and roused a patriotism that
defied Napoleon's invading power, and became the
spirit of the united fatherland. The peace brought by
its side the tercentenary of Luther and the Reforma
tion, and while some men hoped and some men feared
that a new reformation lay before them in the not-
distant future, the nation, fresh from the throes of its
mighty struggle, was baptized anew into the spiritual
realities of the great Reformation of the past.
Bearing These years were naturally not without their direct
years on bearing on the question of the Gospels. The literary
Gospels.' catalogues of the period contain references to a large
number of books and articles upon our own part of
the subject, among which Herder's Son of God,
Saviour of the World,7 the Commentary of Paulus,8
the Introductions of Hug,9 and Eichhorn,1 and
Schmidt,2 the discussion of Justin's quotations
by Winer,3 are the most important. The leading
idea of writers who admitted the dissonance of the
Evangelists was that the Fourth Gospel was to be
maintained, even if this involved the sacrifice of the
7 Herder, J. G., Von Gottes ' Eichhorn, J. G., Einleitung
Sohn der Welt Heiland, 1797. , in das Neue Testament, 1810.
8 Paulus, H. E. G., Commen- 2 Schmidt, J. E. C, Histo-
tar iiber das Neue Testament, iv. risch-kritische Einleitung ins Neue
Theil, IteAbth., lte Half te, 1812. Testament, 1804.
9 Hug, J. L., Einleitung in die 3 Winer, G. B., Justinum
Schriften des Neuen Testaments, ed. Martyrem evangeliis canonicis usum
1, 1808. fuisse ostenditur, 1819.

LECTURE IV. 179
others. But if we pass over the period without a
more detailed notice, we shall find justification for
doing so in the general acceptance of the opinion
which Strauss and others express, that Bretschneider
is the first writer who deals with the Johannine
question in a way which is worthy of modern
scientific requirements ; 4 and that it is from his date
that the inquiry becomes one of first importance.
Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider was the son of a Bret-
c TT , , Schneider,
country pastor in baxony. Me was educated at 1776-
Leipzig, and having scruples about entering the
ministry, for which he had been intended, he de
voted himself for some years to literary and tutorial
work. He was afterwards ordained, and in 1816 Life and
became general superintendent at Gotha. He filled
this office, and was practically head of the church in
the dukedom, until his death in 1848. His principal earlier
earlier works are two dogmatic treatises, which derive
special value from the author's historical investiga
tions ; and from the calm, sober-minded independence,
that refused to sacrifice theology to rationalism on the
one hand, or to mysticism on the other. He after
wards more openly opposed the newer teaching of
Schleiermacher, Marheineke, and Hase. In earlier fife
he had also written upon the LXX. and Apocrypha,
and his scholarship was further attested by the more
mature, and perhaps best known of his books, the
Lexicon to the New Testament.6
4 Cf. Strauss, Das Leben Jesu 5 Lexicon manuale Grseco-lati-
fiir das deutsche Volk bearbeitet, num in libros N. T., 1829.
1864, pp. 90 sq. w 2

180 LECTURE IV.
The Pro- In 1820 Bretschneider published at Leipzig his
work on the Probabilities concerning the Nature and
Origin of the Gospel and Epistles of the Apostle John.6
It was originally written in German, and this accounts
for the form of some of the sentences ; but it was
published in Latin, for it was not intended for general
reading, and the conclusions which the writer suggests
tentatively, and submits to the opinions of experts,
are put forward only as Probabilities. He expresses
this in the following terms : —
its pur- But we ask you, kind reader, to believe that whatever con-
Pose> elusions we have come to, we do not regard them as the utter
ances of an oracle, but as things which seem probable after
discussion. It is not that in our opinion the Gospel of John
is spurious, but only that it seems to be so, though we should
have preferred to write is more frequently instead of, for the
thousandth time, repeating seems. For we expect, nay, we
hope, that the result will be that experts in criticism will
teach us better wherever we may have made mistakes, and we
will accept their corrections most willingly. For we adopt
the words of Cicero 7 as our own : —
' I will explain these things as far as I can, but you must
not regard what I say as certain and fixed, as if it were said
by the Pythian Apollo ; but as said by one frail mortal among
many following out probabilities by the help of conjecture.
For my part, I cannot go further than to trace resemblances
to truth. Let those talk about certainties who say, on the
one hand, that they can be perceived, and profess on the
other that they themselves are wise.' 8
and scope. The author excuses himself from writing a his
tory of the contemporary discussion of the question
6 Probabilia de Evangelii et 7 Tusc. Quaest. i. 8.
Epistolarum Joannis, Apostoli, in- 8 Probabilia, ut supra, Preface,
dole et origine, 1820. p. viii.

LECTURE IV. 181
— though he had read most of the writings on either
side, and gives a list of them here and in the second
edition of his Systematic Exposition of Dogmatic Con
ceptions? which had been published a year before — on
the ground that he wishes to keep his book within
due limits, that it was necessary to deal with the
more important issues only, and that the establish
ment of truth would be in itself the refutation of
error.1 The book is accordingly a small one, con
taining only 224 octavo pages, but it consists of a
series of important propositions, and there are few
arguments of any value in the voluminous literature
of the later discussions, the germ of which may not be
found here.
The first question which he examines is, The Jo
hannine
Whether the Fourth Gospel is worthy of credit in its discourses.
reports of the discourses of Jesus, and whether it is more
worthy of credit than the earlier Gospels.2
And the conclusion to which he comes is — largely imaginary.
We seem not to be far from the truth when we determine
that the discussions between Jesus, the disciples, the Jews
and the Baptist are not real, but are, at all events, to a very
great extent imaginary, and that the author of the Gospel
was not a companion of Jesus, nor a hearer of his teaching ;
and this opinion is strongly confirmed by the fact that cir
cumstances can be shown to have existed in the state of
Christianity in the second century which account for the
writer's presentation of these discussions between Jesus and
9 Systematische Entwickelung al- 1 Probabilia, ut supra, Preface,
ler in der Dogmatik vorkommenden p. vii.
Begriffe, 2 ed. , 1819. 2 Lbid. cap. i. ad init. p. 1.

182 LECTURE IV.
his adversaries. This is discussed more fully in a subsequent
chapter.3
The He next proceeds to give reasons for the pro-
author . .
not the position 
Apostle, that it was neither the Apostle John nor any other com
panion of Jesus who had himself seen and heard all things
who composed the Gospel, but a man who lived later, and
used traditions written or unwritten.4
The third point to be established is —
nor a that it is probable that the author of the Gospel was neither
Palestin- -r-, , ,- ¦ T *
ian a, Palestinian nor a J ew ; s
nor a Jew. and this is shown by the dogmatic expressions;6 by
forms of speech which a born Jew would not have
used ; 7 by the way in which the writer makes
himself prominent in the Gospel, and his anxiety
to establish his own trustworthiness ; 8 by the illus
trations of Jewish matters in which the author has
made serious mistakes all through ;9 and, lastly, by
the author's special error about the Paschal supper.1
When Bretschneider comes to the task of con
struction, from which he does not shrink, he finds a
point of departure in the statement of Justin that the
Gospel Jews sent chosen men from Jerusalem through the
sprung °
from whole world to denounce the godless heresy of the
Christians,2 and that there sprung up in the begin-
3 Probabilia, ut supra, cap. iii. 7 Lbid. pp. 91-92.
ad fin. p. 64. s Lbid. pp. 110-113.
4 Ibid. cap. ii. ad init. p. 65, 9 ibid. pp. 92-100.
ad fin. p. 82. i ibid. pp. 100-110.
5 Ibid. cap. iii. ad init. p. 83. 2 Dial. c. Tryph. pp. 234 and
6 Ibid. pp. 83-90. 335. Ibid. p. 115.

LECTURE IV. 183
ning and middle of the second century an apologe- jewish
tic zeal among Christians which could have had no christian
place until it was excited. The Fourth Gospel, with zeal-
its obviously apologetic and polemic purpose, is the
result. This accounts for the form of dialogue, for
the dogmatic argument, for the anti-Jewish rigour,
for the choice of material, for the omissions. 'This
explains the frequent opposition of Jesus to ' the
Jews ' as distinguished from ' the people ' or ' the
multitude ' ; the discussions ; the want of sense on
the part of the Jews, who constantly pervert the
meaning of Jesus, for the second-century writer is
depicting the Jews of his own day ; the disputes
about dogmas, which were not matters of controversy
between Jesus and the Pharisees of his time, but
were discussed between Christians and Jews in the
second century.3
It explains also, as he thinks, the choice of miracles,
and specially the absence of all cases of possession ; 4
the absence of precepts and parables, and the presence
of discourses and a hidden gnosis ; 5 the presentation
of a life of Jesus which is the reflection of the Logos.6
And this, lastly, sheds light on individual passages of
the Gospel.7
The author then proceeds to ask whether the cannot be
supported
authority of the Gospel can be established from the from
Apocalypse, and finds, after a criticism of the views of

3 Probabilia, ut supra, pp. 116-119. 6 Ibid. pp. 125-129.
4 Lbid. pp. 119-123. 7 Ibid. pp. 129-149.
5 Ibid. pp. 123-125.

184 LECTURE IV.
the Eichhorn and Bertholdt, that even if it could be proved
lypse, that the Apocalypse was by the Apostle John, which
he regards as very doubtful, that would not strengthen
the argument for the authorship of the Gospel — nay,
it would, by reason of the manifest difference of the
books, weaken it.8
nor from Can it be established from the Epistles ? The
Epistles. , ,. . , . .
argument based upon grammar and diction which
Bertholdt adopts from Schulze is valid ; if the
Epistles were written by the Apostle John, it follows
that the Gospel proceeded from the same author.
But the argument can be inverted with equal validity ;
if the Gospel was not written by the Apostle John, it
follows that the Epistles cannot be ascribed to him.
Further, the Epistles, as the shorter and less deve
loped writings, and as writings in which the author
is less prominent, must depend upon the Gospel, not
the Gospel upon the Epistles. They nowhere claim
to be by S. John, and contain things which rather
suggest that they are not ; nor is there sufficient ex
ternal testimony to establish the Epistles themselves,
much less to establish the Gospel by their means.9
The Bertholdt's arguments are, in his opinion, conclusive
them-eS as against Lange and Cludius, who had lately ques-
proveVto tioned the authorship of the First Epistle, but they
will not bear all that the writer seeks to prove by them.
Identity of authorship is not necessarily Johannine
authorship. There is no proof that the Epistle be
longed to the first century, or that the Apostles were
8 Probabilia, ut supra, pp. 150-161. 9 Ibid. pp. 161-164.

be Johan
nine,

LECTURE IV. 185
ever known as presbyters, or that the Apostle John
was on account of extreme old age called ' presbyter '
in a special sense. When the testimony of Papias, and
Polycarp, and Irenaeus is examined, it is not found to
be sufficient. There is really nothing in the Epistles ana
which proves that they were by the Apostle John, ^adverse
and there is nothing to prevent our gathering from ^J^
the Gospel that the Epistles also are not genuine. GosPel-
On the other hand, the Epistles tend to strengthen
the opinion that the Gospel could not have been
written by S. John.1
Bretschneider then proceeds to deal with the ex- The
ternal evidences. The most ancient witnesses who evidences
are thought to have affirmed the authenticity of the sufficient.
Gospel — let them be heard, and their authority
tested. The nature of the testimony is to be
considered. There is no perfect — that is, clear and
express — testimony to the Johannine authorship
in the second century until its close, when we have
it in Theophilus of Antioch, certain Valentinians,
and Irenasus.2 The testimony of the church at
Ephesus ; 3 of Barnabas, of Polycarp, of Ignatius, of
the First Epistle of Clement of Rome ; of the doubtful
Recognitions ; of the Homilies ; 4 of the Sibylline
Oracles ; 6 of Justin Martyr and Tatian ; 6 of Celsus,7
of Hermas, of the Book of Henoch, of the testimony
of the Twelve Patriarchs, of the Acts of Pilate, of the
1 Probabilia, ut supra, pp. 165-177. 5 Ibid. pp. 189-190.
3 Lbid. pp. 178-181. 6 Lbid. pp. 191-194.
3 Lbid. pp. 182-183. 7 Ibid. pp. 195-199.
4 Ibid. pp. 184-188.

186 LECTURE IV.
Gospel of Nicodemus, of the Gospel to the Hebrews ; 8
of the Montanists ; 9 of Valentinus and the Valen
tinians ; of Heracleon ; J of Irenasus ;2 of Theophilus of
Antioch ; 3 are tested : and the conclusion is deduced
Weight of that the external evidences are not sufficient in weight
opposing ... „
internal or antiquity or number to prove the authenticity of
the Gospel ; much less, therefore, do they prevent our
concluding that the Gospel was not written by John
— a conclusion which so many and so great internal
arguments commend. Nor would the conclusion be
different if we had external evidences, more and
weightier than we have ; for while internal evidence
is of first importance in all works of very great
antiquity, it is specially so in Christian writings, on
account of the many fictitious books which were
accepted by the credulous negligence of the first ages.4
Place As regards the place from which the Fourth Gospel
Egypt. y sprung, it seems to have been first used by the
Valentinians in Egypt, and to have been taken by
them to Rome and thence to Gaul ; and if we suppose
that at the time the Gospel was taken to Rome it
came also from the Alexandrians through Theophilus
to Antioch, and was published in Asia Minor, there
is no further difficulty from the external evidence.
Summary. The place and person may both be doubtful, but this
seems certain : that the author was not the Apostle
John, nor a companion of Jesus, nor a Christian
8 Probabilia, ut supra, pp. 200-204. 2 Ibid. pp. 214-217.
9 Ibid. pp. 205-211. 3 Lbid. p. 218.
1 Ibid. pp. 212-213. " Ibid. pp. 219-220.

LECTURE IV. 187
sprung from or living in Palestine, nor a Jew by
birth ; but that he was some Christian of Alexandrian
training, and filling the office of a presbyter, and that
he made use of tradition and some written document.
It is most likely that he lived in Egypt, partly from
the line which he took on the Paschal question, partly
because his doctrine agreed very largely with Gnos
ticism ; and it is probable that the Gnostics first knew
his Gospel in Egypt, strongly approved of it, took
it to Rome, and gained general acceptance for it by
the authority of the Roman church.5
It is threescore years and ten since these views import-
were modestly submitted to the judgments of the the book.
learned — Eruditorum judiciis modeste subjecit is part
of the title — and the case for the negative criticism
has never been put with more cogency. Subsequent
writers have been less modest, but also less learned.
They have alleged some new facts and many new
fancies. They have filled our book-cases with erudi
tion, in the midst of which Bretschneider's little
volume has taken a back shelf and has been hidden
from view ; but they have derived from it more than
they have always known, and the advocate who to
day wants a brief from which to plead against the
Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel will find
his case stated nowhere so well as here.
The learned theologians of the time did not receive
Bretschneider's work in the spirit in which he sub
mitted it to them. Reviews, pamphlets, books assailed
5 Probabilia, ut supra, pp. 221-224.

188 LECTURE IV.
him on all sides. He himself tells us that many of
them were extremely passionate and bitter, and that
the Minister von Einsiedel publicly denounced him
as ' the John-slanderer.' 6 But, with a patience
which has not always been manifested in this contro-
Bret- versy, he none the less studied the replies ; and at the
Schneider •' . . „ .
convinced end of two years, when the second edition of his
Handbook of Dogmatics 7 was published, he was con
vinced that his arguments had been fully answered,
and frankly withdrew his conclusions. After two
years' further thought he took occasion to repeat this
Definite retractation in a review article.8 Four years later a
repeated third edition of the Handbook of Dogmatics was pub-
tion. lished, and the author reprinted part of the preface
of the second edition which contained the statement
of his change of view, and also called attention to the
fact in a note in the body of the work. His book, as
he tells us in emphatic language, which he took every
opportunity to repeat, had accomplished its purpose.
The Probabilities had brought out proofs of the
¦Question authenticity. The question is settled for the theo-
is settled.' .
logical public.
6 Autobiography, translated hy achte Quellen gebraucht, weil
Professor G. E. Day in Bibliotheca die Zweifel an der Aechtheit
/Sacra, April 1853, p. 259. dieser Schriften, die ich vor
7 Handbuch der Dogmatik, einiger Zeit dem gelehrten Pub-
1822. likum vorlegte, von mir selbst nur
8 Tzschirner's Magazin fur als Anfragen angesehen worden
christliche Prediger, 1824, pp. sind, welche die Veranlassung
153-167. geben mochten, dass der Beweis
9 'Bei der biblischen Kritik der Aechtheit dieser Schriften, der
habe ich auch die Johanneischen mir noch unvollkommen schien,
Schriften ganz unbedenklich als griindlicher gefiihrt werde, und

LECTURE IV. 189
I do not claim Bretschneider as in himself a
strong witness in favour of the Johannine authorship,
though there might be good ground for doing so ;
but he at least furnishes conclusive evidence that at
the close of the first generation of this century, de
structive criticism had directed its strongest forces
against the citadel only to be driven back in the at
tempt. Strauss tries to minimize the force of Bret
schneider's withdrawal, though he was ready to wel
come the danger and violence of the attack, by the
statement that his general theological position was
not deep enough to bear all that followed from a
rejection of the Fourth Gospel ; and marvels at the
prejudice of a man like Schleiermacher, who says that
he was not moved for a moment by the doubts which
had been put forward, though it was just as well
that they had been discussed.1
But Bretschneider's true position is revealed in the Bret-
singularly candid posthumous autobiography which aer's
weil ich nach den dariiber erschie- Schriften neu anzuregen, und
nenen Beurtheilungen und ange- weiter zu fiihren, ist erreicht
kiindigten Schriften wohl hoffen worden, und die aufgestellten
darf , diese Absicht vollig erreicht Zweifel konnen nun wohl als
zusehen.' — Preface of 1822. 'Ich erledigt angesehen werden.' —
sehe jetzt diese Sache fur das Lbid. p. 268. Repeated and en-
theologische Publikum als erle- larged ten years later, ed. 4, 1838,
digt an.' — Note to reprint of fore- vol. i. p. 343. Cf. esp. the explana-
going in ed. 3, 1828, p. viii. tion of the Johannine Discourses,
' Der Zweck, den meine " Pro- Lb id. pp. 362 sq.
babilia de Evangelii et episto- 1 Strauss, Das Leben Jesu fiir
lar. Joannis apostoli indole et das deutsche Volk bearbeitet, 1864.
origine " (Lips. 1820. 8.) hatten, Schleiermacher, Einleitung, ii.
namlich die Untersuchung iiber § 15, pp. 90 sqq. Cf. infra, pp.
die Aechtheit der Johanneischen 212 sq.

190 LECTURE IV.
character has been published by his son.2 He was before all
in Auto- c J
Uography. things a man of calm severe reason. He would accept
no statement which could not be expressed and proved
as a logical proposition. Nothing was so distasteful to
him as obscure and unintelligible mystic talk. He
grew into an attitude of strong and even bitter oppo
sition to Schleiermacher and his followers, whom he
regarded as largely under the influence of Schelling,
and the attacks in the Evangelical Church Journal 3
and elsewhere, drove him further and further from
the orthodoxy of his earlier days. In 1832 he suc
ceeded Zimmermann as editor of the General Church
Journal* and used it as a means to oppose the reaction
against rationalism.5 So far from recalling the state
ments of the Probabilia on account of their conse
quences, it is more likely, if we are to trace the subtle
currents of bias, that he was induced to write them
on account of the prominence given to the Fourth
Gospel by Schleiermacher, and that he withdrew them
because he saw no possible ground left on which
they could be honestly maintained. But in his later
years he was a controversialist rather than a critic,
and regarded the episode of the Probabilia as one that
he did not care to recall.
2 Bibliotheca Sacra, ut supra, the revived orthodoxy, had the
Oct. 1852 and April 1853. natural effect of rendering his
3 Evangelische Kirchen-Zeitung, tendency towards rationalism
Berlin. more decided. He had begun with
' 4 Allgememe Kirchen-Zeitung, being a rationalistic supranatura-
Darmstadt. list ; he ended with being at most

5 I'

'The active antagonism into a supranaturalistic rationalist.'
which he was now thrown with Bibliotheca, Oct. 1852, p. 659.

LECTURE IV. 191
No name has been better known to the readers strauss,
and thinkers of our own generation than that of 1374.
Strauss, and although his work does not add much to
the criticism of the Fourth Gospel, I should expose
myself to fair censure for passing over one who is
generally thought to be a strong adverse witness, if
he were not included in our brief review.
David Friedrich Strauss, whose sixty-six years Home life.
of life extended from 1808 to 1874, was born at Lud-
wigsburg in Swabia. His father, who had been en
gaged in trade, lost a large part of his means, and a
temperament naturally morose became embittered,
though he professedly followed the strictest lines of
orthodox religion. He seems at no time to have had
much sympathy with, or influence over, his son, and
what he had did not extend to the son's later manhood.
The mother is said to have cared less for the outward
forms of religion, but to have been a woman of
healthy judgment and natural kindness which was
often tested, and of warm affection for her son.
At the age of thirteen the lad left the little day- Biau-
school at Ludwigsburg for the seminary at Blau-
beuren, which was then an evangelical college, but
was called a ' monastery ' from its earlier history.
How big with issues for the after days of his owrn
life, for the life of many another, was the day on
which this step was taken ! Here he met Christian
Marklin, his fellow in work and play, his fellow in
the doubts and struggles of his later life. He has
himself given a sketch of Marklin, light indeed, but,

192 LECTURE IV.
like all he touched, showing the master's hand, and
important to us, for in telling the friend's life and
thoughts he has told his own.6 At Blaubeuren he
found Kern the philologist, to whom he owed so much,
and above all he found Baur, who, like himself, had
gone there as a boy to school, and now, after a
Tubingen, distinguished career at Tubingen, had come back to
teach. Five years later, the boys themselves went to
the evangelical college or Stift in the same university.
Kern and Baur soon followed as teachers. Ferdinand
Christian Baur was in 1826 appointed Professor
of Historical Theology in the old evangelical Uni
versity of Tubingen ; and David Friedrich Strauss, a
small-featured, delicate, overgrown youth of eighteen,
was in his class-room. These days of Blaubeuren
and Tubingen are full of interest, but this is not
the place or time for treating of them. The visits to
his friend and townsman Kerner, that supra- supra-
naturalist at Weinsberg ; the period in which Strauss
was led captive by clairvoyance, or perhaps by the
fair ' clairvoyante of Prevorst,' her prophecy that he
would always remain a believer ; the steps by which
he was led from this yeast stage through Jacob
Boehme to Schelling, Schleiermacher, Hegel ; his bril
liant examination and his popularity as an evangelical
preacher in a country village ; his views of an esoteric
creed for the library and an exoteric doctrine for the
pulpit ; his appointment and short stay as a teacher
at Maulbronn; the resignation and visit to Berlin
6 Christian Marklin, ein Lebens- und Charakterbild, 1851.

LECTURE IV. 193
with the special desire to hear Hegel lecture ; the Berlin.
preliminary visit to Schleiermacher, who told him
of Hegel's sudden death ; his host's displeased surprise
when he thoughtlessly answered that the chief purpose
of his visit to Berlin was thereby foiled ; the way in
which he was impressed by Schleiermacher's lectures ;
his return to Swabia ; his appointment in 1832 as Re-
petent at Tubingen, in the beloved school of the older Tutor at
evangelical pietism, of Flatt and Storr and Bengel, and
now presided over by Steudel, the most famous theo
logian and preacher of Wiirtemberg, great-grandson of
Bengel, and his spiritual as well as lineal descendant ;
the influence produced by the young tutor's lectures ;
his retirement to give himself to literary work ; —
these things are told, and many more than these, by
Strauss himself, by Baur, by Schwarz, in articles
and memoirs, by friends and by foes, and with special
interest in the charming sketch, which, with the
loving hand of lifelong friendship, Dr. Eduard Zeller
devoted to his memory.7
Three years had almost run their course since the
appointment to Tiibingen. They were years of quiet
calm for the Church. Since Hegel's death in 1831,
the influence of Schleiermacher and Schelling; had be- influence
™ M 1 11! 0f Schlei"
come supreme. Jrhilosophy and theology were one. ermacher.
Criticism was hushed into silence. Men of the severer
orthodoxy, like Hengstenberg, who was now teach
ing at Berlin and editing the Evangelical Church
Journal, or of the carefully balancing, born critical
7 David Friedrich Strauss in his Life and Writings, 1874, Eng.
Trans. 1879. 0

194 LECTURE IV.
turn of mind of De Wette, or of the developing
broader views of Bretschneider, who was opposing
both Hengstenberg and Schleiermacher in the General
The calm Church Journal,9 did not much like the peace. But
when Schleiermacher died in 1834, he left a position
and an influence in theology and philosophy and
their harmonious interdependence, which was with
out an example. The sky was clear as that of a
summer's day, and no cloud was to be seen on the
The storm horizon, when suddenly, as by the crash of thunder,
caused by Germany, and then France, England, America, the
theological world, was aroused to know that a terrific
storm was at hand.
the Leben It took its rise in the University of Tubingen
from which Strauss issued the first volume of his Life
of Jesus in 1835. 9 It was a bitter fate for Steudel,
who mourns for the young man who sent forth the
electric spark as it were from his own study.1 Had
he not himself settled all theological difficulties by
protesting against them in his work on the Dogmatics
of the Evangelical Protestant Church, which had been
only just published ? 2
The But the spark would not have become the lightning
flash nor have heralded the storm if the atmosphere had
not been charged with electricity, and if Steudel and a
host of others who attempted to reply to Strauss, had
8 Allgemeine Kirchen-Zeitung, Cf. Baur, Geschichte der christlichen
ut supra. Kirche, vol. v., 1862, p. 364.
9 Das Leben Jesu kritisch bear- 2 Glaubenslehre der evangelisch-
beitet, 1835-6. protestantischen Kirche, 1834.
1 ' Aus seinem Cabinet heraus.'

replies.

LECTURE IV. 195
not lent themselves as conductors for the fluid. Every
village pulpit had its own antidote to the poison ;
every candidate for a theological degree had as a
thesis his own unanswerable answer ; every church
journal had its own editorial settlement of the ques
tion. And in this way the book was advertised
throughout the world, and hundreds read it who
would otherwise have never heard of it. And when
they read it, they found it interesting, while the
replies were dull ; for it was written in good German,
and the answers in bad. Strauss was, like Renan, a
born artist in words, and most people are more
attracted by the pictures, the ornaments, the carvings
and gildings of a house than they are by the founda
tions. But the foundations are more important if
we are going to live in the house, and if it is to be
to us a home to shield us by night as by day, in
winter as in summer, in all the storms of life and
death, in time, in eternity.
It has often been said that there was nothing new * Nothing
new ' in
in Strauss's Life of Jesus. The critical methods which the LeUn
Heyne had introduced, and Wolf had applied to Homer,
and Niebuhr to early Roman history, had already been critical
applied by Vater, De Wette, and others to the books
of the Old Testament, and even in the New Testament
the way was not wholly unprepared. The discussions
of the origin and relation of the Gospels had led also
to a growing conviction that the explanation was to be
found in the existence of an oral Gospel. Here there
were grounds for the superstructure of the theory of
o 2

196 LECTURE IV.
The, . , myth, and once started it was carried with mecha-
mythical J J
theory. nical rigidity through every detail of the life of
Jesus. Strauss honestly believed himself to be abso
lutely free from prejudice, but he was bound hand
and foot by the dogmas of the Hegelian Left. The
individual is nothing, and therefore historical records
wThich treat of the individual are of no authority.
The Infinite cannot manifest itself in the finite, and
therefore the incarnation as told in the Gospels is
impossible. Humanity is the true incarnation of
God, the child of a known mother — Nature ; of an
unknown father — Spirit. The immanence of God
is absolute, and miracle is therefore impossible. The
legends of the Old Testament which grew round the
Messianic idea were mythically applied to the person
of the historic Jesus. The Church portrayed, not
the Jesus whom Apostles saw, but the Christ which
myth unconsciously created.
I must not, however, be tempted to wander so far
from my immediate subject as to state, and far less
to criticise, the philosophical theology of Strauss.
Later in- Later investigations have taught us that upon any
tions of theory of myths they belong to the infancy of the na
tion and not to its manhood.3 The vigorous com
mon sense of Baron de Bunsen at once cried out : —
Position of But the idea of men writing mythic histories between
the time of Livy and Tacitus, and of St. Paul mistaking such
for realities ! 4
3 Cf. the able articles Myth, 4 Letter to Dr. Arnold, Oct. 1836.
Mythical Theory, Mythology, in Life of Arnold, by Dean Stanley,
McClintock and Strong's Cyclo- ed. 12, vol. ii. p. 52, note.
psedia. New York, 1880.

Bunsen,

LECTURE IV. 197
Ullmann held Strauss in a grip from which there mimann,
was no release when he asked History or Myth?5
If the Church unconsciously developed the Christ,
then who or what developed the Church? And in Baur.
the greater mind of Strauss's master there was
already growing a theory of tendency, which, what
ever else it was to do, was certainly to deal a death
blow to the theory of myth.
Strauss's critique of the Life of Jesus contained The -£«*«»
Jesu con-
no critique of the Gospels which were the source of tained no
that life. He admitted that this was a weak point of the
when Baur called attention to it.6 His whole theory
is however based upon an assumption of the spurious-
ness of all the Canonical Gospels, and especially of
that of the Fourth Gospel. If this be really a Gospel
according to S. John, the mythical theory of Strauss
is at an" end ; and yet so uncertain is he of his
ground, that in the preface to the third edition, which
was published in 1838-9, he is not quite sure that
the Gospel was after all not the work of S. John. It
is not that he is drawn over to the conviction that it
is Apostolic ; but that the work of Neander and the
growing conviction of De Wette have told upon him,
and he is no longer sure that it is not. But in the
fourth edition, which followed in 1840, he is again
quite sure. And this on no secondary question, but incredible
on one which was at the very foundation of his whole tainty
theory. This uncertainty is so incredible that I
6 Historisch oder Mythisch? Hamburg, 1838.
6 Cf . Lecture V. p. 231.

198

LECTURE IV.

aboutJohn,

describedby Baur.

prefer to put it before you in the words of Baur, his
tutor and friend : —
Nothing is more indicative of the position of criticism at
that time than the confession which Strauss makes in the pre
face to the third edition of his Life of Jesus. The alterations
which occur in this new edition all depend more or less on
the fact that a renewed study of the Fourth Gospel had made
his earlier doubts of this gospel themselves in their turn
doubtful. Not that he was convinced of its authenticity, but
that he was no longer convinced of the contrary. In the
peculiar position of the characteristics of this most remarkable
gospel, trustworthy and incredible, likely and unlikely, cross
ing and colliding with each other, he brought forward in the
first development of his work, with polemical zeal, just the
adverse side which it seemed to him had been neglected.
Since then the other side has gradually received its due from
him, but he was not in a position to do as almost all other
living theologians even to De Wette did — that is, sacrifice at
once the opposite considerations. Is it possible for a man to
be more wavering and uncertain on one of the chief problems
of New Testament criticism ? And yet even this utterance
is made only that in the next edition of the Life of Jesus he
might withdraw this doubting of his own doubt.7

strauss's But a good deal had occurred between the issue
life °
between of the third and fourth editions. His mother died
the third . .... i-,norv i •
andfourth in March 1839, and with her the chief joy and solace
of his life had gone. The father, never in sympathy
with him, had been embittered by the publication of
his book, and the mother's last days had been saddened
by storms which broke upon the peace of home. The
His friends sought for him

brother lay weak and ill.

7 Strauss, Leben Jesu, Preface schichte Jesu, 1876, p. 32.
to ed. 3, 1838-9 ; and Hase, Ge- Lecture V. pp. 230 sq.

Cf.

LECTURE IV. 199
work and hope without, to draw him from these mise
ries within. He was nominated this same year to the Nomina-
chair of Christian Dogmatics and Ethics at Zurich. Zurich.
He did not think his views to be inconsistent with the
duties which would devolve upon him, and gladly
accepted it ; but feeling ran so high, that forty
thousand signatures were attached to a public protest.
Strauss darf und soil nicht kommen ! became the cry
of an excited populace. In vain did the would-be
professor explain his views in a letter to the burgo
master and citizens. In vain did his friend Professor
Orelli explain for him.8 Strauss darf und soil nicht
kommen ! was the reply which the people were ready
to maintain by force of arms. In vain did the ministry
at length yield, cancel the appointment, and pen
sion the professor. It was too late. Zurich would
have none of Strauss, and Zurich rose in insurrection
and deposed a government which had tried to force
him upon them.
It is never very profitable to speculate upon what
might have been. What if that mother had not died,
if that father had been full of sympathy and guiding
love, if that brother had been strong and well ? What
if the professor's chair had brought that disturbed
mind into contact with the thoughts and needs of
student life, and outside the contracted circles of itself
and its one fixed idea ? We know not.
We know what was. There came in the following Fourthedition
8 The Opinions of Professor Eng. Trans, from 2nd ed., 1844,
David F. Strauss, etc., 1865. of original.

200 LECTURE IV.
and the year the fourth and most extreme edition of the Life,
Uche written for the first time in the German character that
lehre. ' it might be accessible to the people, and there came
also a work on Christian Dogmatics in their historical
development and in their struggle with modern know
ledge.9 This was the completion of Strauss's original
plan, to write a work upon the idea — Begriff — as well
as one upon the representation — Vorstellung — of theo
logical truth, which he had done in the Life of Jesus.
For our present purpose the work is important, as. it
foretold the appearance of a book which would be
based upon sounder principles than Bretschneider's
Probabilia, and would settle the question of the
Gospels in the light of fresh knowledge of early Church
history. The reference is said 1 to be to the singular
work of Liitzelberger,2 who visited Strauss this year
and published his book soon afterwards. It aimed at
proving that J ohn was never in Ephesus or Asia Minor,
that he died before a.d. 55-57, and that the Gospel was
written in the neighbourhood of Edessa, about a.d.
135-140. But this work seems of too little importance
for the weighty words of Strauss's reference, and I
cannot help thinking that the work of Baur was that
of which he prophesied, not without some knowledge.3
9 Die christliche Glaubenslehre 2 Die kirchliche Tradition iiber
in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicke- den Apostel Johannes und seine
lung undimKampfe mit der moder- Schriften, in ihrer Grundtosigkeit
nen Wissenschaft, 1840. See esp. nachgewiesen. Leipzig, 1840.
vol. i. pp. 194-196. 3 But see Bleek's criticism on
1 Ebrard, Wissenschaftliche Kri- Liitzelberger in Beitrage mr Evan-
tik, 1842, pp. 1049 sq. note. Darm- gelien-Kritik, 1846, pp. 88 sqq.,
stcidter Kirchenzeitung, Jan. 1841. and 224 sq.

LECTURE IV. 201
For more than twenty years Strauss produced no No theo-
theological work. He has himself told, and therefore work in
he wishes everybody to know something of what his i84o_
life was during this period. Without the home which l '
his mother's love had always blessed, refused the work
for which he had always hoped, his friends had
rejoiced to watch the influence which was exercised
over him by Fraulein Agnes Schebest, a lady whose Agnes
natural gifts and acquired power had won for her a
prominent position on the operatic stage. They were
betrothed in August 1842 ; five years later they dis
solved, by mutual agreement, a union which neither
could endure longer. He told the story of these
years in one touching sentence from a short paper on
Memories of my good Mother, which he wrote for his
daughter on the day of her confirmation : —
The mother left me behind in a wild storm which Fate
had brought upon me, and the brother in a still more totter
ing state ; but often have I since thought it a happy thing
that she did not live to see the worse storm which a few years
later dashed my life's barque upon the rocks.4
In the political troubles of 1848, Strauss was strauss in
pressed by the extreme liberals of Ludwigsburg to ment.
become a candidate for the Frankfort parliament, and
against his own judgment yielded to their wishes.
He was not returned, but obtained a seat in the second
chamber of WurteLuberg. The fact is not without
4 Kl eine Schriften, Neue Folge, meme lieben Kinder. Geschrieben
1866, pp. 233-269 : Zum Anden- auf den Confirmationstag meiner
ken an meine gute Mutter. Fiir Tochter, den 11. April, 1858.

202 LECTURE IV.
importance to us as it throws further light upon the
character of the man, that to the indignant surprise of
his constituents he was found to be on the conserva
tive side. He published his addresses to the electors
in Six Theological Political Popular Speeches, and tells
them in the preface how he had been convinced that
direct elective proceedings hold good all the less, the more
unlimited is the right of election. . . .
Again, he writes in a letter of May 30, 1849 : —
... if I have only to choose between the despotism of the
prince and the masses, I am unhesitatingly in favour of the
former . . . the last drop of blood in me abhors the autho
rity of demagogues as the extreme of all evils.5
other lite- His critical powers found a congenial sphere dur-
rarywm ... mg ^g perioc| in a series of biographical and literary
works which do not fall within our subject, but I shall
venture to suggest to anyone who would know the
chastened beauty of the mind and life of Strauss, and
would know how deeply it was penetrated by the
spirit of the life of Jesus, in the midst of much from
which we shrink — the loving heart asserting what
the analytical intellect denied — a half- hour's study of
the address on renunciation, which he delivered in
1863 over his brother's open grave.6
The new In 1864 Strauss came back again to his earlier
jem,i?,si, work in a new Life of Jesus composed for the German
5 Zeller, Strauss, ut supra, pp. 1866, pp. 341-351. Worte des
90, 93. Andenkens an Friedrich Wilhelm
6 Kleine Schriften, Neue Polge, Strauss, Feb. 24, 1863.

LECTURE IV. 203
People.1 It was new, and not new, for it was largely
an attempt to find a place for the later investigations
of Baur and others, within the circle of the author's
mythical theory ; and he follows Baur in placing the
Fourth Gospel after the middle of the second century.
The preface prepares us for what we are to expect
in the book. The first edition of the Leben Jesu,
written twenty-nine years before, had been written
for theologians, since the laity were not yet sufficiently
prepared for it. But now the author writes for the written for the
laity and endeavours to make himself clear to every laity,
man of culture and thought. As for professional
theologians, he does not care whether they read his
book or not.8
The interval has taught him on the one hand that
these questions are not to be kept from the public,
for they have been brought home to them by those
who were his most determined foes ; and, on the
other hand, theologians are of all people those who 'theo-
can least attain to an impartial judgment, for they are the
are at the same time judge and party in the suit, partia™"
To question the evangelic history is, they think, to
endanger the clerical order, and self-preservation is
the first law of life. If Christianity ceases to be a
miracle, they cannot play their favourite rdle of
miracle-workers ; they will have to keep to teaching
and give up blessing, and the work is less easy and
less productive. He must turn to the people because
7 Das Leben Jesu fur das deutsclie Volk bearbeitet, 1864.
8 Lbid. p. xi.

204 LECTURE IV.

the theologians will not hear, as S. Paul turned to
the Gentiles because the Jews rejected his Gospel.
When once the best among the people shall have at
tained the height of rejecting what most of the clergy
insist on offering them, these clergy will have to yield
before the force of advanced public opinion. He
addresses himself therefore to the people, and issues
not so much a new edition, as a new work developing
the old idea ; and he takes the opportunity of referring
to more recent works, answering objections and cor
recting his results by later researches by himself and
others. If ever a new edition of the original work is
needed — he did not see that the day had long gone
by for needing it — it is to be based upon the first
edition with some slight modifications from the fourth,
that is, his views are to be preserved in their ex
tremest forms.
M. Renan, He hails with joy M. Renan' s work, which ap
peared just as his own was completed. Condemned
as it was by a large number of bishops and by the
Roman Curia, it must necessarily be a work of
merit. It has its defects, but only one fundamental
fault [that is, the acceptance of the Fourth Gospel].9
Nor is the promise of this preface disappointed
when we come to the critical introduction which fol
lows in the body of the work. The author clears the
earlier ground by showing how all the preceding Lives of
JesZ^ J^sus — the earlier ones of Hess and Herder, the
detailed work of Paulus, the Manual of Hase, the
9 Leben Jesu, 1864, ut supra, p. xviii.

LECTURE IV. 205
posthumous Lessons of Schleiermacher — had all failed
for different reasons, and pre-eminently because their
writers did not see how certain it was that documents
which told of the supernatural could not possibly be
historical. And the subsequent works of Neander,
Ebrard, Weisse, and Ewald were all in his opinion
reactionary, and are criticised in terms which I refrain
from quoting. Even Keim,1 while flattering himself
that he satisfies scientific requirements, is really
steeped in theological illusion, but he is far in advance
of the ordinary writers of Lives of Jesus, and even of
M. Renan.2 When Strauss comes to his criticism of the Gos- critique
pels as the sources of the Life of Jesus, the absence Gospels,
of which, as we have seen, Baur had proved to be
a serious defect in the earlier form of the work, he
satisfies himself that there is no certain trace of the
three first Gospels in their present form, until towards
the middle of the second century,3 that is, for fully a
hundred years after the events are supposed to have
taken place ; and this interval everybody will admit
to have been long enough for the growth of fictitious
elements in all parts of the evangelic record. He the
supposes that no one will deny this, not even the logian'
theologian, if he has not wholly broken with criticism.
But the theologian, by way of compensation, as
1 The reference is not to Keim's liche Entwickelung Jesu Christi,
larger Jesu von Nazara, which did 1861.
not appear until 1867-72, but to 2 Leben Jesu, 1864, ut supra,
his Inaugural Lecture at Zurich p. 37. Vie de Jesus, 1863.
at the end of 1860, Die mensch- 3 Ut supra, p. 61.

206 LECTURE IV.
clings Strauss thinks, clings more firmly to the Fourth
Fourth Gospel as the work of an Apostle and an eyewitness,
Gospel. an(j ^ soii(i foundation of the history of primitive
Christianity.4 This must surely be founded upon
internal evidences, for of external testimony the
Fourth Gospel is only more destitute than the other
three. Papias tells us at least that Matthew composed
a Hebrew Gospel, but of a Gospel of John we have
no evidence that he says a word. It is true that we
Weakness know Papias only through Eusebius, but as the his-
extemai torian set himself to collect the testimonies in favour
of the books of the New Testament, and as he quotes
Papias in favour of the First Epistle of John, the
silence of Eusebius 5 about the Gospel is almost equi
valent to that of Papias himself. And the silence of
Papias is the more significant as he speaks expressly
of his zeal in seeking for traditions of John ; and
further, as he was a bishop in Asia Minor and a friend
of Polycarp, he had every facility for being exactly
acquainted with the Apostle who passed his last years
at Ephesus.
Papias, The attempt to make Papias witness to the
Fourth Gospel indirectly through the Epistle, must
in Strauss's opinion fail, since Eusebius simply tells
us that Papias derived certain quotations from this
Epistle as he does from the first Epistle of Peter.6 It
is not necessary to understand him to mean that
Papias definitely quoted as words of the Apostle John
4 Leben Jesu, 1864, ut supra, " Leben Jesu, p. 63. Cf. Hist.
p. 62. Eccles. iii. 39. 17.
5 Cf. Lecture VII. pp. 404 sqq.

LECTURE IV. 207
passages which we now find in the Epistle of John.
Eusebius might have deduced from a certain resem
blance of expressions or ideas the conclusion that
Papias had known the Epistle, and have been deceived,
just as theologians in our own days have deceived
themselves in similar circumstances. And even ifwre
press the most positive interpretation of Eusebius,
and suppose that Papias had really quoted the First
Epistle as a work from the hand of the Apostle, we
should still have to prove that the Epistle and the
Gospel come from the same author. It is granted
that there are resemblances, but there are also very
marked differences.
But the conclusion of the Fourth Gospel itself is the
itt • mi i • • n Fourth
adduced as a witness. Ibis is m the opinion of Gospel
itself
writers like Tholuck a certificate of authenticity suffi
cient to satisfy the most extreme scepticism ; 7 and yet
Zeller is quite right in saying that this testimony
proves nothing. It is either the assertion of the author
himself which would not be testimony, or else it is the
assertion of an interpolator which would be of no value.
It is equally vain to attempt to support the author
ship by such a reference as that in the second Epistle Second
of Peter 8 to the putting off the tabernacle, which is Peter,6 °
supposed to be a reminiscence of our Lord's words
in the last chapter of John, for there is no proof that
this Epistle is much earlier than the close of the
second century ; or by the resemblance between
7 Leben Jesu, ut supra, p. 63. schen Geschichte, p. 276.
Die Glaubenwiirdigkeit der evangeli- 8 2 Peter i. 14 ; cf. John xxi. 18.

Martyr,

208 LECTURE IV.
S. John and S. Mark, for it does not follow that
S. John is the earlier.9
Ignatius, Ignatius is supposed to furnish examples of
reminiscences of the Fourth Gospel. Perhaps he
does. But even if the phrases which are alleged x are
more than specimens of the common religious language
of the time, it is certain, Strauss thinks, that the
Epistles of Ignatius cannot be placed before the
middle of the second century ; 2 and if the Fourth
Gospel had been received as Apostolic from the end
of the first century, it would have left deeper marks
upon these and other writings of the period.
Justin The evidence of Justin Martyr is similarly disposed
of. There are numerous and indisputable points of
contact with the three first Gospels, but those with
the Fourth Gospel are both rare and doubtful. But
the doctrine of Justin is allied to that of the Fourth
Gospel, and if he had known it to be an Apostolic
work, he would have followed it more closely.3 The
only reference which is of importance is that in the
first Apology to the new birth,4 which Strauss ex
plains in what was then the usual method of the
negative school. He compares it with a passage
in the Clementines,5 and thinks that both Justin
and the writer of the Fourth Gospel had borrowed
from a common source in the supposed Gospel of the
9 Leben Jesu, ut supra, pp. 64, 3 Cf. Lecture II. p. 81.
65. 4 Apology, i. 61. Cf. John iii.
1 Cf. Lecture VII. pp. 395 sqq. 3-5.
2 Cf . ibid. pp. 400 sqq. '° Homil. xi. 26.

LECTURE IV. 209
Hebrews. The evidence of the Philosophumena,6 the the pu-
author of which he supposes to be a pseudo-Origen,7 mena.
by no means proves that Basilides or Valentinus
knew the Fourth Gospel, for it is not certain that
the reference is in either case to the founder of the
sect as distinguished from his followers. It is true
that Tertullian tells us that Valentinus used a
complete Instrument — that is, a Testament.9 But then
Tertullian's testimony, if it cannot be denied, can be
discounted. He was not more capable of distinguish
ing between the founder of the sects and his followers
than the pseudo-Origen was, and wrhen he tells us
in express terms that Valentinus possessed a complete
New Testament, we should do well to inquire no
further from him. It is similar to what he tells us
of Marcion's 9 having rejected, and therefore having
known, the Fourth Gospel.
Then, as to the attempts, in the absence of external Tlie
internal
evidence, to prove on internal grounds — the names of evidence :
the mons, for example — that Valentinus must have
known the prologue and other portions of the Fourth
Gospel. If this be so, why does Irenaeus quote so
many passages of the synoptics and of Paul, and not
one from John when he is enumerating the places of
the New Testament upon which the Valentinians theVaien-
founded their system of ceons ? x The quotations from
6 Cf. Lecture VII. pp. 360 sqq. 9 Adv. Marcion. iv. 3, 5 ; De
7 Leben Jesu, ut supra, pp. 67, Came Christi, 3. Cf. Lecture II.
68. Cf. Lecture VII. pp. 361 sqq. p. 94.
8 De Prsescript. Hseret. xxxviii. * Adv. Hssr. i. 8. 1-4. Cf.
Cf. Lecture II. p. 92. Lecture II. p. 90.

210 LECTURE IV.
John come only in an appendix on Ptolemaaus, the
disciple of Valentinus, and of him it is admitted from
his Letter to Flora that he accepted the Gospel of
John as an Apostolic work.2 Nor is the commentary
of Heracleon doubted. But this letter and commen
tary can hardly be placed earlier than the last thirty
years of the second century.
the Mon- The same line of observation applies to the
evidence of the Montanists, who are supposed to
have derived their idea of the Paraclete from the
Gospel of John ; but if we inquire of Eusebius about
their earliest connexion with the Church, we find
nothing of either the term Paraclete or of the Fourth
Gospel.3 Like the Valentinians, they had originally
no knowledge of the Gospel of John ; but when it
appeared later, both heresies hastened to lay hold
of it.
the cie- The references in the newly discovered portion
of the Clementines4 cannot, in Strauss's opinion, be
the Apo- denied,5 nor the passage in the fragments of Apoli
naris,6 nor yet the references in the apologies of
Theophi- Tatian, and Athenagoras, nor in the works of Theo -
philus,7 and Irenaeus. But Theophilus is not to be
accredited, because he does not give us his authority
irenaaus. for attributing the Gospel to John ; nor is Irenaeus,
2 Leben Jesu, ut supra, p. 68. 446 sq. ; Homil. iii. 53 ; and Lec-
3 Hist. Eccles. v. 16-19. ture II. p. 84.
4 Cf . Lecture VII. pp. 373 sqq. 6 Chron. Paschal. AI. p. 14,
5 Leben Jesu, ut supra, p. 69. ed. Dindorf.
Homil. xix. 22. Cf. article by 7 Ad Autolycum, ii. 22. Cf.
Volkmar, Theol. Jahrb. 1854, pp. Lecture I. pp. 29 sqq.

LECTURE IV. 211
because he does not tell us that he learned the authen
ticity of the Gospel from Polycarp, and because he
does not always write with historical accuracy.
The Gospel, moreover, was not received without The Alogi,
their
opposition towards the end of the second century, as tactical
is known from the Alogi.8 Strauss would emphasize rejecting
their position, and regrets that they did not them- iypsef°C
selves see how strong it really was. They were
quite right to reject the Gospel, but it was dogmatic
prejudice which led them to reject the Apocalypse.
And this was a great tactical mistake. The relation
of the two writings 9 is such that one can no more
believe that the same person was author of both
works than one can persuade Germans that Lessing
composed the Messiah, or Klopstock composed
Nathan.1 The two works represent the extreme poles
of New Testament writings : the Apocalypse being
the most Judaistic of all, and the Gospel the least so.
Modern criticism, especially the school of Schleier
macher, had recognized this distinction, and framed
a syllogism with the minor premise, ' John is the
author of the Gospel,' and the conclusion, ' John is
not, therefore, the author of the Apocalypse.' The
Tubingen school inverted the minor and derived the
conclusion, ' John is not, therefore, the author of
the Gospel ; ' and if one of the two works must have
had the Apostle for an author, it is on all grounds
much more likely to have been the Apocalypse than
8 Cf. Lecture III. pp. 123 sqq. 1 Leben Jesu, ut supra, pp. 72,
9 Hist. Eccles. vii. 25. 73. p 2

212 LECTURE IV.
the Gospel. This view is further supported by the
original Asiatic tradition on the Paschal controversy.2
Summary. To sum up, if we start from our knowledge of
John, we do not arrive at the Fourth Gospel ; and if
we start from our knowledge of the Fourth Gospel,
we are in danger of not arriving, or rather, we shall
not arrive at S. John.
The result of the examination of the sources of
the life of Jesus is that for the Synoptics, considering
the interval of several generations between the events
which they relate and the final form which they
assumed, the possibility of legendary and fabulous
traces must be admitted ; while for the Fourth Gospel
the alloy of philosophic speculation and conscious
fiction is more than possible — it is probable.3
Returns At a later stage in the work Strauss returns to the
latertothe T, . . , . . . n .
question. J ohannme question, and examines briefly the position
of Bretschneider, Schleiermacher, Weisse, Schweizer,
Renan, Baur and his school.4 He sees clearly
that no intermediate position is possible. When
Baur came on the field the Gospel had challenged
criticism to a duel to the death. She must break up
her armour and place the debris at the foot of the
Gospel, or else she must deprive the Gospel of all
historic authority and prove it to be a work posterior
to the Apostles ; and when so considered to be as
clear as it is incomprehensible when it claims to be
by an Apostle. To have undertaken this combat,
2 Leben Jesu, ut supra, pp. 76, 77. 3 Ibid. pp. 77-79.
4 Ibid. pp. 90-94, and 98 sqq.

LECTURE IV. 213
and to have carried it through as such combats
seldom have been carried through, he regards as the
imperishable glory of Baur.5
Such in brief outline is the critical foundation, as strauss's
far as it affects the Fourth Gospel, of Strauss's new rTaiiyThat
Life of Jesus. Reverence for an adversary so re- Tubingen
nowned compels us to take it into our account, but it sch°o1'
is not necessary for us at this moment to consider it at
any length. It is like the work itself — new and not
new. It is by Strauss, and not by Strauss. The critical
part is essentially a presentation of the later results
of the Tubingen school, as the support of his own
earlier theories ; and the author avowedly bases them
upon the labour of this school. Some of them have
met us already ; others will meet us again ; not a few
of them almost provoke a smile as we hear them.
And this was the highest result of criticism only a
quarter of a century ago !
But when Strauss had thus set forth the results of
the criticism of Baur and his school as the foundation
of his own work, it became necessary to see that the
older superstructure could be fitted on to this new
foundation. He tells us that in his Critical Examination of the The older
Life of Jesus he had arrived at the Fourth Gospel by not fit on
way of the other three, which had served him as a point critique.
of departure and had helped him to understand the
Fourth. His fundamental conception of what he
calls the fictitious element of the Gospels was that of
5 Leben Jesu, p. 108. Cf. Lecture V. pp. 230 sqq.

214 LECTURE IV.
myth ; and by myth he understood the so-called
historic wrapping, which certain original conceptions
of Christianity had received from the spontaneous
fiction of legend. But this formula which he had
derived from his study of the fictitious elements of
the Synoptics, did not quite adapt itself to the Fourth
Conscious Gospel. It was necessary to enlarge it, and to replace
conscious spontaneous fiction by arbitrary and conscious fiction.

fiction.

Baur's study of the Fourth Gospel started, however,
from the idea of a free composition of religious specu
lation, the fundamental notion of which was to oppose
to the divine principle of light and life, incarnate in
Jesus, Jewish incredulity considered as the principle
of darkness ; and the plan consisted in following step
by step the struggle of the two principles and in
presenting it in the form of historic drama. This,
strauss Strauss tells us, was Baur's fundamental notion, from
which he tried to deduce the distinctive marks which
separate the Fourth Gospel from the other three, both
as to its composition and its choice and arrangement
of the evangelic material. He thinks it an admirable
point of view for the Fourth Gospel, but that it is
not equally applicable to the other three, and that in
consistently applying it to them Baur is sometimes
driven to arbitrary expedients.6
But Strauss is not quite happy about this union
of his own fundamental conception of myth with
Baur's fundamental conception of purpose, and in a
6 Leben Jesu, ut supra, pp. 108, 109.

LECTURE IV. 215
later section he returns to discuss generally the
notion of myth.7
In the earlier work he had presented myth as the Re-writiug
key of the miraculous records and of other historical theory of
difficulties in the Gospels. It was loss of time and my
trouble, he used to say, to try and reduce stories like
that of the star of the Magi, and the transfiguration,
and the multiplication of the loaves to the order of
natural events ; and, as it was equally impossible to
admit the reality of facts so contrary to the laws of
nature, it was necessary to take these records for
poetic fictions. And when he had to account for the
appearance of these fictions at the period of the
Gospels, he found the key in the Messianic expecta
tion.8 As soon as a number of persons saw in Jesus
the Messiah, they easily persuaded themselves that all
the prophecies and figures of the Old Testament, with
the addition of the Rabbinic interpretations, must
find their fulfilment in Jesus. Everybody knew that
Jesus was born at Nazareth, but the Messiah must
in accord with the prophecy of Micah be born at
Bethlehem. Tradition had preserved strong words
of Jesus against the Jewish love of miracles ; but
Moses had wrought miracles, and Jesus must be
made to work miracles too. Isaiah had foretold that
in the Messianic period the blind should see, the deaf
hear, and so on. The very details of the miracles of
the Messiah were marked out, and there grew up
7 Leben Jesu, p. 150.
8 Lbid. vol. i. pp. 72 sqq. of ed. 1 ; pp. 91 sqq. of ed. 4.

216 LECTURE IV.

naturally in the early Christian community uncon
scious fictions that these works had been actually
wrought by Jesus.
Bruno This was the fundamental principle of Strauss's

1809-' earlier work, but nearly thirty years have now passed,
1000 and meanwhile Bruno Bauer has been trying to prove
that the Messianic idea, so far from being wholly
rooted in Jewish theology, took its rise only with
John Baptist, and attained definite proportions only
about the late date of the composition of the Gospels,
and then not among Jews but among Christians ; 9
Volkmar. while Volkmar has asserted a middle position and is
not prepared to go so far as Strauss in the pre-
Christian details of the Messianic idea.1
And there comes back once again the difficulty
which more especially concerns our present subject.
Strauss sees that he cannot apply the view of myth
which suited the simple and legendary poetry of the
earlier Gospels to what he calls the more or less con
scious inventions like those of the Fourth Gospel.
He tries to justify himself by the usage of the older
Earlier writers on myths down to Heyne. Modern mytholo-
theoriesof gists, and especially Welcker, had reserved the term
myth for the primitive, natural, unconscious legend;
but the earlier writers who had created the term, had
applied it to all religious traditions which were not
historical, whatever their source was. And while
Welcker's distinction is good as between fictions
9 Leben Jesu, ut supra, p. 150. Synoptiker, vol. i. pp. 181, 391-416.
Kritik der Evangeliengeschichte der 1 Die Religion Jesu, pp. 112 sqq.

LECTURE IV. 217
which all admit, as in Greek history, the critic of the
Gospels has to ask, in the face of assertions that they
are historically true, not what is the distinction
between myths and myths, not whether the Evangelist
is consciously or unconsciously a poet, but whether
his narrative is poetry or history.2
Strauss is disappointed to find that his theory of strauss's
myth is after one generation really dead, and the point-
depth of his disappointment is read in the bitterness
of his words. Ewald he believes to be really a Hisviewof Ewald,
disciple of the mythical school, who banishes the
terms myth and mythical from the whole domain of
Biblical exegesis only because he had not first
thought of it himself. He quotes with approval the
opinion of an English writer that Ewald is one ' to
whom the celebrity of any opinion not emanating from
himself is sufficient reason for condemning and con
tradicting it,' who ' wraps his virtue in an obscurity
of inflated verbiage,' and who acts on the maxim
' Denounce your adversary in unmeasured terms for
what he says, and then in slightly varying language
quietly adopt his suggestions,' 3 and is not sorry to
see how well the great man of Gottingen is known
on the English side of the Channel.4
He is not pleased even with Baur, upon whom he and Baur.
is seeking to support himself, for though Baur has
not absolutely excluded myth from the evangelic
2 Leben Jesu, ut supra, pp. 156, and its Antecedents, 1863, pp. 343,
157. 345, 351, note. But cf. pp. 250 sq.
3 Mackay, The Tubingen School 4 Leben Jesu, ut supra, p. 158.

218 LECTURE IV.
history, he avoids it as much as possible and speaks
of the theory of myth as the complete opposite of
his own. Strauss thinks that he is playing the rdle
of a conservative at his own expense, and naturally
does not quite see what right he has to do so. In
this new Leben Jesu, having regard to the results of
The Baur, Strauss has made more prominent the idea of
mythical . .
theory intentional and conscious fiction, but he still clmgs
to the earlier terminology of myth with the tenacity
of a man who loves his own idea as a mother loves
her child, and even when it is wounded — dead — loves
it yet the more, and declares it cannot be dead and
shall not die.5
But it was dead. Baur was right. His own
position was the very antipodes of that of Strauss,
and a man cannot stand upright on both sides of the
globe at the same moment.
Myth The new work came too late. It is slain by the
cannot ,.,.,. ,,
live with very strength to which it clmgs. Myth cannot be
conscious and unconscious. Unconscious Myth can
not live in the embrace of deliberate Design. Strauss
cannot support himself on Baur, even if Baur be
willing that he should. It must be a duel to the death,
and as between those combatants no one doubts who
remains the victor, though the giant generously keeps
the button on his foil. Strauss darf und soil nicht
kommen ! is now the watchword, not of the burchers
of Zurich led by their clergy, but of the thinkers of
5 Leben Jesu, ut supra, p. 159.

LECTURE IV. 219
Christendom led by their most eminent scientific
teachers of every shade of opinion. And while
scientific opinion was thus convinced that the mythi- Renan's
cal theory of the Gospels was at an end, the lighter ie|end.°
popular opinion that had fed upon Strauss was caught
by the new work of M. Renan which had appeared the
previous year, and had substituted a theory of legend
for that of myth, and had placed the Fourth Gospel
at the close of- the first century.6
Strauss has no further word to speak on the strauss
criticism of the Fourth Gospel. It is not for us Sbstan-0
to dwell therefore on later words, which both from addition
their intellectual contradictions and their unba- ^ticlsm.
lanced tone were a shock even to his friends.
It is not for us to dwell on the lessons of a vie
¦manquee. We have one conclusion to draw which
cannot be questioned. Strauss makes no substan
tial addition to the destructive attack on the
Fourth Gospel. His sketch of criticism which I
have briefly set before you is, as we have just seen,
nothing more than a presentation of the extremer
views of the Tubingen school as the foundation of
a position which that school had shattered.7 I will
not further claim that Baur and Strauss stand on

6 Cf. Lecture V. pp. 255 sq. Evangelien, pp. 349 sqq. ; Zeller,
7 Cf. Lecture V. passim. Die ausseren Zeugnisse, — Theol.
Strauss himself quotes the follow- Jahrbiicher, 1845 and 1847 ; Hil-
ing authors as his authorities : — genfeld, Die Evangelien, pp. 344
Bretschneider, Probabilia, pp. sqq. ; Die Evangelien Justins, pp.
178 sqq. ; Baur, Kritische Un- 292 sqq.
tersuchungen iiber die kanonischen

220 LECTURE IV.
different sides of the equation and cancel each other,
though such claim may be in some measure sus
tained, because I regard Baur, in general mental
grasp, and in special criticism of this Gospel, as be
yond all comparison greater than Strauss.
With Baur and those who more or less closely
followed him, it will be my duty to deal in the next
lecture.

LECTUEE V
'OUK AGE'
BAUR: THE TUBINGEN SCHOOL. OTHER NEGATIVE
THEORIES

THESE PROFESSORS ARE UNDER STRONG TEMPTATIONS TO PRODUCE
NEW THEORIES IN BIBLICAL CRITICISM, THEORIES MARKED BY VIGOUR AND
RIGOUR; AND FOR THIS PURPOSE TO ASSUME THAT THINGS CAN BE KNOWN
WHICH CANNOT, TO TREAT POSSIBILITIES AS IF THEY WERE CERTAINTIES,
TO MAKE SYMMETRY WHERE ONE DOES NOT FIND IT, AND SO TO LAND
BOTH THE TEACHER, AND THE LEARNER WHO TRUSTS TO HIM, IN THE
MOST FANCIFUL AND UNSOUND CONCLUSIONS. THERE ARE FEW WHO DO
NOT SUCCUMB TO THEIR TEMPTATIONS, AND BAUR, I THINK, HAS SUC
CUMBED TO THEM.
'EVEN WHILE ACKNOWLEDGING THE LEARNING, TALENT, AND SERVICES
OF THESE CRITICS, I INSIST UPON THEIR RADICAL FAULTS ; BECAUSE, AS
OUR TRADITIONAL THEOLOGY BREAKS UP, GERMAN CRITICISM OF THE BIBLE
IS LIKELY TO BE STUDIED HERE MORE AND MORE, AND .TO THE UN
TRAINED READER ITS VIGOROUS AND RIGOROUS THEORIES ARE, IN MY
OPINION, A REAL DANGER. THEY IMPOSE UPON HIM BY THEIR BOLDNESS
AND NOVELTY. TO HIS PRACTICAL HOLD ON THE BIBLE THEY CONDUCE
NOTHING, BUT RATHER DIVERT FROM IT ; AND YET THEY ARE OFTEN
FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH, ALL THE WHILE, THAN EVEN THE TRADITIONAL
VIEW WHICH THEY PROFESS TO ANNIHILATE.' Mattliew Arnold.

LECTURE Y.
And not even so did their witness agree together. — Mark xiv. 59.
When the theological world was startled by the The new
appearance of Strauss's Life of Jesus, there was at schooL6"
least one man to whom it caused no surprise.
Ferdinand Christian Baur foresaw what was coming Baur,
• . 1792—
from his former pupil, and he had often spoken to i860.
him about it. The results of his own more matured
judgment were given to the world after those of
Strauss, and he naturally occupies a later place in our
studies ; but he was by sixteen years an older man.
The son of a Wiirtemberg village pastor, born at
Schmieden, near Stuttgart, in 1792, he came to Blau
beuren when only eight years old, his father having
been appointed to the office of deacon of the parish.
At the age of thirteen he, too, went to the seminary
there ; and afterwards to the University of Tubingen.
You will remember, perhaps, from our study of
Strauss how close the connexion between the little
seminary and the university was ; how, when Strauss
went to Blaubeuren, he had Baur to teach him ; and
how in Tubingen he was again the pupil of the newly-
made professor. Baur inherited and adopted the

224

LECTURE V.

Evangelical sym
pathies.

Influencedby Schlei
ermacherand Hegel.

Work at
Blau
beuren and Tiib
ingen.

evangelical traditions of both school and university.1
His first pubHshed work was an essay on Kaiser's Bib
lical Theology in Bengel's Archives,2 and so little did he
openly break with the current views of the time and
place, that he was not only Professor of Historical
Theology, but also Regent of the Stift or hostel,
which was the usual residence of Protestant students
who were being trained for the ministry, and he took
a warm interest in it to the day of his death. Like
all foremost minds among theological students of that
day, he was largely influenced by the teaching of
Schleiermacher,3 and the impulse of this master is felt
in his first important work Symbolics and Mythology?
Like Strauss, he passed from Schleiermacher to Hegel,
and, like Strauss, he carried into all his after work,
with unflinching adhesion, the principles of the
Hegelian Left. Unlike Strauss, his life was one
great whole. He spent nearly sixty years at Blau
beuren and Tubingen, and for more than thirty
years, that is, from 1826 to 1860, fulfilled the duties
of his professorship with consistent devotion. The
chair, you will remember, was that of Historical
Theology, and to this subject, in all the length and
breadth of its extent, the energy of his rarely equalled
powers was devoted. Few men ever worked so

1 Cf. Dr. Karl Kliipfel's Ge
schichte und Beschreibung der
Universitat Tiibingen, 1849. The
sections on the Evangelical Theo
logical Faculty and the Evan
gelical Seminary, from Storr on

wards, pp. 389-457, are by Baur.
2 Archivfiir Theologie, ii. 656.
3 Cf. Lecture VI. p. 300.
4 Die Symbolik und Mythologie,
oder die Naturreligion des Alter-
thums, 3 vols., 1824-5.

LECTURE V. 225
hard ; four o'clock in the morning, winter and
summer, was his hour for rising. Few men ever
produced so much. Few men ever attained, and
fewer have preserved, so high a standard of excel
lence. He is not, like Strauss, carried away, and he
does not carry his readers away, by the mere beauty
of thought or form. I doubt whether his readers are
often carried away at all. It is for ordinary people
hard enough work to keep up with him. It is some
times not unlike walking across a ploughed field.
It is a ploughed field. He has been working at
virgin soil, has been right through it from end to
end, and has turned over every inch of the ground ;
but the walking is not very easy, and some of us
may well be thankful to men stronger than ourselves
who have walked in front of us, and have here and
there made paths across it.
Let us look for a moment at the extent of the Extent of
field in which this one man has done pioneer rarywork.
work. I have already referred to an important early
book. The following is a list of his other writings
in chronological order. It is probably not quite
complete, but is sufficiently so for our purpose : —

1. On the Derivation of
Mbionitism, or the Christ-Party
at Corinth.5
2. On Manichceism.6

3. On the Opposition be- Books
tween Protestantism and Catho
licism, in answer to Mohler's
Symbolics.7

5 Die Christuspartei in der ko- 6 Geschichte des Manichaismus,
rinthischen Gememde u.s.w., Zeit- 1831.
schrift fiir Theologie, 1831, iv. 61, 7 Gegensatz des Katholicismus
and 1836, iv. 1. und des Protestantismus, 1834. Q

226

LECTURE V.

4. On Christian Gnosis, or
tlie Christian Philosophy of
Religion.9 5. On the so-called Pasto
ral Epistles of the Apostle
Paid.9 6. Time and Occasion of the
Epistle to the Romans.1
7. On the Origin of the
Episcopate.2 8. History of the Doctrine
of the Atonement.3
9. History of the Doctrine
of the Trinity and the Incarna
tion of God (3 vols.).4
10. Paul the Apostle of
Jesus Christ.5
1 1 . Critical Examination of
the Canonical Gospels, their
Relation to each other, their
Origin and Character.6

12. Manual of the History
of Dogmas ; 7 enlarged in the
posthumous 13. Lectures on the History
of Christian Dogmas.9
14. The Gospel of Mark.9
15. On the Epochs of
Church History. '
16. Church History of the
First Three Centuries.2

And the important post
humous works :
17. Church History from
the Fourth to the Sixth Cen
tury.3 18. Church History of the
Middle Ages*
19. Modern Church His
tory.5

8 Die christliche Gnosis, oder
die christliche Beligionsphilosophie,
1835. 9 Diesogenannten Pastoralbriefe
des Apostels Paulus u.s.w., 1835.
1 Ueber Zweck u. Veranlassung
des Bomerbriefs u.s.w., Zeitschrift
fiir Theologie, 1836, iii. 59.
2 Ueber den Ursprung des Epi-
scopats, 1838.
3 Geschichte der Lehre von der
Versb'hn'umg, 1838.
4 Geschichte der Lehre von der
Dreieinigkeit und Menschwerdung
Gottes, 1841-3, 3 vols.
3 Paulus der Apostel Jesu
Christi, 1845 and 1866.
6 Kritische Untersuchungen iiber

die kanonischen Evangelien u.s.w.,
1847. 7 Lehrbuch der christlichen Dog
metigeschichte, 1847.
8 Vorlesungen iiber die christliche
Dogmetigeschichte, 1865-7, 3 vols.
9 Das Marcusevangelium, 1851.
1 Die Epochen der kirchlichen
Geschichtschreibung, 1852.
2 Die christliche Kirche der drei
ersten Jahrhunderte, 1853.
3 Die christliche Kirche vom
iten bis zum 6ten Jahrhundert,
1859. 4 Die christliche Kirche des Mit-
telalters, 1861.
6 Die christliche Kirche der
neuern Zeit, 1863.

LECTURE V.

227

20. Church History of the
Nineteenth Century.6

21. Lectures on the Theo
logy of the Neiv Testament.''

Besides these there were numerous articles in the and
Tubingen Review, in Zeller's Year-book, and, after writings.
Some of these shorter

1857, in Hilgenfeld's Review.
writings are of primary importance
study ; for example :—

for

our own

22. On the Composition and
Character of the Johannine
Gospel.9 23. The Johannine Epis
tles? 24. Introduction to the New
Testament} 25. The Johannine Ques
tion and the Latest Answers.2
26. Answer to Dr. Karl
Hase's Letter on the Tubingen
School.3 27. On Johannine Ques

tions : Justin Martyr and the
Paschal Controversy .4
28. Reply to Dr. Steitz on
the Paschal Controversy of the
Early Church.5
29. The Tiibingen School
and its Present Position, a
Reply to Weisse, Weiesacker,
and Ewald,6 the second edi
tion of which appeared but a
short time before the author's
death.

6 Die christliche Kirche des 19ten
Jahrhunderts, 1862, ed. 2, 1877.
7 Vorlesungen iiber neutesta-
mentliche Theologie, 1864.
8 Ueber die Composition und den
Charakter des Johawneischen Evan
gelium, Theologische Jahrbiicher,
1844. 9 Die Johanneische Brief e u.s.w.,
Theol. Jahrb., 1848.
1 Die Einleitung in das Neue
Testament u.s.w., Theol. Jahrb.,
1850, 1851.
2 Die Johanneische Frage u. Hire
neuesten Beantwortungen, Theol.
Jahrb., 1854.

3 An Herrn Dr. Karl Hose
u.s.w., Beantwortung des Send-
schreibens — die Tiibinger Schtde,
1855. 4 Zur Johanneischen Frage : 1.
Ueber Justin d. M. gegenLuthardt.
2. Ueber den Paschastreit gegen
Steitz, Theol. Jahrb., 1857.
5 Entgegnung gegen Herrn Dr.
G. E. Steitz iiber den Paschastreit
der alten Kirche, Zeitsch. f. wiss.
Theol., 1858.
6 Die Tiibinger Schide u. ihre
Stellung zur Gegenwart, 1859, ed.
2, 1860. a 2

228 LECTURE V.
There is the field. Where are the paths across
it ? Baur has himself made one such path in his
sketch of Church History in the Nineteenth Century,'1
which was edited after his death by Dr. Zeller. It
is little to the credit of English theology that, while
so much of Strauss was soon translated, no work
of Baur's appeared in English until, by the aid of the
Theological Translation Fund,8 Paul the Apostle was
translated in 1873-5, and The Church History of the
First Three Centuries in 1878-9. These are both paths
that we may safely walk on. The Paul the Apostle
is, as we shall see, a necessity for the understanding
of Baur's work. The First Three Centuries is his own
summary of his chief positions. The second German
edition of this work was published in the year in
which he died. The English translation is from the
third edition issued three years afterwards, and it
therefore represents in convenient form the author's
latest views.
Baur's me- Baur arrived at his criticism of the Fourth Gospel
investiga- by an altogether different road from that of Strauss.
He had commenced his investigations long before his
pupil. His studies of the two Corinthian Epistles
first led him to a careful examination of the Apostle
Paul's relation to the older Apostles. He was con
vinced that the Epistles themselves gave sufficient
data for concluding that the older and commonly
accepted view of an entire harmony must be
7 Die christliche Kirche, ut supra, 1862 and 1877.
8 Theological Translation Fund Library, 1873, etc.

tion.

LECTURE V. 229
abandoned, and that there was really an opposition
which went so far that the Jewish Christians ques
tioned S. Paul's authority. A more exact examination
of the pseudo- Clementine Homilies, which he, fol
lowing Neander, brought into prominence as im
portant for the earliest history, left him with a deeper
impression of the significance of this opposition in
the post- Apostolic period. And it became more and Pauline
more clear that the opposition of the two parties, the trine
Pauline and the Petrine or Judaistic — which must, par ies*
he thinks, be distinguished much more sharply than
has hitherto been done, in both the Apostolic and
post- Apostolic period — had a marked influence not
only on the form of the Petrine speeches, but also on
the composition of the Acts of the Apostles. The
first results of these investigations he published in
the Tubingen Review in 1831.9
His examination of the doctrine of Gnosis led him Four
it-> i -n • i • ii • Pauline
to the Pastoral Epistles, with the result that, m 1835, Epistles.
he published his reasons for believing that they were
not the work of the Apostle Paul, but that they
sprung from the same party tendency which, in the
second century, was the ruling formative principle of
the Church. Continued occupation with the Pauline
Epistles, and a deeper steeping in the spirit of the
Apostles and of Pauline Christianity, fixed more and
more the opinion that there was an essential difference
between the four chief Epistles of S. Paul and the
9 Kirchengeschichte des 19ten Cf. Tiibinger Zeitschrift fiir Theo-
Jahrhunderts, ed. 2, 1877, p. 417. logic, 1831, 4tes Heft.

230 LECTURE V.
shorter ones, and that the authenticity of several, if
not all, of these latter was very doubtful. These re
sults he carried out and published in his treatise on
Paul the Apostle, quite independently of Strauss.
He had now brought into the field of history a
period which by dogmatic prepossession had been up
to this time excluded from it. Admit Ebionitism and
Paulinism as the factors of the historic formation of
this period, and all is clear. And, in spite of oppos
ing voices, he believes he is justified in affirming that
the old and groundless views of the closed unity of
the Canon were for ever destroyed.1
Thus ended the first period of Baur's critical
labours.
At first When Strauss's Life of Jesus appeared, Baur re
took no . ...
part in the mamed during the general agitation a silent observer.
* Ton fl x\ -
nine ques- He knew all about it before it was published, as we
have seen, but he refrained from taking any part in
the discussion, because he had not yet made the deeper
studies which he felt to be necessary. But when he
had made the Johannine Gospel the subject of a course
of lectures, he felt himself able to introduce a new
and independent position with regard to the evan-
Consi- gelical history. The fundamental distinction of this
dered it to ° J
be a 'tend- Gospel from the Synoptics was so convincing, that
writing.' he at once formed the opinion that it also was a
' tendency- writing,' the earliest possible date for which
was a.d. 160, and he published this opinion in the
1 Kirchengeschichte, ut supra, pp. 117, 118.

LECTURE V. 231
Theological Year-book for 1844.2 There he felt was
a new platform gained for the criticism of the evan
gelical history. If the Fourth Gospel is no historical
writing like the others, if it has undoubtedly an ideal
tendency, then it can no longer be placed by the side
of the Synoptics, and opposed to them. The Straussian
tactics and method of operation — to slay on the one
hand the Synoptics by John, and on the other hand
John by the Synoptics, with the result that no one
knows when to stop — are no more possible.3 Baur is
careful to add that he does not mean to assert that we
have in the Synoptics a purely historical presentation,
but that we have in them an altogether different his
torical basis from that which we have in John.4 But
the question then presents itself to him, If once one
of the Canonical Gospels is shown to be a tendency-
writing of a very definite kind, ought not one or more
of the Synoptic Gospels to be placed in the same
category ? This leads to a fuller examination of the
Gospel of Luke, which was published in the Theolo
gical Year-book for 1846.5 These investigations of the
Gospels were united in one volume in 1847, and this
formed the second chief work on the criticism of the
New Testament.6
The narrower the circle is thus made in which Applica
tion
2 Theologische Jahrbiicher. Tii- 212 sqq.
bingen, 1844. 4 Kirchengeschichte, ut supra,
3 Cf. Strauss's objection to this p. 419.
statement by Baur, Leben Jesufiir 5 Theologische Jahrbiicher, 1846.
das deutsche Volk bearbeitet, 1864, 6 Kritische Untersuchungen, ut
pp. 61 sqq. ; and Lecture IV. pp. supra, 1847.

232 LECTURE V.
of the the original tradition of the Gospels is to be sought,
to the the simpler and easier, in Baur's opinion, becomes
theory!^ the business of the critic. The whole question is
now centred in the Matthew Gospel. The widely
extended mythical theory of Strauss is reduced
to narrow dimensions. Once make it certain that
some of our Canonical Gospels are to be regarded as
' tendency-writings,' and the question arises whether,
where hitherto myth has been supposed to be neces
sary, the tradition has been modified in the interest
of the author's literary tendency, or else is pure
fiction. As the tendency, which must be recognized
to be the specific character of some of the Gospels, can
have its ground only in the peculiar circumstances
in which their authors wrote, that is, in the party
divisions which existed among them, so the stand
point for the criticism of the Gospels is to be found
only in the whole sphere in which such phenomena
manifest themselves. We must not draw the his
torical circle too narrow, and it is obvious how
important it is, not only in the Apostolic, but also
in the post-Apostolic period, to take cognizance of
everything which can give more exact knowledge
of the different directions in which divisions took
place.
Combina- These investigations of the Gospels naturally
results. attach themselves to the earlier conclusions from the
Pauline Epistles. There is the foundation and firm
support. On the other hand, the post-Apostolic
periods, of which our Canonical Gospels are the pro-

LECTURE V. 233
ducts, contribute to the presentation of a clearer and
concrete form.7
There are three stages of the development : — Three
The first period extends to the destruction of (i) to a.d,
70
Jerusalem in a.d. 70. The documents are, the First The docu-
and Second Epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians,
Romans — these four and only these four being
genuine Pauline Epistles — and the Apocalypse, which
is certainly the work of John, and represents an origi
nal Ebionite Christianity in opposition to Paulinism.
The second period extends from a.d. 70 to 140. (2) a.d.
70—140
The documents are, first the Gospels of Matthew and The docu-
Luke, which belong to the Jewish wars under Ha
drian, then the Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel of
Mark, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the pseudo-
Pauline Epistles, and finally the Catholic Epistles.
The characteristics of this period are the first en
deavours on both sides towards moderating the
antagonism. The Jewish Christians no longer in
sisted upon the requirements of circumcision. The
Pauline party were anxious to heal the breach, and
hence sprung the Epistles to the Ephesians and
Colossians. The third period extends from a.d. 140. The (3) From
A.D. 110.
extremes of the Ebionites on the one hand, and of the Thedocii-
Gnostics on the other were now abandoned. This is
marked in practice by the Roman church and the
watchword ' Peter and Paul,' and in idea by the
7 Kirchengeschichte, ut supra, p. 420.

!34

LECTURE V.

The Jo
hannine
Gospel.

Followers
of Baur :

Fourth Gospel. The documents of this period are
the Pastoral Epistles and the Johannine Gospel and
Epistles.8 The Johannine Gospel is represented as being
most clearly of all the result of a deliberate second-
century purpose. On both the great questions of
theological discussion which troubled the Church in
the second century, Gnosticism and the Paschal con
troversy, it is an obvious re-writing of the original
evangelic tradition from a point of view which repre
sents in time, a.d. 160 or 170, and in place Asia Minor,
or more probably Alexandria. The authenticity of the
Gospel is, indeed, for Baur not the main question.
The tendency and the character of the writing are
essential to his position.
Nor did Baur stand alone as Strauss did. The
chief teacher in the University of Tubingen had
attracted an enthusiastic circle of disciples, and these
formed a cluster around him, each one taking his own
special line, and all contributing to the strength of
the master's position. A title which had formerly
belonged to the leaders of evangelical pietism was,
from local connexion, naturally transferred to them,
and this new Tubingen school became an important
factor in the theological history of the nineteenth
century. A course of lectures would be needed for
even an outline of its history. I shall not attempt it
in a small part of one. Let me only remind you
that the group was illumined by the brilliancy of
8 Cf. Holtzmann, H. J., Einleitung, ed. 2, 1886, pp. 188 sq.

LECTURE V. 235
Albert Schwegler, who had already prepared the way Schwegler,
by a history of Montanism,9 and by criticisms on 1857.
Liicke and Bruno Bauer,1 and now presented to the
world the first graphic, perhaps too graphic, account
of the master's teaching ; 2 that it was supported in
its earlier years, though not without criticism, by the
grave and solid learning of Albrecht Ritschl, who Eitschi,1822—
contributed works on The Gospel of Marcion and 1889.
the Canonical Gospel of Luke,3 and the Origin of the
Old Catholic Church ; i by the prolific Adolf Hilgen- Hilgen
feld, now Professor at Jena, and editor, from its 1823-
commencement in 1857, of the Journal for Scientific
Theology which bears his name,5 who wrote early
works on The Clementine Recognitions and Homilies,6
The Gospel and Epistle of John,7 The Gospel of Mark,9
Primitive Christianity,9 and is now, perhaps, best
known by his valuable Introduction to the New Testa
ment ; x by the Tubingen colleague, Kostlin, who Kostim,
wrote On the Johannine System of Doctrine,2 and On
the Origin and Composition of the Synoptic Gospels9
9 Der Montanisrnus und die 6 Die clementinischen Recogni-
christliche Kirche des 2ten Jahr- tionen und Homilien, 1848.
hunderts, 1841. 7 Das Evangelium und die Brief e
1 Theologische Jahrbiicher, 1842. Johatvnis nach ihrem Lehrbegriff,
2 Das nachapostolische Zeitalter 1849.
in den Hauptmomenten seiner 8 Das Marcusevangelium, 1850.
Entwicklung, 2 vols. 1845-1846. 9 Das Urchristenthum, 1855.
3 Das Evangelium Marcions 1 Historisch-kritische Einleitung
und das kancmische Evangelium in das Neue Testament, 1875.
des Lucas, 1846. 2 Der Lehrbegriff des Evange-
4 Die Entstehung der altkatho- liumsundder Brief eJohannis,19AS.
lischen Kirche, 1850. 3 Der Ursprung und die Kompo-
5 Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaft- sition der synoptischen Evangelien,
liche Theologie. 1853.

236

LECTURE V.

Volkmar, 1809-

Holsten, 1825-

Zeller, 1814-

and also did good service in the reviews ; 4 by the
Zurich professor, Volkmar, whose special work in re
lation to the earlier days of the school was to meet
objections from quotations in Marcion, Justin, and
the Clementines, and afterwards to represent its ex
treme Left ; 5 by the Heidelberg professor, Holsten,
who came later into the field and has devoted his
thoughts chiefly to the special position of Pauline
theology ; 6 and, chief of all the early band, though he
in later years, like Schwegler, retired from the teach
ing of theology to undertake that of philosophy, came
the Berlin professor, Eduard Zeller, Baur's pupil at
Blaubeuren and Tubingen, and afterwards his son-
in-law, the friend, editor, and biographer of Strauss,
editor of portions of Baur's works, editor from 1842
to 1857 of the Theological Year-book1 which bears his
name, and contributor of some of the chief articles 8

4 Theologische Jahrbiicher, 1850,
1851. 6 Das Evangelium Marcions,
1852 ; Ueber Justm den Martyrer,
1853 ; Ein neu entdecktes Zeug-
niss : Theologische Jahrbiicher,
1854, pp. 446-462 ; Die Beligion
Jesu, 1857, cap. viii. ; Der Ursprung
unserer Evangelien, 1866, pp.
91-110. 6 Zum Evangelium des Paulus
und des Petrus, 1868 ; Das Evan
gelium des Paulus, 1881 ; Die drei
urspriinglichen noch ungeschrie-
benen Evangelien, 1883.
7 Theologische Jahrbiicher, 1842-
1857. 8 See especially Die ausseren
Zeugnisse iiber das Dasein und den

Ursprung des vierten Evangeliums,
1845, pp. 577-656. (The Fourth
Gospel cannot be traced back
beyond a.d. 170.) Einige wei-
tere Bemerkungen iiber die
aussere Bezeugung des vierten
Evangeliums, 1847, pp. 136-174.
Ueber die Citate aus dem vierten
Evangelium in den Philos Origenis,
1853, pp. 144-152. Noch ein
Wort iiber den Ausspruch Jesu
bei Justin Apol. , i. 61, 1855, pp.
138-140. And four important
articles — Das Urchristenthum, Die
Tiibinger historische Schule, Ferdi
nand Christian Baur, Strauss und
Benan — reprinted in Vortrage und
Abhandlungen, 2nd ed. 1875.

LECTUEE V. 237
in it, author of a short History of the Church,9 and of
a treatise on the Acts of the Apostles1 which, apart
from its special theories, is a work of ripe and careful
scholarship and of permanent value.
Never was theory supported by more learning,
ability, or enthusiasm. Never did , theory more en
tirely collapse. If we look at it we shall, I think,
find little difficulty in explaining the failure.
The foundations of Baur's edifice are the principles Baur
of the Hegelian Left, for, like many another disciple of theiiege-
Hegel, the moment he had embraced these principles lian *•'*'
he was fettered by them. The wonderful skill and
untiring work of which I have spoken was, after all,
slave-labour. His field is cultivated as field hardly
ever was, but it is in the narrow valley in which
the master placed him. Mentally, as well as physi
cally, he never left Tubingen ; he never got beyond
his work, so as to look at it from without ; and a
stripling who will ascend the hills on either side can
see this giant working in his narrow valley as though
it were the universe ; while mountain rises above
mountain and beyond the horizon there are hills and
valleys of which none of us have ever thought, in
the vast infinity of the universe of God. But the
Hegelian trichotomy draws the limit beyond which
Baur cannot go. Thesis, antithesis, momentum,
higher unity — this is the law which is to explain all
9 Geschichte der christlichen ihrem Inhalt und Ursprung kri-
Kirche, 1848. tisch untersucht, 1854.
1 Die Apostelgeschichte nach

238 LECTURE V.
things in heaven and earth, and the waters which are
above and beneath them.
Develop- Meanwhile philosophy has been claiming its own
philo- development, and has asserted that Hegel is not its
sop y' last prophet. This assertion has perhaps been made
more loudly in Germany than in England. It has
been said that there are more Hegelians in Oxford
than there are in Berlin. It has been said that Oxford
is the happy place to which good German philoso
phies hope to go — after they are dead ; but this was
by an enemy. The life at Oxford is too vigorous to
be affected by anything wdrich is dead. But other
places and persons are not always so blessed, and the
corpses of not a few dead theories have lately been
sent about the country ; and, now galvanized by
science, now wire-pulled in ignorance like puppets
are at country fairs, have seemed to be actually alive ;
and they have greatly terrified a good many innocent
country people, and children of all ages who knew
nothing about the batteries and could not see the
wires.
Baur's But whatever may be the present vitality of the
a.Tch.yai Hegelian philosophy, of which I will not venture to
speak, except to say that many of us at least have
still much to learn from it in its own proper sphere,
there can, I think, be little doubt about the edifice
which the Tubingen school reared upon it. This
edifice forms, let us remember, an arch. Every
stone of the arch supports and is supported by its
neighbour. The foundations on either side are, on

LECTURE V. 239
the right, the four undoubted Pauline Epistles and
the Apocalypse, dated before the year a.d. 70 —
there is your thesis, definite and fixed : on the left,
Matthew and Luke, dated a.d. 130-140 — there
your antithesis, equally definite and equally fixed.
Then come the stones on either side : Acts, Mark,
Hebrews, pseudo- Pauline letters, Catholic letters,
Ephesians, Colossians. The pseudo - Clementines
must have a place, for they suggested the whole
thing, and show a middle stage of progress ; the
pastoral Epistles are so late that they come near the
top of the arch ; and finally, as the last stage of
the development, the crown to which all leads on
either side, the key which binds all together in
unbroken and unbreakable unity, — the Johannine
Gospel and Epistles.
All this is very wonderful. It is like the struc- The arch
tures one has seen in a dream. It is like the castle
made of wooden blocks of stone in the nursery. It
will hold together as long as you leave it alone, but
you must not touch it to see if the stones are real.
You would not be so cruel. They please the child.
And were this structure simply a chapter in a novel,
or a plan drawn upon paper, you would not touch it ;
but it is an arch over which you are asked to walk,
and the abyss below is deeper than you can see. And
when you begin to think of what these stones are,
of the quarries from which they came, of their shape
and size — for most of us after all do know something
about the individual stones — you first wonder by what

240 LECTURE V.
possible skill and contrivance they have found their
place in this arch. There are some of the workmen
about still, and we can ask them to explain the whole
thing to us. But no, let us not put questions, or
perhaps they will say by-and-by that they did not
understand us, and that their answers therefore mean
nothing. Let us take out our note-books and listen,
The foun- and we may hear a good deal. There is a group
dations . .
doubted, looking at the foundation on which the first stones
rest. They are not quite sure that it is all rock ;
indeed, there are serious signs of fissure and col
lapse. The Tubingen Schelling has been lecturing at
Berlin in place of the Tubingen Hegel, and though
Baur regarded the whole Schelling episode as a piece
of excellent comedy,2 it is surprising how able men
believe in it. Trendelenburg has followed ; Herbart
and Lotze have been lecturing at Gottingen ; Ulrici
at Halle. Strange things have been said by the
younger Fichte and others in the Journal for Philo
sophy? What does it all mean? Can it be that
Hegel is after all human clay, though it be of a
very fine quality, and not eternal rock? But look,
they say, at the enormous weight of this arch ;
nothing short of rock can possibly bear it.
The work- And there is Volkmar. We know what a clever
tioned: workman he is, and how if we consult some pages
2 ' Das ganze Auftreten Sehel- des Vdten Jahrhunderts, ed. 2,
ling's in Berlin war ein wahrhaft 1877, p. 405.
komisches Schauspiel, das mit 3 Zeitschrift fur Philosophic,
grossem Geprange aufgefiihrt founded in 1837 to oppose He-
wurde. Eine Hauptrolle spielte gelianism.
dabei N eander. ' Kirchengeschichte

LECTURE V. 211
of modern English writing — he is not now perhaps Volkmar,
so much quoted in Germany — he appears as a chief
authority on this arch. He is carefully measuring that
big foundation stone on the left. What ! there surely
cannot be anything wrong there! But he is very
much afraid there is. It is a thousand pities, for the
whole process of development depends upon it. Yes !
it is in the wrong place, it must come out. He has
talked to a good many of his friends and they, espe
cially Kostlin, agree with him.4 The original Gospel
is a primitive Mark,5 and the date is probably a.d. 73.
There is Hilgenfeld, a workman who has done an Hiigen-
enormous amount of good work on the arch itself
and round about it. He is left in a sort of perma
nent charge and is a thoroughly honest man. As
one of the original workmen, and now getting on for
seventy years of age, anything he says is valuable,
and if you listen you will have no difficulty in hear
ing a good deal, for he often talks about it. Look,
he is now examining the foundation stone on the
right. He says it is not quite safe. There are some
awkward holes about it which must be filled up.
First Thessalonians and Philippians and Philemon
have by mistake been put in the wrong places, and
must be taken out and put in here. Then he looks at
4 Kostlin, K. H., Der Ursprung 1866; Marcus und die Synopses,
und die Komposition der synopti- u.s.w., 1869, 2te Aufl. 1876 ; Jesus
schen Evangelien, 1853. See esp. Nazarenus, 1881 and 1882. See
pp. 310-385. pp. 7 sq., and esp. the 'Chro-
5 Volkmar, Die Beligion Jesu nological Survey of the written
und ihre erste Entwickelung, 1857 ; sources of the Life of Jesus,' on
Der Ursprung unserer Evangelien, pp. 18 sqq. R

242 LECTURE V.
the foundation stone on the left. It is very serious.
Volkmar is right. The architect was really alto
gether wrong. His foundation is impossible. But
Volkmar is also wrong ; it is not a Mark which is
wanted. That comes second. The first stone is
Matthew, which exactly fits the place, and it comes
from the Apostle himself from about a.d. 50-60,
though it was a little retouched between a.d. 70-80.
Then he looks at the spring of the arch and the key
stone. These too will have to be altered. The
Clementines are much too early. John is much too
late. He has talked to a great many workmen and
they all agree with him that the Clementines come
after John, except one whose name he does not know,
and he is not a German.6 Altering the key-stone of
an arch is a very dangerous matter, but this really
cannot remain as it is.7
Eitschi, And there is — or rather we must say was, for he
too has departed from us — the greatest workman of
them all, Albrecht Ritschl. Hardly one of the regular
workmen at any time, he built buttresses rather than
the arch, but these gave the strength on which many
rested. If you watch him, you will see that he has
been pulling them down, and that the arch which
had depended upon him is left without his strong
support. Now that he has had time for further
6 Cf. Lecture II. p. 84 ; and Historisch-kritische Einleittmg in
Lecture VII. pp. 374 sq. das Neue Testament, 1875 ; Zeit-
' Hilgenfeld, Die Evangelien schrift fiir wissenschaftliche Theo-
nach ihrer Entstehung und ge- logie, 1875, p. 582.
schichtlichen Bedeutung, 1854 ;

LECTURE V. 243
testing, he thinks that John belongs to the founda
tion, not to the crown.
Listen to him : —
In order to prevent misunderstandings, I would explain
that I consider the Gospel to be authentic, not only because
the denial of its authenticity raises far greater difficulties
than its acceptance, but also because the presentation of
the revelation of Jesus in the three other Gospels requires for
its completion the discourses in John.8
Karl Holsten is almost the only other original Hoisten.
workman, for Schwegler died many years since,
after leaving this work, and Zeller long ago gave
up arch-building of this kind. Holsten is said to
have been the only faithful workman the architect
had in his last days. He may have the plans and
be able to put the whole right. But when we listen
to him, we find that he also regards that left founda
tion stone as altogether wrong. It ought not to have
been Ebionitism, it ought not to have been any one
of the Canonical books. The only stone which will
really fit the place and bear the structure is the
gospel of Peter.9
And now having looked at this arch, let us try to
8 ' Um Missdeutungen zu Ritschl, Die Entstehwng der altlca-
begegnen, erklare ich, dass ich tholischen Kirche, 2te Aufl. , 1857,
das Evangelium fiir echt halte, pp. 48 sqq. See also Theologische
nicht nur, weil die Leugnung seiner Jahrbiicher, 1851, pp. 500 sqq.,
Echtheit viel grossere Schwierig- and esp. Jahrbiicher fiir Deutsche
keiten darbietet, als deren Aner- Theologie, 1861, pp. 429-459.
kennung ; sondern auch weil die 9 Holsten, Die drei urspriing-
Darstellung der Verkiindigung lichen noch ungeschriebenen Evan-
Jesu nach den drei anderen Evan- gelien, 1883. Die synoptischen
gelien ihre Erganzung durch die Evangelien nach der Form ihres
Reden bei Johannes fordert.' Inhalts, 1885. See esp. pp. 165 sqq.
e 2

244 LECTURE V.
interpret it. It does not represent too strongly the
adhesion of the whole system of Baur, or the way in
which that system is builded together into one or
ganic whole ; and it is impossible to remove any one
of the interdepending stones, much more to touch
one of the foundations or the key of the system,
Thearch -without bringing the structure to the ground. It
lies before us, therefore, as a magnificent ruin, whose
fall has been wrought by the tools of the builders
themselves. A ruin, and therefore it is ignorance
or worse than ignorance to speak of it in the pre
sent as a firm foundation on which we may in full
confidence build our lives ; but a magnificent ruin
which no future architect can neglect to study, and
from which he cannot fail to draw really great ideas,
and from the stones of which have been gathered,
and will be gathered, forms of fair and wondrous
beauty, fit to take their place upon the eternal rock
and to grace the temple of the Lord.
French Perhaps we ought also to note that the methods
staperS and results of the school were presented to French
readers by M. A. Stap, a Belgian writer, in a series
of articles in the Revue Germanique which were
afterwards republished in his Historical and Critical
Studies on the Sources of Christianity, in 1864.1 The
fifth study deals with the Fourth Gospel, and presents
it on the well-known principles of the school with
1 Etudes historiques et critiques Paris, 1864 ; ed. 2, 1866, pp. 232-
sur les Origi/nes du Christianisme, 348.

LECTURE V. 245
little addition of fresh investigation or result. He
finds everywhere a total absence of historical proba
bility, and proof that it is in the fullest sense a work
of theology and not one of history. It was unknown
in the Church until after a.d. 155, when it began to
attract attention, and was not written before the
time of Valentinus, that is, after a.d. 130-140.
M. Gustave d'Eichthal, author of a considerable D'Eich-
work on The Gospels,2 is a disciple of the same school,
and in a striking preface devotes some pages to the
Johannine question. He lays special stress on the
anti-Jewish and mystic tone, and on the connexion
between the Gospel and Gnosticism, in which, as well
as in the view of its date, he is avowedly a follower
of Hilgenfeld. But neither of these French writers makes any
material addition to the work of their German
precursors. Before passing from the Tubingen school, I should German
like, however, to present, not my own view of it, but 0f the
that of two German writers, to whom I shall have to ScLooun
refer again,3 and whose competence to speak on any
question of New Testament criticism is fully admitted.
It is now more than forty years since the typically
independent, and in the true sense freethinker, De De Wette,
Wette, wrote the following words : —
It will perhaps disappoint many that I have not entered
more fully into a refutation of Baur's destructive criticism ;
2 Les Evangiles, 1863. See esp. vol. i. Preface, pp. xxv sqq.
3 Cf. Lecture VI. pp. 307 and 319.

246 LECTURE V.
but, on the one hand, this would have taken more space than
I have at my command, and, on the other hand, 1 hold such
a refutation to be superfluous. Such extravagant criticism is
self-destructive, and its only value is that, by exceeding all
limits, it must awaken the feeling of the necessity of self-
restraint.4
Meyer. And it is a quarter of a century ago since Meyer,
the late veteran of New Testament commentators,
summed up as follows the chief negative theories of
that day : —
We older men have already seen the time when Dr.
Paulus and his inventions were in vogue ; he died, and no
disciple remained. We lived through the Strauss storm
thirty years ago, and in what loneliness might the author now
celebrate his jubilee. We saw the Tubingen constellation
arise, and even before Baur departed hence the brightness
had waned. A renewed and firmer basis of the truth which
had been attacked, and a more .complete recognition of it,
were the blessings which the wave left behind ; and so will it
be after the present surge.5
The Side by side with the negative criticism of Evan-
Partition .
Theories, son, Bretschneider, Strauss, and Baur, and extending
indeed from the earliest days of the modern doubts
about the Fourth Gospel until the present time, a line
of writers has existed, more or less connected with
each other, and more or less fully holding that por
tions of the Gospel are authentic, but that it is not
as a whole the work of S. John. Among the first
4KurzgefasstesexegetischesHatid- Aufl. p. vii. Cf. Eng. ed. of 1873'
buch: Apostelgeschichte, 1848, 3te Preface by Dr. Dickson, pp. viii
Aufl. , Preface v, vi. and xii ; and Lecture VI. pp. 319
5 Kommentar, Romer, 1865, 4te sqq.

LECTURE V. 247
to express this view at the close of the last century
was Jacob C. R. Eckermann,6 who thought the Ecker-
most remarkable discourses were Johannine, and the 1754J
connecting history was by one of his friends, but
he afterwards retracted this opinion.7 Christoph
Friedrich von Ammon, in the Erlangen Programme Ammon,
1 '7P.G.
of 1811,8 sought to show 'that John the author of i85o7
the Gospel is a different person from the editor.'
Heinrich E. G. Paulus 9 thought John was witness Paulus,
and guarantee of the Gospel, but the author was a 1851.
disciple — that it was composed and arranged by one
of the later Christians who wTas a hearer of John's,
and perhaps a disciple of the Gnostic philosophy.1
Dr. Christian Hermann Weisse, who was a pro- weisse, 1801—
fessor of philosophy at Leipzig, gave this line of 1866.
criticism a more prominent position. He was a jurist
and a disciple of Hegel, and at first a friend of
Strauss, who speaks, however, of these works as
showing the mixture of sound criticism and dilet
tante idiosyncrasies which characterized the whole
standpoint of Weisse.2 The discourses of Jesus and
" Theologische Beitrage, 1796, 9 Review of Bretschneider's
Ueber die sichern Griinde des Glau- Probabilia in Heidelberger Jahr-
bens, Bd. v. st. 2, p. 147. Cf. biicher der Literatur, 1821, pp.
Rettig, Ephemerides exegetico-theo- 112-142, and of Liicke's Com-
logicae, 1824, fasc. ii. pp. 57 and mentar, ibid. pp. 227-261.
95. Cf. Liicke, Commentar, 1840, 1 ' Compositumesseetdigestum
p. 91. a seriori Christiano, Joannis au-
7 Erklarung oiler dunkeln Stellen ditori, forsitan gnosticse dedito
desNeuen Testaments, 1807, vol. ii. philosophiee.' Cf. Rettig, utsupra,
8 'Docetur, Johannem Evan- Fasc. ii. pp. 83 sq.
gelii auctorem ab editore hujus 2 Leben Jesu fiir das deutsche
libri diversum.' Cf. Liicke, Com- Volk, 1864, p. 36 ; cf. Hase,
mentar, 1840, Th. i. p. 97. Geschichte Jesu, 1876, pp. 129 sq.

248 LECTURE V.
of John Baptist are studies from the Apostle's hand,
but they were written down simply for the purpose
of recording the doctrine. It was after the writer's
death that the disciples combined these studies with
connecting historical matter and oral teaching into the
present Gospel. It is therefore inferior to the Synop
tists, and especially to Mark, as a source of history.3
schenkei, Dr. Daniel Schenkel,4 Professor of Theology at
1813- 1885. Basel and Heidelberg, carried out to further develop
ments the mam ideas of Weisse. There are two chief
collections of speeches, the one extending to the end
of the 12th chapter, the other from the 13th to
the end of the 17th chapter. These are Johannine.
The history, and many details in the middle of the
speech- sections, belong to a later hand. Schenkel
afterwards so far agreed with the Tiibingen school
that he regarded the Gospel as altogether an ideal
composition, but he thought it should be derived
from Asia Minor about a.d. 110-120, and that it is
thus indirectly connected with the Apostle and Ephe
sus.5 Later still he gave up all connexion between
the Gospel and the Apostle, and abandoned the resi
dence of John in Asia Minor ; 6 and in his latest
work, The Christ of the Apostles7 he placed the Gospel
3 Evangelische Geschichte, 1838 ; Christusbild der Apostel, und der
Die Evangelienfrage, 1856. nachapostolischen Zeit, 1879, pp.
4 Theologische Studien und Kri- 188 sqq.
tiken, 1840, pp. 762, 771 ; review ° Charakterbild, ed. 1, loc. cit.
of Neander, Weisse, and Strauss. 6 Ibid. ed. 4, loc. cit.
Charakterbild Jesu, 1864, pp. 23 7 Christusbild, loc. cit.
sq. ; ed. 4, 1873, pp. 25 sq. ;

LECTURE V. 249
in the middle of the second century, and derived it
from Asia Minor or Alexandria.
Dr. Alexander Schweizer,8 Professor of Theology Schweizer,1808—
at Zurich, in his Gospel of John, which was pub
lished in 1841, a work of high tone and great acute-
ness, endeavoured to show that the events which
have Galilee as their scene are in their present form
by a later hand.9 The Johannine ministry of Jesus
was limited to Judaea, but this portion is of true his
torical character, and the discourses are authoritative.
The additions were later than John's death, but
before the Gospel was first published.1 This view
was in part adopted and developed by Kriiger-Velt-
husen,2 but had been meantime abandoned by the
author.3 Herr Johann Rudolf Tobler, a Zurich pastor, who Tobier.
some thirty years ago attracted much attention by his
works on the Fourth Gospel, thought some portions
of the Gospel came from the Apostle himself in
Aramaic, but that these amount to less than one-
tenth of the whole. Special features, and chrono
logical and geographical notices, mark an original
witness, who was the Apostle John ; but these por
tions were added to and worked up by Apollos, the
8 Das Evangelium Johannes i. 21 sq., xvi. 30, xviii. 9, xix.
nach seinem innern Werthe und 35-37.
seiner Bedeutung fur das Leben ' Das Evangelium Johannes, ut
Jesu kritisch untersucht, Leipzig, supra, p. 276.
1841. 2 Leben Jesu, 1872.
9 John, capp. ii. 1-12, iv. 44- 3 ProtestantischeKirchenzeitung,
54, vi. 1-26, and also cap. xxi., 1864, pp. 362 sqq.
and some smaller insertions, capp.

250 LECTURE V.
author also of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who thus
produced a spiritual Gospel which was opposed to
Judaism and in favour of Hellenism. The place is
Ephesus, and the time the first century.4
Ewald, Dr. Heinrich Ewald,5 the very apostle of untram-
1875. melled thought, received in 1838, after his expulsion
from Gottingen, a call to Tubingen, where he was
professor for ten years ; but no man was a more de
termined opponent of Baur and the Tubingen school.
He held with characteristic freedom and characteristic
strength his own views of the historic value of the
discourses and the narratives of the miracles in the
Fourth Gospel ; but this does not weaken the force of
his position as to the authorship. The Apostle some
where about the year a.d. 80 composed his Gospel,
availing himself of the help of trusted friends, who
ten years later, but still before the Apostle's death,
added the twenty-first chapter. Here 6 another hand
appears more freely than in the Gospel itself, though
it was not wholly absent even there.7 Ewald's de
finite views as to the authenticity have been made
familiar to English students by Oxford and Cam
bridge teachers, to whom I have already made refer-
4 Die Evangelienfrage im allge- senschaft, Gottingen, 1851, pp. 150
meinen u. die J ohannesfrage insbe- sq. ; 1853, pp. 32 sq. ; 1860, pp.
sondere, 1858 ; Zeitschrift fiir wis- 83 sq. ; 1865, pp. 212 sq. ; Die
senschaftliche Theologie, 1860, pp. Johanneischen Schriften, 1861, i.
169 sqq. ; Evangelium Johannis pp. 1-59 ; Geschichte des Volkes
nach dem Grundtext, 1867 ; Grund- Israel, 1868, vii. pp. 237 sq.
ziige der evangelischen Geschichte, 6 John, cap. xxi. 24, 25.
1870. 7 Ibid. cap. xix. 35.
5 Jahrbiicher derbiblischen Wis-

LECTURE V. 251
ence. This is a quotation from an article by Ewald
which Canon Liddon makes with approval : —
Those who since the first discussion of this question have
been really conversant with it, never could have had and
never have had a moment's doubt. As the attack on St.
John has become fiercer and fiercer, the truth during the last
ten or twelve years has been more and more solidly estab
lished, error has been pursued into its last hiding-places, and
at this moment the facts before us are such that no man who
does not will knowingly to choose error and to reject truth,
can dare to say that the fourth Gospel is not the work of the
Apostle John.8
These are words which Bishop Westcott quotes
with the comment, ' For the rest Ewald' s calm and
decisive words are, I believe, simply true ' : —
That John is really the author of the Gospel, and that no other
planned and completed it than he who at all times is named
as its author, cannot be doubted or denied, however often in
our times critics have been pleased to doubt and deny it on
grounds which are wholly foreign to the subject : on the con
trary every argument, from every quarter to which we can
look, every trace and record, combine together to render any
serious doubt upon the question absolutely impossible.9
Professor Karl von Hase,1 whose death is one of Hase,
the many which critical science has mourned over 1889.
during the last few months, had been known to suc
cessive generations for more than half a century, not
8 Gottingische gelehrte Anzeigen, Gospels, ed. 3, p. x.
Aug. 1863, review of Renan ; 1 Geschichte Jesu, 1876, i.e. an
Gratry, Jesus-Christ, p. 119 ; Lid- enlargement of the Leben Jesu,
don, Bampton Lectures, 1866, ed. edd. 1-5, 1829-65 ; Die Tiibinger
13, 1889, p. 220. Schule — Sendschreiben an Baur,
9 Westcott, Introduction to the 1855.

252 LECTURE V.
only as a first authority on the history and dogma of
the Church, but as a defender of the Fourth Gospel
in the method of Schleiermacher, differing from his
master chiefly in that he ascribed the Apocalypse
also to the Apostle.2 But in the History of Jesus,
which was published in 1876, he advances the opinion
of his old age, that the Gospel is not the immediate
work of the Apostle. In Asia Minor, and especially
in Ephesus, there had been formed through the nar
rations of John, who was one of the last and most
revered of the eye-witnesses of the life of Jesus, a
Gospel-tradition which was quite distinct from the
Galila?an. After the death of John, perhaps a decade
or more, this Johannine tradition was written down
by a gifted disciple of the Apostle. The disciple has
lived in the thoughts of his illustrious master, and
has written only as the master himself would have
written. Thus arose a ' Gospel according to John,'
which in the next generation became a ' Gospel of
John.' And yet Hase was, like Strauss,3 doubtful of
his doubts. He had for many years fought against
them, and was to the end least of all in agreement with
those who are confident in setting aside this Gospel.
He confessed with a sad heart that he could not be
sure of the full Johannine authorship, though he
had expressed this in the last edition of his Manual,
and he feels that opinion may change again.4
- Cf. Strauss, Leben Jesu fiir 52, cf. pp. 611, 612, Kirchenge-
das deutsche Volk, pp. 23 sq. schichte, 1885, i. pp. 183 sq. ; and
3 Cf. Lecture IV. p. 198. Kirchengeschichte. Lehrbuch, 1886,
4 Geschichte Jesu, ut supra, p. pp. 37 sq.

LECTURE V. 253
Dr. Reuss, until recently professor at Strasburg, Eeuss,
who writes now in French and now in German, but
who since the annexation of Alsace has become a
German citizen, has been for half a century prominently
known as an independent member of the liberal party
of the Lutheran church. His works 5 which relate to
the present subject are everywhere marked by great
ability, and by a striking combination of reverence and
freedom. In the earlier works he accepts the Johan
nine authorship, but thinks that the speeches are to
be largely traced, not with Baur to metaphysical
conceptions, but to religious mysticism. In the later
editions of his well-known History of the Canon in
1874 and 1887, he admits the ' double element,' and
in the Johannine Theology6 published in 1879 he no
longer holds in the full sense the direct Johannine
authorship. The author, in his opinion, distinguishes
himself from S. John in more than one passage, but
derives his materials immediately from him. In Dr.
Reuss's own striking words : —
If we are authorized by the form of the Fourth Gospel to
see in it more than a simple biography, this first impression
is amply confirmed by the contents and substance of the book.
It is in reality a theological treatise, as much as the Epistle to
5 Ideen zur Einleitung in das logic chrUienne au siecle aposto-
Evangelium Johannes — Denkschrift lique, 1852 ; Eng. Trans. 1872 ;
der theologischen Gesellschaft zu Theologie Johannique in La Bible,
Strasburg, 1840 ; Die Geschichte Nouveau Testament, vie partie,
der heiligen Schriften, Neues Testa- 1879.
ment, ed. 1, 1842 ; ed. 2, 1853 ; 6 Theologie Johannique, ut su
ed. 5, 1874, Eng. Trans. 1884 ; pra, pp. 40 sq.
ed. 6, 1887 ; Histoire de la theo-

254 LECTURE V.
the Hebrews, and more so than any of S. Paul's Epistles. It
is an exposition of the Christian faith inasmuch as the person
of Christ is its centre. It is diminishing its intention to say
that it is a pragmatic history of the struggle between the
Jews and their unrecognized and rejected Saviour ; it is, on
the contrary, a picture of the world's opposition (in all ages)
to the Light which comes from God, full of grace and truth.
This does not imply that this theology has no historic basis.
On the contrary, the Johannine Gospel is a striking proof
that all Christian theology is raised on such a basis, and that
in this it is distinguished from a purely philosophic theology.
But we affirm that the author had no intention of teaching
his hearers history ; he knows it, or supposes it to be known,
and undertakes to interpret ifc, to reveal its inmost meaning,
to show that here are other things besides popular teaching,
or miracles that appeal to the imagination, or tragic com
plications, such as are met with throughout the annals of
humanity.7 The Fourth Gospel has come to us without the
author's name, like most of the other elements of which the
sacred volume is composed. Criticism has shown itself power
less, either to raise traditional opinion above all serious and
legitimate doubt, or to relegate this document to an inferior
position and assimilate it to the literary productions of a
second generation which had lost to some extent the crea
tive genius of their predecessors. We consider that this is
a providential warning for religious science. Ideas are more
essential than proper names, and the value of the former is
independent of the certainty of the latter.8
It is significant that the sixth edition of the His
tory of the Canon no longer treats of the Fourth
Gospel immediately after the Synoptics, but deals
with it after the Epistle of Clement. But the ex
ternal evidence for the Johannine authorship may
7 Theologie Johannique, 1879, p. 12. 8 Lbid. p. 108.

LECTURE V. 255
still, he thinks, be possibly convincing : and the
strongest objection is the yet weightier evidence for
the Apocalypse, which cannot be by the same writer
as the Gospel.9
M. Renan draws 1 a sharp distinction between Renan, 1823—
the authentic and the unauthentic portions of the
Gospel, but his principle of division is exactly op
posed to that of those who preceded him. It is not
the historical setting, but the discourses, which are
now questioned. The history, indeed, is to be pre
ferred to that of the Synoptists, but the discourses
are ' tirades pr^tentieuses, lourdes, mal Writes, ' and it
is not by these that Jesus founded his divine work.2
In the preface to the thirteenth edition, Renan gives
a summary of the views which were held as to the
Fourth Gospel. His own view in the first edition
is : — The Fourth Gospel is in the main the work of the Apostle
John, but it has perhaps been edited and retouched by his
disciples. The facts which are related in this. Gospel are
direct records of Jesus, but the discourses are often free com
positions, which express only the author's conception of the
mind of Jesus.
His view in the thirteenth edition and afterwards
is :— The Fourth Gospel is not the work of the Apostle John.
It was attributed to him by one of his disciples about the
year 100. The discourses are almost wholly fictitious; but
9 Geschichte, ut supra, ed. 6, x Vie de Jesus, 1863 ; ed. 17,
1887, p- 249. 1882. 2 Ed. 1, p. xxx.

1839-

256 LECTURE V.
the narrative portions contain valuable traditions, which go„
back in part to the Apostle John.
After referring to the opinion which places the
Gospel well on in the second century, he adds : —
I cannot go wholly with this radical party. I hold always
to the belief that the Fourth Gospel has a real connection
with the Apostle John, and that it was written towards the
end of the first century.3
Sabatier, Dr. Sabatier, Professor of Theology in the Protes
tant Faculty of the University of Paris, is the author
of an essay on the Sources of the Life of Jesus* which
is largely devoted to the Fourth Gospel and intended
to support the Johannine authorship. But in a later
article, in Lichtenberger's Encyclopaedia, Dr. Sabatier
gives up the immediate authorship, and thinks the
writer to be one of John's disciples who has edited the
Gospel history after the form known in Asia Minor.
The Apocalypse was the work of the author himself :
the Gospel is a spiritualized apocalypse written by
a disciple. Dr. Sabatier remains convinced that the
roots of the thought of the Fourth Gospel are to be
found in the Apocalypse and in the Jewish- Christian
theology generally, not in Paulinism. The develop
ment from the teaching of Jesus to the theology of
John is natural and without a break, and it is this
which explains its incomparable serenity.5
3 Ut supra, ed. 13, pp. x, xi ; de Jesus, les trois premiers Evan-
cf. ed. 17, 1882, pp. lviii sq., giles et le quatriime, 1866.
477 sq. 5 EncyclopMie des Sciences reli-
4 Essai sur les sources de la vie gieuses, 1880, vii. pp. 181-193.

LECTURE V. 257
Professor Karl von Weizsacker, who became weiz-
Baur's successor in the professorial chair at Tubingen i822-r'
in 1861, published in 1864, after several essays in
the Year-Rook for German Theology of which he was
editor,6 his remarkable Investigations of the Gospel
History? John is, he thinks, the indirect, a trusted
disciple of the Apostle is the direct, author ; or it
might have been composed by disciples after the
Apostle's oral teaching or notes. The whole Gospel
has a double character. At every point it is an his
torical report of the sayings and deeds of Christ ; but
it is also an ideal composition, and every detail of the
representation has a double sense. In his latest
work on the Apostolic Age, published in 1886, and re
published in the present year,8 Dr. Weizsacker takes
the age of the Apostles, properly so-called, to end at
the year a.d. 70. The following thirty years are the
Johannine period. There was a Johannine school in
Ephesus. The two principal works which bear the
name of John probably came from the school of the
Apostle, but neither is the work of John, who re
mained a Jew and formed a Jewish- Christian church.9
At the time the Gospel was written the Apostle was
dead, but his death had not long taken place.1
Dr. Wendt, the Heidelberg professor, has in part J^!*'
6 Jahrbiicher fiir deutsche 1886. Cf. the valuable criticism by
Theologie, 1857, pp. 154 sqq. ; 1859, Loofs in Theologische Literatwzei-
pp. 685 sqq. ; 1862, pp. 619 sqq. tung, 1887, No. 3, pp. 51-61 ; ed.
7 Untersuchungen iiber die evan- 2, 1890.
gelische Geschichte, 1864, 1. Theil, 9 Ibid. ed. 2, pp. 504 sq.
iii. pp. 220-302. 1 Ibid. p. 536.
8 Das Apostolische Zeitalter,

258 LECTURE V.
renewed and has also carried to fresh issues the theories
of Weisse and Schenkel. He thinks, in his Doctrine
of Jesus,2 that there is a genuine historical document
issuing from John which corresponds to the Logia
used by Matthew. In the original Logia these dis
courses are confined to the last days of Jesus, but are
by the editor made to extend over the whole ministry.
Use is also made of sources of Pauline thought, and
of the Acts of the Apostles. He finds traces of
Hebrew origin in the part which has the primary
historical document for a basis, and thinks that the
writer was an Ephesian disciple of John.3
These writers, while they differ much from each
other, agree in the opinion that the Gospel is in part,
if not in whole, directly or indirectly, to be traced to
the Apostle John.
The A number of other writers who are lineal descen-
BchooiT' dants of the Tubingen school, and are characterized
by a similar boldness and a similar freedom, but are
not strictly bound by either the principles or the
results of their predecessors, may be conveniently
grouped together and spoken of as ' the present ne
gative school.' The school will naturally have three
chief divisions, the German, the Dutch, the English.
It will be sufficient to notice the following : 
German : Dr. Theodor Keim, to whom reference has already
2 Die Lehre Jesu, 1886, i. pp. in Theologische Literaturzeitung,
215 sq. 1886, No. 9, pp. 197-200.
3 Cf. review by Holtzmann

LECTURE V. 259
been made in this course of lectures,4 and whose too Keim,
early death, in 1878, left a gap which has not yet been ms.
filled, held that the Gospel has an historical purpose,
but that the writer is no eye-witness or setter forth of
objective facts. He is everywhere under the control
of the subjective idea. Before he comes to the history
of Jesus, he gives a philosophic view of the universe,
which is that of Philo. Dr. Keim thinks that when
a historian begins with philosophy, he will adapt that
which actually happened to suit his point of view.5
The writer of the Fourth Gospel, in his opinion, finds
the Logos before the creation of the world and traces
it through all preceding history, and describes the life
of Jesus in accordance with this idea and from this
exalted standpoint. Unlike Luke, he declines to give
a full history of Jesus,6 and gives such a selection of
details as will maintain the judgment of faith as to
the person of Jesus, in opposition to Gnostic unbelief.
The date is the time of Trajan, a.d. 100-117.7 In a
later recasting of Dr. Keim's work, which was of a
more popular character, the date is placed at about
4 Cf. Lecture I. p. 3. ohne Zweifel unter Kaiser Trajan
5 Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, zwischen 100-117 nach Chr. ent-
1867-71, i. pp. 103-172 ; Dritte standen, immerhin so spat nach
Bearbeitung, 2te Aufl. 1875, pp. 38 den Synoptikern und nach dem
sq., 377 sq. ; cf. Hausrath, Neu- Fiirsten der Synoptiker, dass es
testamentliche Zeitgeschichte, 1873, ..alle Miihe hatte, neben ihrer in
iii. pp. 565-625 ; 1877, iv. pp. 376 den Gemeinden immer schon be-
sqq. festigten Auctoritat sich seine
6 John, cap. xx. 30. Bahn zu brechen.' Keim, Ge-
7 ' Die ausseren Zeichen erge- schichte Jesu von Nazara, 1867,
ben : das 4. Evangelium ist in den Bd. i. p. 146.
Anfangen des 2. Jahrhunderts s 2

260 LECTURE V.
a.d. 130.8 The author is a Christian of Jewish origin,
belonging to the Dispersion of Asia Minor.
H. Hoitz- Dr. Heinrich Holtzmann, now professor in Stras-
1832- burg, a prolific author, whose recent Introduction to
the New Testament has placed him in the first rank
of writers on this subject, holds that the Gospel is
an ideal composition based upon Synoptic material,
of about the same period as the Epistle to the
Hebrews and the Epistle of Barnabas, and that it was
generally admitted into the Church after about a.d.
150. The Logos Gospel is not so much a history of
the life of Jesus as a picture of His inmost being.
It is no more pure fiction than the assertion in
S. Matthew : —
All things are delivered unto me of my Father : and no
man knoweth the Son, but the Father : neither knoweth any
man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the
Son will reveal him ; 9
and the solution of the problem is to be found in the
balance of the ideal and historical elements. He
holds that the Gospel was in the hands of Justin,
a.d. 150, but that in Barnabas and Clement, a.d.
93-125, we are only in a Johannine nebula. The
star of the Gospel had not yet risen.1
8 ' Das Evangelium ist also sqq. ; Lehrbuch der Einleitung in
wahrscheinlich erst urn's Jahr 130 das Neue Testament, ed. 2, 1886,
geschrieben worden; . . .' Ed. pp. 438-488; Die Gnosis und das
1875, ut supra, p. 40. Johanneische Evangelium, 1877 :
9 Matt. xi. 27. cf. Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche
1 In Schenkel's Bibel-Lexikon, Theologie, 1869, pp. 62 sqq., 155
1869-1871, art. Evangelium nach sqq., 446 sqq. ; 1871, pp. 336
Johannes, ii. pp. 221 sqq. , and art. sqq. ; 1875, pp. 40 sqq. ; 1877, pp.
Johannes der Apostel, iii. pp. 328 187 sqq.

LECTURE V. 261
Dr. Wilhelm Honig is known to us from a series Honig.
of remarkable articles on the construction of the
Fourth Gospel which were published in Hilgenfeld 's
Review.2 He presents a scheme with two main
divisions, the one consisting of the first eleven chap
ters, and the other of the remainder of the Gospel,
each division having an introduction and three parts.3
The whole work is arranged in accordance with a
preconceived plan of threes, and therefore is not
historical.4 Dr. Albrecht Thoma has already occupied our Thoma,
attention by his special investigations into Justin's
use of the Fourth Gospel.6 He is also the author
of a work of high order on the origin of the Gospel,
in which he regards the Evangelist as a Christian
Philo, a child of the Alexandrine Judaism which
proceeded from the chief school in Ephesus. He
thinks that he is identical with the presbyter of the
Second and Third Epistles of John, and somewhat
later than the insurrection of Bar-Kochba, a.d. 132 or
133 ; and that he attempted to form a mosaic of the
Logos-Christus revelation on the basis of the religious
philosophy of Alexandria. He finds materials for his
allegorical work in the Synoptic Gospels, the Old
Testament, the writings of Philo, the substance of
the Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline development of
2 Zeitschrift fiir wissenscliaftliche pp. 85 sqq. : cf. Holtzmann, H.
Theologie, 1871. J., ibid. 1881, pp. 257 sqq. ; and
3 John, cap. i.-xi. and xii. -xxi. Einleitung, ut supra, p. 451.
4 Zeitschrift, ut supra, pp. 535 6 Cf. Lecture II. pp. 73 sq.
sqq. ; 1883, pp. 216 sqq. ; 1884,

262 LECTURE V.
doctrine, the Apocalypse. It follows that the work
can have no historical value. The Fourth Gospel is
only the setting of the Logos doctrine in a life of
Jesus.6
Mangold, Dr. Wilhelm Mangold, professor at Bonn, and
1890. editor of the later editions of Bleek's Introduction,1
appends to the more conservative pages of his author,
a series of footnotes characterized by remarkable
ability and fairness, but in the spirit of, and sometimes
writh the results of, the more negative criticism. His
view of the Fourth Gospel is that the external evi
dence is scarcely less strong than that of the Synoptic
Gospels, and would be sufficient to certify it, if the
internal grounds for accepting the authenticity did
not oppose, as it at least up to the present appears,
insuperable difficulties.8
Oscar Herr Oscar Holtzmann is a younger brother of
mann. the Strasburg professor, to whom We have just
referred, but his work on the Gospel of John 9 is the
result of independent and careful research ; and,
while less pretentious than many, it is perhaps not
less valuable than any work of this school. The
Fourth Gospel is for him a Christian book of devo
tion, rather than an artistic presentation of a philo
sophy of religion, and he here avowedly sides with
° Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaft- ment, ed. 4, 1886. Cf. Lecture
liche Theologie, 1877, pp. 289 sqq. ; VI. p. 314.
1879, pp. 18 sqq., 171 sqq., 273 6 Einleitung, ut supra, p. 388,
sqq. ; Die Genesis des Johannes- note.
Evangeliums, 1882. 9 Das Johannesevangelium un-
' Einleitung in das Neue Testa- tersucht und erkltirt, 1887.

LECTURE V. 263
Luthardt, and not with Thoma.1 The Gospel is, he
thinks, grafted on the post-Pauline literature which
was influenced by Alexandrine Judaism. The teach
ing of Paul and that of Philo are elements in its com
position. The author is a Jewish Christian living
between a.d. 70 and 135, and his dependence upon
the Luke Gospel makes it probable that he did not
write before a.d. 100.2 It is hardly possible to assign
a more exact date than the first quarter of the second
century.3 It is especially worthy of notice that Holtzmann
follows Thoma and Keim in holding that the author
was a Jew by birth,4 and still more important that so
weighty an authority as Schiirer, writing in July
1887,5 thinks this opinion to be in the highest degree
probable. The modern Dutch school, which has of late years Dutch :
taken a prominent place in advanced criticism and
subjective theories, and is duly heralded by a special
Theological Journal,6 may for the present purpose be
represented by Scholten, the late Emeritus Professor Schoiten,
of Leyden, though, as Dr. Salmon remarks, 1885.
it became as hard for a young professor, anxious to gain
a reputation for ingenuity, to make a new assault on a New
Testament book, as it is now for an Alpine club man to find
1 Das Johannesevangelium, b Cf. Schiirer's review in Theo-
u.s.w., p. 4. logische Liter aturzeitung, 1887, No.
2 Ibid. p. 79. 14, p. 331.
3 Lbid. p. 173. 6 Theologisch Tijdschrift.
4 Ibid. p. 74.

264 LECTURE V.
in Switzerland a virgin peak to climb. The consequence has
been that in Holland, Scholten and others, who had been
counted as leaders in the school of destructive criticism, have
been obliged to come out in the character of conservatives,
striving to prove, in opposition to Loman, that there really
did live such a person as Jesus of Nazareth, and that it is
not true that every one of the epistles ascribed to Paul is a
forgery.7 Scholten's chief treatise is The Gospel according to
John? published in 1864, in which he asks : —
Is the fourth Evangelist John the son of Zebedee ? . . . .
the writer of the Apocalypse ? .... a Palestinian Jew ?
.... a Jew ? 9
And to each question he gives a negative answer.
His view of the Fourth Gospel is that it is an
ideal conception of the evangelical history. It is
the highest form of the revelation of Christianity,
and has attained this height by assuming the ele
ments of truth which it found in Gnosticism, and
in the doctrines of Marcion and Montanus. It thus
7 Introduction, ed. 2, p. 379. 1864-66 ; De oudste getuigenissen,
Cf. Holtzmann, H. J., Einleitung, and in German, Die altesten
ed. 2, pp. 192-3. Zeugnisse, by Manchot, 1867 ;
8 Historisch-kritische Inleidung Het Apostel Johannes in Klein-
in de Schriften des Nieuwe Testa- Asie, 1871 — and in German,
merits, 1853, ed. 2, and in Ger- by Spiegel, 1872.
man, 1856 ; Schrifter van den 9 ' Is de vierde evangelist Jo-
Apostel Johannes in Bijbelsch hannes, de zoon van Zebedeiis ?
woordenboek, Amsterdam, 1855 — .... deschrijver der Apocalypse?
he here takes the Gospel to be .... een palestijnsche Jood ?
Johannine; Het Evangelie naar .... een Jood?' — HetEvangelie
Johannes, 1864-66 — German by naar Johannes, ut supra, part v.
Lang, 1867— French by ReVille, pp. 399-440.
in Revue de Thiologie, Strasburg,

LECTURE V. 265
freed Christianity from the authority of the Old
Testament, and from Jewish-Christian and Petrine
elements. Such passages as — ¦
Marvel not at this : for the hour is coming, in the which
all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come
forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of
life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of
damnation. And this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone
which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have ever
lasting life : and I will raise him up at the last day.
No man can come to me, except the Father which hath
sent me draw him : and I will raise him up at the last day.
He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath
one that judgeth him : the word that I have spoken, the same
shall judge him in the last day.1
are insertions, perhaps by the hand which wrote the
twenty-first chapter, The Logos become flesh is
king in a realm of truth, and the Paraclete is the
principle of truth. Baur, in his opinion, is wrong
in thinking that the author wished to support the
Eastern view of the Paschal question ; he established
the Pauline spiritualism which would abolish all
feasts. The author is a philosophically trained
Gentile- Christian, and the date is about 150. In
Scholten's later work, The Oldest Witnesses,2 he can
find no trace of the Gospel before 170, and in discus
sing the residence in Asia Minor he came to the
1 John v. 28, 29 ; vi. 40, 44 ; 3 Die altesten Zeugnisse, p.
xii. 48. 180.

266 LECTURE V.
conclusion that John was never in Asia Minor and
was not the author of the Apocalypse.3
English: The modern negative school has had few advo
cates of any prominence among English writers upon
the Fourth Gospel — they have for the most part con
tented themselves by speaking of the work as already
accomplished on the Continent ; but the following
demand notice at our hands : —
Tayier, ]\jr> j_ j# Tayler, formerly Principal of Manchester
1869. New College, in an able and thoroughly candid but,
as it seems to me, an unconsciously partial criticism,
assigns the Gospel to the first half of the second cen
tury. The writer's investigations are made at first
hand, but he is largely guided by Hilgenfeld, especi
ally on the Paschal question,4 to which he devotes
no small part of his inquiry. It cannot but be re
gretted that it has been impossible to have the judg
ment of so real a scholar and thinker, since the new
lights which have been shed upon the criticism of
the Fourth Gospel during the last twenty years.
The opinion which Mr. Tayler formed was that
the Gospel is not the work of the Apostle, and was
probably written by John the Presbyter. He has
little doubt that the author of the Gospel and the
First Epistle were one and the same person. The
3 Cf. Hilgenfeld in opposition Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1872, pp.
to this : Zeitschrift fiir wissen- 325-330, and in Appendix to
schaftliche Theologie, 1872, pp. German edition of the Zeugnisse.
349-383, and Scholten's reply in 4 Cf. Lecture VIII. p. 424.

LECTURE V. 267
Gospel and the Apocalypse cannot be by the same
author.5 Mr. Tayler
found how impossible it was, in every case but that of Paul,
to establish satisfactory evidence of direct personal author
ship : and came at length to the full persuasion, that the one
point of importance to ascertain respecting any particular
book, was simply this ; — that, whoever might have written
it, it belonged to the first age, while the primitive inspiration
was still clear and strong, — and that it could be regarded as a
genuine expression of the faith and feeling which then pre
vailed.6 The work entitled Supernatural Religion 7 was Super-
published anonymously, and the name of the author Religion.
has never been authoritatively declared. The book
created for the moment a great sensation, and six
editions were issued in a little more than twelve
months.8 This treatise is not primarily a critical
discussion on the Fourth Gospel. It is, like the work
of Strauss, occupied with other matters, and a writer
who undertakes an inquiry about the Fourth Gospel,
after he has placed before his readers a lengthy
5 An Attempt to ascertain the 8 Preface, recently republished,
Character of the Fourth Gospel, in a reply to Dr. Lightfoot's
especially im, its Relation to the essays, to ed. 6, March 15, 1873.
Three First, London, 1867 ; ed. This preface contains a reply to
2, by J.[ames]M.[artineau], 1870; criticisms on the work. The
The Theological Review, vol. v. contents of the original edition
pp. 373-401, July 1868, review are arranged as follows : — Part I.
of Davidson's Introduction : cf. Miracles, vol. i. pp. 1-216 ;
infra, pp. 272 and 285. Part II. The Synoptic Gospels,
6 Preface, ut supra, 1867, p. vii. vol. i. pp. 217-490 ; vol. ii. pp.
7 Ed. 1, 2 vols. 1874 ; ed. 7, 1-250 ; Part III. The Fourth
' complete edition, carefully re- Gospel, vol. ii. pp. 251-492.
vised,' 1879.

268 LECTURE V.
negative criticism on miracles and the supernatural,
can hardly be said to approach the historical investi
gation with an open mind. The expectation will
be raised — and it is not disappointed — that the
author has adopted the extremer opinions of some
continental writers, and that he thinks the Johannine
authorship of the Fourth Gospel to be on all grounds
wholly unworthy of credit. For the sake of compari
son with some writers of the same school, the follow
ing statements may be noted : —
The external evidence that the Apostle John wrote the
Apocalypse is more ancient than that for the authorship of
any book of the New Testament, excepting some of the
Epistles of Paul.9
Whilst a strong family likeness exists between the
Epistles and the Gospel, and they exhibit close analogies
both in thought and language, the Apocalypse, on the con
trary, is so different from them in language, in style, in
religious views and terminology, that it is impossible to
believe that the writer of the one could be the author of the
other.1
Opinions The publication of this work naturally attracted
work by the attention of scholars ; and the criticism of Bishops
Lightfoot and Westcott, of Drs. Sanday and Ezra
Abbot produced permanent additions to theological
literature.2 Further criticism is not now needed, but
the general character of the book may be briefly
indicated by two or three examples. The following
9 Supernatural Beligion, ed. 1, 2 Cf. Lecture VI. pp. 336 and
part iii. vol. ii. p. 392. 343 sqq.
1 Ibid. p. 388.

LECTURE V. 269
notes will serve to show Dr. Zahn's view as to the zahn,
author's treatment of the Ignatian question : —
What I have already said against the author of the book
Supernatural Religion, who mixes up different recensions and
reiterates the most trifling arguments of others, must suffice.3
Volkmar had a follower in the writer of the book Super
natural Religion, more audacious even than himself.4
Similarly as to Polycarp : —
The author of the book Supernatural Religion also, doubt
ing whether he should say that the whole was supposititious
or that it was interpolated, repeated the arguments of Dallaeus
which had been refuted a thousand times. Lightfoot an
swered him splendidly, and in every way argued with great
ability on the integrity and authenticity of the Epistle.5

5

Ten years after its publication, when the con- Salmon.
troversy had ceased and the book was well-nigh for
gotten, this was Dr. Salmon's judgment upon it : —
The extreme captiousness of its criticism found no approval
from respectable foreign reviewers, however little they might
be entitled to be classed as believers in Revelation. Dates
were assigned in it to some of our New Testament books so
late as to shock anyone who makes an attempt fairly to judge
3 ' Contra auctorem libri Super- 5 ' Etiam auctor libri Super
natural Beligion i. 264 sq. , recen- natural Beligion, i. 274-278, ed.
siones diversas conf undentem et 2, haesitans, utrum totam supposi-
aliorum levissima argumenta ite- ticiam, an interpolatam diceret,
rantem sufnciunt, quae dixi Ign. argumenta Dallaei sexcenties re-
117 sq.' Pair. Ap. Opp. fasc. ii. f utata repetivit. Egregie illi re-
1876, p. vi. spondit et omnino de integritate
4 ' Sectatorem ipso auctore atque authentia epistulae optime
[Volkmaro] audaciorem habuit disputavit Lightfootius (Contemp.
scriptorem libri Supernatural Review, 1875, May, p. 838-852).'
Religion, i. 268.' — Ibid. p. xii. Ibid. p. xiv.

270 LECTURE V.
of evidence. And the reason is, that the author starts with
the denial of the supernatural as his fixed principle. . . . This
book .... obtained a good deal of notoriety by dint of
enormous puffing, great pains having been taken to produce
a belief that Bishop Thirlwall was the author. The aspect of
the pages, bristling with learned references, strengthened the
impression that the author must be a scholar of immense
reading. The windbag collapsed when Lightfoot showed
that this supposed Bishop Thirlwall did not possess even a
schoolboy acquaintance with Greek and Latin, and that his
references were in some cases borrowed wholesale, in others
did not prove the things for which they were cited, and very
often appealed to writers whose opinion is of no value. But
what I wish here to remark is, that what really made the
book worthless was not its want of scholarship, but its want
of candour. . . . want of candour vitiates a book through
and through. There is no profit in examining the conclu
sions arrived at by a writer who never seems to care on which
side lies the balance of historic probability, but only which
conclusion will be most disagreeable to the assertors of the
supernatural. For myself, I find instruction in studying the
results arrived at by an inquirer who strives to be candid,
whether he be orthodox or not ; but I have little curiosity to
find out the exact amount of evidence which would leave a
captious objector without a word to say in justification of his
refusal to admit it.6
Abbott, Dr. Edwin A. Abbott, late Master of the City
¦I QQQ_ i
of London School, must be classed among those who
do not admit S. John's authorship or Justin's use
of the Fourth Gospel, but his able and interesting
articles are, as might have been expected from a
scholar of the writer's position, widely different in
tone from the preceding English work. His general
6 Historical Introduction to the Neiv Testament, ed. 2, pp. 9, 10.

LECTURE V, 271
conclusion as to the external evidence, based upon a
somewhat cursory examination, is
that, although some of the doctrine of the Fourth Gospel,
expressed in words similar to the words of the Fourth Gospel,
was probably current in the Ephesian church towards the
end of the first half of the second century, yet it was not by
that time widely used, if at all, as an authoritative document;
nor have we proof that it was so used till the times of Irenseus,
i.e., towards the end of the second century, by which time the
Gospel was authoritatively quoted as a work of John ; and
those who so quoted it probably meant by ' John,' John the
son of Zebedee, the apostle.7
After a fuller examination of the internal evidence
the writer comes to this conclusion : —
It is more easy to arrive at negative than at positive re
sults, when evidence is so slight ; but it seems probable that
the author, attempting to give the spiritual essence of the
gospel of Christ, as a gospel of love, and assigning the
Ephesian Gospel to the beloved disciple who had presided
over the Ephesian church, by way of honour and respect
(for the same reasons which induced the author of the 2nd
Epistle of Peter to assign that Epistle to the leading apostle),
and being at the same time conscious that the book (though
representing the Ephesian doctrine generally, and in part the
traditions of John the apostle, as well as those of Andrew,
Philip, Aristion, and John the elder) did not represent the
exact words and teaching of the disciple — added the words
' We know, &c.,' partly as a kind of imprimatur of Andrew,
Philip, and the rest; partly in order to imply that other
traditions besides those of John are set forth in the book ;
partly to characterize the book as a Gospel of broader basis and
7 Article Gospels, in Encyclo- Fourth Gospel, in Modern Review,
pxdia Britannica, ed. 9, 1879, 1882, pp. 559-588 ; 716-756. Cf.
vol. x. p. 824 ; Justin's Use of the Lecture II. p. 80.

272 LECTURE V.
greater authority than the less spiritual traditions issuing
from non-apostolic authors, which our evangelist desired to
correct or supplement.8
Dr. Abbott thinks that 'there is unusually strong
evidence to show that John the apostle wrote the
Apocalypse ; ' and regards the First Epistle, with
Dr. Lightfoot, ' as a kind of postscript to the
Gospel.' 9
Davidson, But the most important representative of the
negative school among English writers is Dr. Samuel
Davidson, wdio has occupied for nearly half a cen
tury a prominent place among biblical critics. This
writer's direct influence on the study of English
biblical criticism must have been considerable, and
his indirect influence has been probably still greater.
It is therefore necessary to our present subject — the
negative criticism of our age — to devote to it more
space than could be afforded to writers whose emi
nence might seem to have stronger claims. For
this reason the statement of his position has been
reserved for the close of the present lecture.
His Intro- His earlier work, an Introduction to the New Testa
ment1 published just forty years ago, specially appeals
to the suffrages of scholars. Its opening page bears
the well-known words of Milton : —
Dedica- It is to the Learned that I address myself, or if it be
tion. thought that the Learned are not the best Umpires and Judges
8 Article Gospels, ut supra, p. 1 An Introduction to the New
841. Testament, 3 vols. 1848-51.
9 Ibid. pp. 818, 819.

LECTURE V. 273
of such things, I should at least wish to submit my Opinion
to Men of a mature and manly Understanding, possessing a
thorough Knowledge of the Doctrines of the Gospel ; on whose
Judgments I should rely with far more Confidence, than on
those of Novices in these Matters.
And the closing paragraph of the preface contains
the same thought : —
If it obtain the approbation of competent judges, his time
will not have been spent in vain.2
The author is himself a competent judge of the The newer
newer criticism, and refers to it in the following
terms : —
It is the Writer's belief that the books of the New Testa
ment are destined ere long to pass through a severe ordeal. The
translations of various Continental works which have recently
appeared in England, and the tendency of certain speculations
in philosophy, indicate a refined scepticism or a pantheistic
spirit which confounds the objective and the subjective, or unduly
subordinates the former to the latter. Many are disposed to
exalt their intuitions too highly, to the detriment of the his
torical, as Kant did his ' Pure Reason.'
These observations will serve to show why the Author has
gone with considerable fulness into objections that have been
urged in modern times against the New Testament books, and
especially against the Gospels. He thinks it highly probable
that such objections will appear in one shape or other in this
country. Hence he has partially anticipated their currency.
. . . Hence the Author has noticed the researches of the Tii
bingen school of theologians, not from a desire to make known
extravagant and startling assertions to an English Public, but
because his work would not otherwise have been complete ;
and because he thinks it not improbable that similar doubts
2 An Introduction, etc. , p. x.

274 LECTURE V.
may be introduced into England, and may meet with accept
ance from certain minds which are predisposed to welcome
the new and the destructive however intrinsically false.3
In another place the author tells us that
He has intentionally overlooked no source of information with
which he is acquainted, English or foreign ; and if he has not
everywhere chosen to specify each one, it should be recollected
that he had to exercise his own judgment in mentioning
the most important, and such as are least known to general
readers.4 Once again he reminds us that
He has prosecuted his studies in the New Testament by
day and by night, for several years, in the belief that though
the work to which he had committed himself was indeed most
difficult, it behoved him, while life and health remained, to do
something for the illustration and defence of God's holy word,
at a time when scepticism of a peculiar order prevails in the
land. He can truly say, that he has tried to be impartial in
his inquiries, divesting himself of preconceived notions as far
as they might impede research. . . . He must say, however,
that he has no sympathy with the avowed advocates of systems,
creeds, and parties. . . . He appeals to the honest lovers of
truth — to the patient inquirers after God's will in the New
Testament — to the anxious and humble student of books
claiming to be sacred because of heavenly origin.5
The The author who set this task before himself, and
position, entered upon it in this spirit of freedom and devotion
to truth, had special qualifications for his work. He
was in the prime of his manhood.6 He had been for
3 Introduction, ut supra, vol. i. 5 Ibid. vol. iii. 1851, pp. xi, xii.
1848, pp. vi, vii. 6 Forty-one to forty-four : born
4 Ibid. vol. ii., 1849, pp. v, vi. 1807.

LECTURE V. 275
six years, 1835-1841, Professor of Biblical Criticism
at Belfast to the General Synod of Ulster ; and for a
like period, from 1842, Professor of Biblical Litera
ture and Ecclesiastical History in the Lancashire
Independent College at Manchester. The University
of Aberdeen had conferred upon him the degree of
LL.D. in 1838, and he had already published a series
of important works on this and cognate subjects.7
In writing the Introduction, the author was, as he
himself informs us,
encouraged by the favourable opinions of scholars in this land,
in Germany, and in America, whose names stand in the fore
most rank of learning,8
and, excepting a somewhat excessive strength of
statement from which the writer is seldom free, the
favourable opinion was fully earned. The book had
no equal in the English language at the time ; it has
in some respects no equal now.
The portion of the work which is devoted to the His view
Fourth Gospel contains 147 closely printed large 8vo Fourth
pages, which deal with all the chief problems con- °spe
nected with the authorship. The following extracts
will sufficiently show the result of the writer's careful
inquiry : —
It is difficult to say what evidence would be satisfactory to
some. Much depends on the disposition with which they
7 Lectures on Biblical Critic- Ecclesiastical Polity of the New
ism, 1839 ; Sacred Hermeneutics, Testament, 1848, Schaff-Herzog,
1843 ; Gieseler's Compendium of Encyclopedia ; Supplement, p. 49 .
Ecclesiastical History, translated 8 Ut supra, vol. iii. p. xi.
from the German, 1846-47 ; i 2

276 LECTURE V.
commence their researches, for they may have a strong feeling
against the acceptance of all testimony, except what the
circumstances of the case do not warrant. It is natural to
seek for express and direct testimonies ; but they cannot
always be found. In the field of criticism, approximations to
historic truth will necessarily constitute the results beyond
which an inquirer cannot go. He must combine the materials
before him, weigh minute circumstances, and draw conclusions
in many cases where irresistible evidence is wanting. He must
be often contented with probability instead of certainty. It is
idle to demand tangible proof on every occasion.9
Again —
When those who date the origin of our Gospel in the second
century venture to specify the precise time or nearly so at
which it appeared, it is easy to demonstrate the impossibility
of its immediate and general reception as a sacred book by the
catholic church. On their hypothesis it started, as if by a
miracle, into common use and authority. There was none to
detect or expose the fraud. Men who had been John's dis
ciples, or who had conversed with him or his disciples, did
not venture to raise their voice against the supposititious
work. All were deceived, or disgracefully silent respecting
the imposture. They discarded other apocryphal productions ;
they would not admit other spurious Gospels, while they un
hesitatingly adopted this. Whoever can believe the truth of
such a representation is far more credulous than the early
Christians, whose easy faith forms an object of his contempt.1
Again —
Conclu- In bringing our remarks on the authenticity of the fourth
sion as to Gospel to a close, we cannot refrain from expressing our deep
and growing conviction of the historical fidelity by which the
sacred document is pervaded. That it bears the impress of
9 Introduction, ut supra, vol. i. 1 Ibid. vol. i. pp. 270, 271.
p. 254.

LECTURE V. 277
the beloved disciple, fresh and vivid from his tender spirit, its
appears to us unquestionable. And that it purports to be from authen-
his pen is not less apparent. There are, it is true, difficulties
connected with it which may never be satisfactorily resolved,
amid our ignorance of the circumstances in which it appeared ;
but such difficulties belong in part to every ancient book, and
are immeasurably increased in the present case, on the suppo
sition of our Gospel having originated in the second century on
Hellenistic ground. The man who could exhibit such a por
trait of Christ from his own reflection and fancy at that later
period, must have been a prodigy to which the century pre
sents nothing approaching to a parallel ; for it need not be
told how barren that century was in individuals of creative
intellect and large heart, like the author of the document in
question. And then it must be maintained, not only that
he produced a work equally removed from the anthropomor
phic, material religiousness, as from the narrow intellectuality
of his day, but that he remained in miraculous concealment.
The spirit, elevated so far above his countrymen and contem
poraries, giving utterance to such aspects of Christ's character
as have attracted universal humanity in all future time, con
tinued unknown. Exerting, as he did, immeasurable influence
on the consciousness of the Christian church, he was always
buried in impenetrable obscurity. And yet he was able to
procure universal acceptance for his work as though it really
belonged to an apostolic time, and to an eye-witness of the
sufferings of Christ. He completely succeeded in his impos
ture. The few great ideas which he clothed with flesh and
blood, commended themselves with astonishing readiness to
the mind and heart of the Christian world, undetected in their
source, age, and aim. Those who can believe all this, with
Baur and his school, have renounced all claim to genuine
historical criticism, by abandoning themselves to a reckless
caprice, where calmness of investigation and unbiassed love
of truth are entirely wanting.2
2 Introduction, ut supra, vol. i. pp. 311, 312.

278 LECTURE V.
Second Less than twenty years later Dr. Davidson
introduc- publislied his second Introduction? He regarded it
not as a new edition of the earlier work, but as an
essentially new work. He was
determined to conduct his investigations as though he had
never written on the subject.
He claims, and no one will question the claim, that
twenty years' study may well modify, correct, or enlarge
views to which an honest though less perfect investigation
had formerly led.4
His views are, again,
not put forward lightly, but after anxious thought.5

view

Change of When and under what influences the process of
modifying, correcting, and enlarging commenced is
not told. In 1848 the conviction of the historical
fidelity of the Fourth Gospel is so strong that an
expression of it cannot be refrained, and it is still
' growing.' 6 In the preface to the concluding volume
of the work,7 the same general tone is maintained.8
In 1868 the growing tree of 1851 has been plucked
5 An Introduction to the Study geblieben, wie in der Auflage von
of the New Testament, 2 vols., 1868 . . .' Schiirer, Theologische
1868. In the second edition of Liter aturzeitung, 1882, No. 17,
this work, published in 1882, the p. 394.
matter is rearranged and in part 4 Ut supra, 1868, vol. i. pp. vii,
rewritten so as to incorporate the viii.
more recent negative criticisms. 5 Lbid. p. ix.
The standpoint is the same, and 6 Ut supra, vol. i. 1848, p. 311.
there are no material additions. 7 May 15, 1851.
' Der Standpunkt des Verfassers 8 Ut supra, vol. iii. 1851, pp. xi,
im Allgemeinen ist aber derselbe xii.

LECTURE V. 279
out by the roots, and hardly any mark of its exist
ence left behind, for another tree of sturdy growth
has taken its place. The later views have long been
in process of formation ; but the earlier views seem
also to have satisfied the author's convictions, for he
himself frankly tells us : —
Though often requested by correspondents to write another
book, he could not think of doing so while his earlier one
remained unexhausted.9
The new views of the Fourth Gospel cannot be on the
better described than in the words which the author Gospel.
himself applies to the difference between the John of
the New Testament and the writer of the Gospel : —
The development ... is too great for belief. It is not a
development, so much as an entire change of views — an
interior metamorphosis which could not have been followed
by a serenity perfectly free from traces of the process it
succeeded. We can hardly suppose that the mental conflicts
of the writer had entirely passed away.1
It is not merely that the writer now holds the date
to be ' about a.d. 150,' and naively confesses,
Keim's date, A.d. 110-117 under Trajan, makes it exceedingly
difficult to disprove Johannine authorship.2
It is not that he has modified many of his views and
arrived at different results ; but at almost every chief
point in the discussion the later opinions are the
9 Introduction, ut supra, 1868, 2 Lbid. vol. ii. p. 426. Keim
vol. i. p. vii. afterwards put the date at about
1 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 442. 130 : supra, p. 260.

280 LECTURE V.
exact opposite of the earlier ones. It is as though a
corrector for the press had written ' for is read is not,
for is not read is passim.' Nor is the reader allowed
to see anywhere the process by which the change is
arrived at. The discussion of ' The Gospel of John '
occupies 146 pages of the new work. Much of it is
entirely new, much of the old matter is entirely
omitted, and the reader is allowed to wade through
these pages without a hint that the author had more
fully still established all through the opposite con
clusions, and without an attempt to show that the
earlier statements are erroneous or the earlier argu
ments inconclusive.
similar Nor is this inconsistency of criticism confined to
of the S. John. To examine it at any length would be
beyond the limits of the present inquiry, but the
discussion of one other book — the Acts of the
Apostles, which comes next in order, and the treat
ment of which is intimately bound up with our
present subject— will provide another illustration of
the writer's method. In 1868 this is his opinion : —
These observations lead to the conclusion that the object
of the writer was conciliatory. He had two parties in view,
Jewish- and Gentile-christian, which he wished to bring
nearer to one another. In the interest of that object he
moulds the history. A Gentile-christian himself, and regard
ing Paul as the great apostle, he shows how near he comes
to Peter and the other apostles in conduct and sentiments,
while fully equal to them in official qualifications. ... To
further Pauline Christianity by bringing the two ecclesiastical
parties more closely together, was the author's leading aim.

Acts.

LECTURE V. 281
This opinion is confirmed by the third gospel, in which the
writer was actuated by a like purpose. . . . From the con
tents of the first chapter compared with the end of the
gospel, an interval of several years must be put between the
two books, bringing the date of the Acts to about a.d. 125.3
So far our author. Now here are Hegel's trinity
and Baur's tendency pure and simple. Previous
quotations show that the writer had, in 1848-51,
already examined and rejected these theories as a
whole. The following words will show his view of
them as applied to the Acts : —
In taking leave of this topic, we hesitate not to assert that
the idea of the book being fabricated by a later unknown
writer, with whatever motive he set about the task, involves
the improbable, not to say the impossible, at every step. The
fabricator must have had the Pauline epistles before him,
and studied them with the most minute attention. After
becoming intimately familiar with their contents, even to the
smallest and apparently the most unimportant particulars, he
sat down to write in such a way as to incorporate many
notices derived from them with his materials. Here he
needed consummate skill, lest the deception should be detected.
The art demanded for the work was of the most refined and
exquisite nature. Where did such a man appear in the early
times of Christianity ? It is impossible to point to a pheno
menon so marvellous as this. The wakefulness and talents of
the person who palmed the history on his own generation as
the authentic production of Paul's companion, must have been
extraordinary. Not so constructed are the forgeries of that
period. They are clumsy and inartificial. They have there
fore been detected long ago by the test of fair criticism.
But the book of Acts has stood this test, unshaken. It was
reserved indeed for Hegelianism to expose its alleged preten-
3 Introduction, 1868, ut supra, vol. ii. pp. 280, 282.

282 LECTURE V.
sions : a species of hypercriticism which would soon reduce
the genuine histories of all antiquity to nonentities or
forgeries. But we are confident that the credibility of the
Acts will be universally acknowledged long after the negative
criticism has vanished away like every temporary extrava
gance of unbridled reason, or rather of unbridled scepticism.
If there were the least prospect of Baur's opinion regarding
the Acts becoming current, we should refer the reader to
Kling,4 who has satisfactorily exposed and refuted the
attempt to give the history a mythic character, or in other
words to reduce it to an apologetic fiction.5
Criticism Now there are more than ordinary reasons for
on this # . . i
change, treating the work of Dr. Samuel Davidson with
respectful deference. The venerable author is more
than fourscore years of age, and is therefore pro
tected from the shafts of criticism. But truth de
mands from us a reverence more entire even than
that which we owe to age ; and when a critic of
Dr. Davidson's position is put forward as one of the
few men among us who is free from prejudice, and
whose opinion should therefore command our assent,
it is clearly a duty which cannot be rightly avoided,
to inquire what is the real value of that opinion.
In the presence of the exaggerated estimate of
German works on the New Testament so often made,
not by German but by English writers, in deprecia
tion of the works of their countrymen, and the
high estimate of Dr. Davidson's work on the ground
that it represents the latest result of German scholar-
4 Theologische Studien und Kri- 5 Ut supra, vol. ii. 1849, pp. 51,
tiken, 1837, Heft ii. pp. 290-327. 52.

LECTURE V. 283
ship, the following extract from a review of the by
second edition of his new Introduction, by Dr. Emil
Schiirer, is not unimportant. It will hardly be
necessary to state that Dr. Schiirer does not write
from the point of view of a conservative orthodoxy,
or of belief in the Johannine authorship of the Fourth
Gospel. The broad platform of the Literary Journal,
which is edited by Dr. Schiirer in connexion with
Dr. Harnack, and the high character of its articles,
are known to all students : —
Davidson was a student in Germany, and is well acquainted
with German literature. He prizes it highly, almost too
highly, even to the point of being unjust towards researches
in his own country. Por his summary rejection of all recent
English commentaries on the New Testament (p. vi. imperfect,
however, as are all English commentaries of recent origin) is
not justified in view of Lightfoot's valuable works. With
his preference for German literature, he confines himself
almost solely to the works of German theologians whom he
mentions, and with whose views he deals. If it were not for
the garb of a foreign language, one might often fancy that this
book was written in Germany. The author has not, however,
made very full reference to recent German literature. Among
reviews, he chiefly uses Hilgenfeld's Review of Scientific
Theology, while other contributions to the subject of the New
Testament which have lately appeared in German reviews are
almost entirely ignored. In other ways his use of recent
literature is very limited, although the survey as a whole is
brought down to the latest date. This survey of recent
literature, however, as well as several modifications in his
own views, have necessitated various incidental changes in
the present edition.6
6 Schiirer, Theologische Liter aturzeitung, 1882, ut supra, No. 17,
p. 394.

284 LECTURE V.
Both Dr. Davidson may have always been, and may
views -i
cannot be now be, and it is not intended in the slightest degree
'8 to suggest that he has not been, or is not, a perfectly
candid inquirer after truth, but his judgment may
have been quite unconsciously warped by circum
stances, just as that of other men has been. If the
Dr. Davidson of forty years ago, writing with so
much preparation and with so many advantages of
every kind, and with such a solemn sense of respon
sibility, was in any degree right in his views of the
Fourth Gospel, then the Dr. Davidson of to-day is in
the same degree wrong. It is a case of Hume and
Mackintosh over again,7 and we are bound to form
our own opinion as to which view is the correct one,
It should be based upon a perusal of both works. To
my own mind the earlier work has a calm dignity of
strength which is absent from the later one ; and
for my own part I have little doubt that an en
tirely impartial mind, trained to examine and esti
mate evidence, would, if his reading were limited
to the works of Dr. Samuel Davidson, decide in
His favour of the Johannine authorship. And in the
position _ '¦
between case of Dr. Davidson, as in the case of Strauss,8
the- two ,
editions, much had passed between the two editions of his
work. In the year 1857 he resigned the Professor
ship of Biblical Literature and Ecclesiastical His
tory in the Lancashire Independent College, 'in
consequence of an adverse vote of the managing
committee, apparently founded upon the view of
7 Cf. Lecture I. pp. 12 sq. 8 Cf. Lecture IV. p. 108.

LECTURE V. 285
inspiration expressed in the second volume of the
tenth edition of Home's Introduction? 9 that is, upon
a question of Old Testament criticism which had
nothing whatever to do with the authenticity and
genuineness of the Fourth Gospel or of any book of
the New Testament. Dr. Davidson's position in this
controversy, especially in the attack which was made
upon his scholarship,1 was one in which he deserved,
and received, the full sympathy of his brother critics
of all schools ; but it is impossible not to ask what
would have been the result if the vote of the major
ity of the committee of the Lancashire Independent
College had been a different one. It is impossible
not to regret that Dr. Davidson has not given us
more full reasons for his change of view in the
almost numberless points in which that view has been
changed ; and it is impossible not to feel that the
claim made by his friends 2 — I know of no occa
sion on which he has made any such claim for him
self — that he is the striking example of absolute
freedom from bias, when compared with men whose
scholarship and integrity and freedom from bias
are certainly as little subject to question as his own,
and whose position in criticism has been a well-
ordered and consistent whole, is one which cannot
be sustained.
9 Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopedia; 2 See e.g. Athenseum, No.
Supplement, p. 49. 3232, 5th October 1889, p. 448 ;
1 See, e.g. Dr. Davidson, his Nineteenth Century, March 1889
Heresies, Contradictions, and Pla- p. 468.
giarisms, 1857, by two graduates.

286 LECTURE V.
The two The second edition of Mr. Tayler's essay, to
critics : which reference has been made in this lecture,3 wras
published after his death under the editorial care of
Dr. James his fViend and successor Dr. James Martineau ; but
Marti- . . \
neau, the work has no important additions from the editor's
hand. Dr. Martineau's remarkable position in the
regard of this generation of thinkers has been gained
on the field of philosophy and ethics, rather than on
that of criticism or exegesis ; but between the years
1872 and 1875, he published a series of papers in a
New England monthly periodical,4 which included
some essays on the Fourth Gospel. The series was
not completed, because the periodical itself came to
an end, and occupation with the important works
which have in the meantime been given to us and
have met with most thankful acceptance, has hitherto
prevented their author from presenting them in a
finished and a permanent form.
His gene- But during the interval which has occurred in
tion°S1 ^s course of lectures, in consequence of the arrange
ment of the University terms, Dr. Martineau has
published a volume on authority in religion, which
is largely a re-working of the earlier papers, and
includes some sections on the writings that are com
monly ascribed to S. John.5 The author discloses
3 Supra, pp. 266 sq. suggestive : ' The New does not
4 Old and New, Boston. The supplant the Old, but completes
papers on the Fourth Gospel were it.' — Everett.
published in the numbers for July 5 Martineau : The Seat of Au-
and August, 1874, vol. x. pp. 47- thority in Beligion, 1890, pp. 189-
58 and 201-222. 243 and 509-12.
The motto of the magazine is

LECTURE V. 287
his position in the preface, which tells us ' that,
under such guidance as that of Scholten, Hatch,
Pfleiderer, Holtzmann, Harnack, and Weizsacker,6
even a veteran student may find it possible, with
no very wide reading, to readjust his judgments to
the altered conditions of the time.' 7 And of these
writers it would seem, if we may judge by results,
that Scholten has been chief guide in so far as con
cerns the writings of S. John. But it will be pos
sible to state Dr. Martineau's conclusions very briefly
and in his own words.
On the unity of composition he thinks : — His views
J r on the
Whether or not it rightly bears the name of the apostle composi-
John, it is, at all events, free from the doubts and complica- tion.
tions arising from the process of growth out of prior materials
of different dates : it needs no analysis into component
elements ; it is plainly a whole, the production of a single
mind, — a mind imbued with a conception of its subject con
sistent and complete, and not less distinct for being mystical
and of rare spiritual depth.8
On the power of detecting the author by the Author.
writing, he says :—
No such divination is possible ; and wherever a critic
pretends, by the mere keenness of his unaided eye, to have
detected the writer in some unheard-of quarter, — like the
Zurich scholar who made out that this very Gospel was
certainly the production of Apollos,9 — we justly look on the
6 But cf. Weizsacker's view of 8 Op. cit. p. 189, and Article in
the Fourth Gospel as stated in Old and New, ut supra, p. 47.
this lecture, supra, p. 257. 9 ' Die Evangelienfrage, Denk-
7 Seat of Authority, ut supra, schrift, Ziirich, 1858.' Cf. supra,
Preface, p. vi. pp. 249 sq.

288 LECTURE V.
pretension as audacious, and its proofs as a waste of ingenuity.
We are absolutely dependent, for the first suggestion of an
author's name, on the witnesses who speak of it ; and any
disabilities attaching to these witnesses must seriously affect
our reliance on their reports, and throw a greater burden on
the internal confirmatory proofs. The primary and substan
tive evidence is testimonial; which, once given, may gain
weight by various congruities, or lose it by incongruities in
the writing itself; but which, if not given, can be replaced
by neither.1
External The results of the external testimony are stated
evidence. „ ....
as follows : —
Can we, then, sum up the testimony of our witnesses to
any definite result ? From various quarters the line of their
evidence seems to converge upon one time for the origin of
this Gospel. [Probably] not known to Justin (about 155),
but possibly to the author of the Clementines (about 170) ;
not in the hands of Valentinus (about 160), but in those of
his disciples, Ptolemaeus and Herakleon (180 and 190); not
used by Marcion (about 150), but by Marcionites of the next
generation; cited by Apollinaris (about 175); for the first
time named by Theophilus of Antioch (about 180) ; the
fourth Gospel would seem to have become known in the
sixth or seventh decade of the second century, and to have
ceased to be anonymous in the eighth. Time must be
allowed, prior to these dates, for its gradual distribution from
the place of its nativity to the literary centres of the church
and of the Gnostic sects. But even the most liberal allow
ance, which, consistently with the habits of the age and the
organization of Christendom, can be claimed for this purpose,
will leave us a long way from the apostolic generation. We
cannot confidently name any earlier date than the fifth
decade of the century. [This conclusion will not be affected,
1 Seat of Authority, ut supra, p. 191 ; and Article, p. 48.

LECTURE V. 289
even if we allow Justin to have had the Gospel in his
hands.2] Turning to the internal evidence, Dr. Martineau internal
evidence.
says : —
[The conclusion seems forced upon us, that the Apostolical
authorship of the fourth Gospel receives no adequate support
from either claim on its own part, or competent external
testimony.3] And, again : —
These several features do not encourage us to look for the
fourth evangelist anywhere within the circle of the twelve ;
and against his identification with John in particular special
objections force themselves upon us from his recorded
character.4 On the relation to the Apocalypse, our author TheApo-
willingly embraces Vischer's theory — that this writ- caypse"
ing is a Christian overworking of an original Jewish
document — which obtained considerable acceptance
in 1886 through Harnack's testimony,6 and concludes
that : —
[It cannot therefore have been issued before a.d. 136,
and is altogether post-apostolic. . . .
2 Op. cit. p. 208 ; Article, p. identification with John in par-
58. The portions in the text ticular special objections force
marked thus [ ] are not in the themselves upon us from the re-
Article, corded character and extant book
3 Op. cit. p. 211. Not in the of this apostle.' Article, ut supra,
Article. p. 206.
4 Op. cit. pp. 216 sq. ' These 5 ' Die Offenbarung Johannis
several features do not forbid us eine Jiidische Apokalypse in
to look for the fourth evangelist Christlicher Bearheitung ; mit
anywhere within the circle of einem Nach wort von A. Harnack,
the twelve ; and against his 1886.' U

290 LECTURE V.
What then is the effect of the new discovery (if such it
be) respecting the Apocalypse or the question of authorship
for the fourth Gospel ? Simply this : the Apocalypse is put
out of court altogether as a witness in the case. Stripped of
its own apostolic pretension, it has nothing to say either for
or against that of the Gospel : and the old argument against
either from its violent contrast with the other can no longer
be pressed.6]
The Pas- On the Paschal controversy his remarks lead to
chal con- ,
troversy. the statement : —
Here, then, is the whole authority of the Apostle John,
his personal habit, and the usage which formed itself under
his influence, brought to bear against the historical statement
and doctrinal conception of the fourth Gospel. How could
this be, if at Smyrna, at Ephesus, and throughout the region
where his name was a power, that Gospel had been current
as his legacy, and its representation of the last earthly days of
Christ had been received as accredited by him ? The features
of his life and thought which these traditions preserve are
precisely what this Gospel resists and banishes.7
The When he considers the ' Marks of Time,' he
' Marks of -, . •.
Time.' think S : 
Not only is the evangelist other than the apostle [and
other than the Ephesian John of the Apocalypse] : he plainly
belongs to another age. He uses a dialect, and speaks in
tones, to which the first century was strange, and which
were never heard till a generation born in the second was in
mid-life.8 From all quarters, then, does evidence flow in, that the
only Gospel which is composed and not merely compiled and
6 Seat of Authority, ut supra, 8 Op. cit. p. 236 ; Article, p.
p. 227. 217. The portions in [ ] are not
7 Op. cit. p. 235 ; and Article, in the Article.
p. 217.

LECTURE V. 291
edited, and for which, therefore, a single writer is responsible,
has its birthday in the middle of the second century, and is
not the work of a witness at all.9
Later in the work he discusses briefly the rela- The First
tion of the First Epistle to the Gospel, his opinion pis
being : —
[But though long held in suspense by the apparent
equipoise of the evidence for and against their identity of
origin, I am at last more impressed by a few fundamental
differences of religious conception pervading the two writings,
than by several agreements in terminology and secondary
categories of thought, which point to some common relation
to the same school.1]
It would be quite unnecessary to criticize the
results at which Dr. Martineau has arrived, even if
it were consistent with our purpose to do so. They
represent the negative standpoint of twenty years
ago as seen in Mr. Tayler's work,, with the fresh
lights of Scholten and others, whose names Dr.
Martineau has told us. We do not need to be
reminded that these results would be fatal to some
of the chief positions 2 of other leaders of the negative
criticism which we have already considered ; nor yet
that Dr. Martineau's guides are not the only or the
most important authorities of the last twenty years
9 Op. cit. p. 242 ; Article, p. then the whole series of argu-
221. menta against the authorship of
1 Op. cit. p. 509. Not in the the Gospel on the ground of the
Article. differences between these writings
2 If, for example, the Apo- would be cancelled.
calypse is not the work of S. John, v 2

292 LECTURE V.
upon the subject of the Fourth Gospel. It is a serious
defect that this veteran thinker has not allowed
other lights also to fall upon his pages.
Dr. Martineau is not, moreover, the only writer on
the philosophy of religion who has lately directed his
attention to criticism, and has given us the mature
results of his studies during this Easter vacation.
Dr. Hugo Dr. Hugo Delff, who had before written several
i84ol treatises on religious and philosophical subjects, pub
lished last year a work on the History of Jesus of
Nazareth? and has now completed the statement of
his views by a special essay od the Fourth Gospel.4
He has certainly devoted considerable attention to the
chief authorities on the subject, which he has studied
both in the Hebrew and the Greek sources ; and he
is not lacking in confidence as to the results. He
cannot indeed understand — it is nothing short of
ridiculous — that men had not long ago seen that
which is so simple and obvious now that he has seen
it. The parallel which occurs to him is that of
Columbus and the egg.5 Nor will he have it called
3 Die Geschichte des Rabbi Jesus priesterlichem oder hohepriester-
voti Nazareth. No date. Pref. lichem Geschlecht, und nicht der
Pfingsten, 1889. See esp. pp. ApostelJohannes war. Das Neue
67-207. und zwar je einfacher, je naher
4 Das vierte Evangelium, ein liegend, also je frappanter es ist,
authentischer Bericht iiber Jesus erscheint paradox. Aber man
von Nazareth wiederhergestellt, befreie sich nur vom Vorurtheil
iibersetzt und erklart, 1890. Vor- zwinge sich, mit Unbefangenheit
bericht, 'im Marz.' mit Objectivitiit zu sehen und zu
5 ' Wir haben nun also hier lesen, so wird es einleuchtend.
aus bester Quelle erfahren, dass Es ist zwar lacherlich, dass man
unser Verfasser ein Jude aus nicht langst das Richtio-e erkannt

LECTURE V. 293
a theory : it is nothing short of a historical dis
covery.6 Our philosophers are agreed in the fullest assur- views of
~. LLlGSG
ance that no word of the Fourth Gospel can be critics on
rightly assigned to the Apostle John ; but here their
agreement begins and ends.
One thinks that ' . . .we are thrown upon the eyewitness,
remains of popular tradition collected by our syn
optists,' . . . which ' cannot pretend to carry the
guarantee of known and nameable eye-witnesses.' 7
The other thinks that he has vindicated the Fourth
Gospel as the work of an eye-witness and 'the one
historical title-deed of Christianity.' 8
Dr. Martineau is quite certain that the work is by unity,
one writer, whoever he may be.9 Dr. DelfF is not
less satisfied that, in addition to the universally recog
nized interpolations, in which he includes the twenty-
first chapter, he can detect a number of smaller ones,
and several very considerable sections, which are no
part of the original.1
hat. Aber das Einfachste ist Epigonenthums gewesen.' Die
immer das Schwerste, das Nachst- Geschichte, ut supra, p. 72.
liegende das Entfernteste ; es 6 ' Meine Auffassung ist also
geht wie mit demEi des Columbus. keine Hypothese . . . sondern ein
Auch riihrt die mangelnde Ein- historischer Fund.' Das vierte
sicht daher, dass bisher fast nur Evangelium, u.s.w., ut supra,
Theologen sich mit diesen Fragen Vorbericht, p. vii.
beschaftigt haben, also Solche, 7 Martineau, ut supra, p. 243.
die entweder als Verfasser durch- 8 Delff, Das vierte Evangelium,
aus den Apostel Johannes haben ut supra, p. 1.
wollten, oder Einen, der nicht 9 Ut supra, p. 189.
nur nicht Apostel, sondern auch x 'In meiner "Geschichte des
nicht einmal Augenzeuge, sondern Rabbi Jesus " habe ich nach-
dogmatischer Speculant spatesten gewiesen, dass das vierte Evan-

294 LECTURE V.
period, Dr. Martineau regards it as established that the
writer of the Fourth Gospel ' uses a dialect, and
speaks in tones, to which the first century was
strange, and which were never heard till a genera
tion born in the second was in mid-life ; ' 2 . . . ' not
till we listen to the Apologists, in the time of the
Antonines, does this new language fall upon the
ear.' 3 Dr. Delff thinks it to be clear that the work
is distinctly the product of Judaism ; that it belongs
to Jerusalem, when the sacred city was still standing ;
and that its special purpose was not that the heathen,
or even the Jews, in a wide sense, but that the class
to which the writer belonged — the rulers, the chief
priests — should believe.4
subjective Dr. Martineau thinks that ' wherever a critic pre-
criticism, .
tends, by the mere keenness of his unaided eye, to
have detected the author in some unheard-of quarter,
... we justly look on the pretension as audacious,
and its proofs as a waste of ingenuity.' 5 Dr. Delff
regards the theory that the author was a person
named John, a dweller in Jerusalem, of high-priestly
rank,6 who became a disciple of Jesus, and after the
gelium in der Gestalt, in der es 20, 11 — 19.' Das vierte Evan-
in den Kanon aufgenommen ist, gelium; ut supra, p. 11. Cf. Ge-
ausser den allgemein anerkannten schichte, ut supra, pp. 97 sqq.
Interpolationen : 5, 4. 7, 53—8, 2 Ut supra, p. 236.
12 und Cap. 21 noch verschiedene s Ibid. p. 237.
andre enthalt, und zwar kleinere 4 Das vierte Evangelium, ut
die folgenden : 2, 17. 21. 22. 4, supra, pp. viii, ix.
44. 6, 44. 54. 7, 39. 12, 16. 33. 13, 6 Ut supra, p. 191.
20— grossere 1, 1—6 und 9—19. 6 But cf. Weizsacker, Das
2, 1—11. 4. 46— fin. 5, 19—30. Apostolische Zeitalter, 1890, p.
6, 1—30, 37—40. 59. 12, 26—31. 600.

LECTURE V. 295
destruction of Jerusalem found his way to Asia Minor
and became in the recollections of the next generation
the ' presbyter John,' but is wholly distinct from the
Apostle John, as his own discovery, which solves the
chief problems, not only of the Fourth Gospel, but
of Christianity itself.7
But I need not weary you with the details. Our compared,
J J , and found
philosophical critics of to-day are not unlike the more to be
•¦ii ip t • diametri-
ordmary critics who have gone before. It is not too caiiy
much to assert that while they agree that the Gospel
is not written by the Apostle John, they not only
differ, but they are diametrically opposed as to every
fact and every reason upon which that opinion is
supported. Here our sketch of the history of the negative concin-
. sion.
criticism of the Fourth Gospel, which, imperfect as
it has necessarily been, may, I fear, seem to have
been unduly extended in proportion to our time,
must be brought to a close. We may not now pause
to characterize it, as a whole or in its separate parts.
The words of our text are : —
And not even so did their witness agree together.
We will in the next lecture consider, in so far as
its limits will permit, the position of modern positive
criticism in relation to our subject.
7 Das vierte Evangelium, ut supra, p. 1.

LECTUEE YI
'OUR AGE1
THE POSITIVE CRITICISM

• IF THE SUBJECT BE EXTENSIVE  IF IT 3E ONE OF THE GREAT DEPART
MENTS INTO WHICH HUMAN KNOWLEDGE IS DIVIDED  A CAREFUL STUDY OF
IT, CONTINUED FOR SEVERAL YEARS, OR EVEN FOR A LARGE PART OF A
LIFE, COMBINED WITH FREQUENT MEDITATION, AND, IF POSSIBLE, PERSONAL
OBSERVATION, IS REQUISITE IN ORDER TO ENABLE A MAN TO UNDERSTAND
IT THOROUGHLY AND TO TREAT IT WITH A SOUND AND COMPREHENSIVE
JUDGMENT. ALL THE GREAT LUMINARIES OF SCIENCE, WHETHER MATHE
MATICAL, PHYSICAL, METAPHYSICAL, ETHICAL, OR POLITICAL, HAVE FULFILLED
THIS CONDITION. NONE OF THEM WOULD HAVE ACQUIRED THE AUTHORITY
WHICH THEIR OPINIONS, AS- SUCH, INDEPENDENTLY OF THEIR REASONS,
POSSESS, IF THEY HAD NOT APPLIED ALL THEIR MENTAL FACULTIES
DURING A LARGER PART OF THEIR LIVES TO THE SUBJECTS ON WHICH
THEY WROTE.' ....
'THE AGREEMENT OF COMPETENT JUDGES UPON A SPECULATIVE OPINION
IS ANALOGOUS TO THE AGREEMENT OF CREDIBLE WITNESSES IN THEIR
TESTIMONY TO A FACT, THE VALUE OF THEIR CONCURRENT TESTIMONY IS
MORE THAN TEN TIMES THE VALUE OF THE TESTIMONY OF EACH.* SO
THE JOINT PROBABILITY OF THE AGREEMENT OF TEN COMPETENT JUDGES
IN A RIGHT OPINION IS FAR GREATER THAN THE SUM OF THE PROBA
BILITIES OF THE RECTITUDE OF THE OPINION OF EACH TAKEN SEPAR
ATELY.' . . , .
. . . . ' REASON DOES NOT FORBID, BUT PRESCRIBES A RELIANCE UPON
AUTHORITY. WHERE A PERSON IS NECESSARILY IGNORANT OF THE
GROUNDS OF DECISION, TO DECIDE FOR HIMSELF IS AN ACT OF SUICIDAL
FOLLY. HE OUGHT TO RECUR TO A COMPETENT ADVISER, AS A BLIND
MAN RELIES UPON A GUIDE.' Cornewall Lewis.
* Cf. Campbell, p. 62.

LECTURE VI.
At the mouth of two witnesses or three shall every word be established. —
2 Cor. xiii. 1.
We have already felt how impossible it is within introduc-
the limits of two lectures to draw even a brief out
line of the negative criticism of this century, and it
certainly would not be easy, within the limits of
one, to trace with anything like fulness the suc
cession of thinkers who have been led by the attack
upon the Fourth Gospel to examine the position of
their opponents, and to re-examine the grounds of
their own convictions ; and who, as a result of this
testing process, have maintained and strengthened
their belief in the Johannine authorship. I am the
less careful however to present in its fulness this part
of our subject, as even a cursory examination of it
must show how strong the position is, and I shall
willingly content myself with a reference to some
representative thinkers.
The immediate results of the works of Evanson Schieier-
and Bretschneider have been sufficiently before us, 1768- r'
and I pass therefore at once to consider the witness 83 '
of Schleiermacher. Friedrich Schleiermacher had already made his

300 LECTURE VI.
His posi- mark when the University of Berlin was founded in
1810, and after taking a leading part in its organization
became in name the first Professor, and in reality the
most important living teacher, of Theology. De Wette
was at first (from 1810 to 1819) his colleague in the
new University, and among his pupils were Bleek,
Liicke, Neander, Nitzsch, Ullmann, Julius Miiller, and
influence, for a time Strauss. This is not the place to speak of
the far-reaching extent of Schleiermacher's work and
influence, which have left perhaps, if all things are
considered, a deeper and wider impression than those
of any man in this century. The Life and Letters of
the modern Plato have been placed within our reach
and help us to realize something at least of what the
character, man was.1 If you would know Schleiermacher,
read, for example, the youth's letter to his father,
when passing through a crisis of faith which but for
the son's confidence and the father's affection might
have shattered his life.2 Meditate upon the man's
declaration to his friend Jacobi, ' Understanding and
feeling in me also remain distinct, but they touch
each other and form a galvanic pile. To me it seems
that the innermost life of the spirit consists in the
galvanic action thus produced in the feeling of the
understanding and the understanding of the feeling,
during which, however, the two poles always remain

1 Jonas u. Dilthey, A ws Schieier- 1860. Dilthey, Leben Schleier-
macher's Leben in Briefen, 4 vols. macher's, 1867.
1858-61 ; the earlier part in Eng- 2 Life, by F. Rowan, i. pp. 46
lish by Frederica Rowan, 2 vols. sqq. Cf. Dilthey, Leben, pp. 23 sqq.

LECTURE VI. 301.
deflected from each other.' 3 Be present for a moment
at the final gathering of the family on earth. He has
been racked for days by acute sufferings. He says : —
' Inwardly I enjoy heavenly moments. I feel con
strained to think the profoundest speculative thoughts,
and they are to me identical with the deepest religious
feelings.' He pronounced the words of consecration
at the Holy Communion immediately before his
death, and added : — ' On these words of the scrip
ture I rely ; they are the foundation of my faith.
... In this love and communion we are, and ever
will remain, united.' 4 Such was the man, Friedrich
Schleiermacher. Schleiermacher was a theologian and a philosopher His
.............. , writings.
rather than an expert m biblical criticism, and was
concerned with the present rather than with the past,
and with the contents of the Bible rather than with its
form ; but in the early part of his literary life, he
had devoted attention to the criticism of some of the
books of the New Testament, and that in a spirit of
extreme freedom.5 One result of this, well known
to English readers, is the Critical Essay on the Gospel
of S. Luke? Another result, which is not so well
known , is his work on the First Epistle to Timothy?
3 See the whole letter in Life, ed. i. 1799.
by F. Rowan, ii. pp. 280-84. Cf. 6 Critical Essay on the Gospel of
Lichtenberger, Histoire des id'ees S. Luke, with Introduction by the
religieuses, torn. ii. p. 66. translator (Mr. Connop Thirlwall,
4 Life, ut supra, ii. pp. 337-39. afterwards Bishop of S. David's),
Cf. Histoire, ut supra, ii. pp. 1825.
237-38. 7 Ueber den sogenannten ersten
5 Cf . Reden iiber die Religion, Brief des Paulos an den Timotheos,

302 LECTURE VI.
Free And this free treatment of the New Testament writ-
treatment , .
of New mss was continued in his later studies, for we find
Testa-ment. him in effect giving up also the Apostolic authorship
of the Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Hebrews,
the Second and Third Epistles of John, the Second
Epistle of Peter, and the Epistles of James and Jude.
While doubtful about the Acts of the Apostles and
the Synoptics, and most doubtful of all about the
Apocalypse,8 he takes the position that the Johannine
Christ is the true historic Christ, and that the Syn
optic sketches are to be corrected from this picture.
Christianity would be a phenomenon without explana
tion if it were founded only on the Synoptic Gospels.
Special His special views on the Fourth Gospel appear first in
the Fourth a series of Explanations appended to the third edition
of the Discourses on Religion, which was published
in 1821, at the height of the excitement caused by
Bretschneider's Probabilia. In one of these Explana
tions, which comes at the end of the fifth discourse,
he says : —
Nothing can well betray less appreciation of tbe essence
of Christianity and of the person of Christ Himself, and espe
cially less historic sense and comprehension of the way in
which great events come to pass and the conditions in which
they must find their real basis, than the opinion which was
some time ago quietly introduced — that John had mingled
much of his own ideas with the discourses of Christ. Now,
however, that this view has secretly strengthened and fortified
1807. Sammtliche Werke, Abth. Werke, 1845, Abth. i. Bd. 8, pp.
i. Zur Theologie, Bd. 2. 315-344.
8 Einleitung ins Neue Testament.

views on
the Fou
Gospel.

LECTURE VI. 606
itself and adopted critical weapons, it risks the more destruc
tive assertion, that John did not write the Gospel, but that it
was a later author who invented this mythical Christ. But
how it could be possible for a Jewish Eabbi, with humani
tarian sentiments, a somewhat Socratic system of ethics, a few
miracles (or, at least, what others took for miracles), and a
talent for introducing happy maxims and parables — for when
we have said this we have said all, indeed he will have to be
forgiven a few follies according to the other Evangelists —
how a man like this could have produced such an influence as
a new religion and Church — for such a man, had he existed,
would not have been worthy to be compared to Moses and
Mahomet — all this is left to our own comprehension. Yet
the issue must be a critical battle, for which those who
love and reverence the Johannine Son of God are doubtless
already arming themselves.9
In Schleiermacher's Introduction to the New Testa- johannine
ment1 he bases the Apostolic authorship of the Fourth smp°r
Gospel on the consistency of the presentation, and Xougi
sweeps away any difficulties in detail by the strength
of the impression as a whole — Die Macht des Total-
Eindruckes, as he was wont to say.'2 These principles
9 Reden iiber die Religion. gelium zusammen gestellt sind,
Werke, Abth. i. Bd, 1, 1843, pp. und soscheintes auch Bretschnei-
447 sq. ; and the critical edition of der gemeint zu haben, der seine
1879, pp. 297 sq. This is by G. C. Hypothese spater so gut wie
B. Piinjer, who gives a concise and zuriick genommen hat. Aber dass
interesting account of the different unter diesen Einzelheiten irgend
editions in his Introduction. Etwas von solcher Erheblichkeit
1 Einleitung, ut supra, pp. 315- sei, dass man gegen den Total-
344. eindruck des ganzen die Aecht-
2 ' Es ist also recht gut, dass heit bezweifeln miisste, wird
diese Sache einmal zur Sprache wohl Niemand mehr meinen.'
gebracht ist, und alle Zweifels- Einleitung, ut supra, p. 340. Cf.
griinde gegen das Johannesevan- p. 315.

through out.

304 LECTURE VI.
were further illustrated in the author's Life of Jesus,3
where he goes so far as to assert that to the Johannine
Gospel must be given the priority of time 4 as well as
of position ; indeed it became almost an axiom of
Schleiermacher and his school, that the Fourth
Gospel was beyond question ; and that if discrepancy
should ever be established between it and the Syn
optics, the former was to be at all costs accepted.
Neander, Among the youths of Germany who felt the wave
1789—
1850. of the great influence which was exercised by Schlei
ermacher' s Discourses on Religion was David Mendel,
the son of a Jewish pedlar, who was living at Ham
burg with a poor and worse than widowed mother,
and was supported at the gymnasium by the liberality
of friends. Of this lad, when grown to manhood,
a living writer whose special knowledge and judg
ment give him every right to command our confi
dence, says that he was ' the most original pheno
menon in the literary world of this nineteenth cen
tury,' 5 and general opinion has held him to be father
of the modern philosophic, as distinguished from the
previous dogmatic, history of the Church. Trained
3 Das Leben Jesu, 1832, ed. Evangelien nur erst zerstreut und
Riitenik, 1864. Werke, Abth. i. wurden erstspatergesammelt.' . .
Bd. 6, pp. 37-44. This ' Lecture ' Leben Jesu, ut supra, p. 420. Cf.
on the Quellen was delivered on Strauss, Der Christus des Glaubens
May 23, 1832. u.s.w. Kritik des Schleiermacher' -
4 ' Sehen wir aber die Sache so schen Lebens Jesu, 1865, pp. 45
an : das Evangelium Johannis ist sqq.
das erste, zu der Zeit als Johannes 5 Schaff, Germany ; its Uni-
sein Evangelium schrieb, existir- versities, Theology, and Religion,
ten die Bestandtheile der anderen 1857, p. 270.

LECTURE VI. 305
to be a jurist, he was being fashioned as a historian ;
brought up in Judaism, he was being prepared to
teach the history of the development of Christianity.
In his seventeenth year David Mendel carried his Change of
convictions into practice by being publicly baptized
in Hamburg, and, true to the ancient custom of his
race, signified the change of being by a change of the
name which distinguished that being. From Feb
ruary 25, 1806, onwards he was no longer a Jew,
Mendel, but a new man in Christ Jesus, Neander
(Newman).6 Of the special qualifications of this Christian- Jew Special
to judge of a Christian- Jewish writing, of his minute tions.
acquaintance with Gnosticism and the philosophies of
the second century which engaged his attention from
the first,7 of his trained historical mind and vast his
torical knowledge, of his whole-hearted devotion to
his studies and his students during the thirty- eight
years of his professoriate in Berlin, it is hardly ne
cessary to make mention. Such was the general
fitness of Neander to form an opinion upon the Fourth
Gospel. If we remember also that he commenced
his work in Berlin in 1813 by a course of 'Lectures
6 As many variations occur in nesses (Taufzeugen).
the accounts, it may be well to 7 De fidei gnoseosque christians
refer to the original entry in the idea . . . secundum mentem Cle-
baptismal register of the church of mentis Alex. Heidelbergse, 1811.
St. Catharine, Hamburg, which Genetische Entwickelung der vor-
is quoted by Krabbe, August Ne- nehmstengnostischenSysteme,1818.
ander, 1852, p. 18. The Christian Anti-Gnosticus : Geist des Tertul-
names chosen, Johann, August, lianus u. Einleitung in dessen
Wilhelm, were those of the wit- Schriften, 1825. X

306 LECTURE VI.
on S. John,' and completed it in 1850 by announcing
from his deathbed a course of ' Lectures on the Gospel
of S. John,' and that he prepared with scrupulous
care four editions of his Life of Jesus, extending from
1837 to 1845 — the significance of these years will be
borne in mind — we shall be prepared to value rightly
the following statement about the Fourth Gospel : —
His It could have emanated from none other than that
opimc i , kejove)j ,3igcipie ' Up0n whose soul the image of the Saviour
had left its deepest impress. So far from this Gospel's having
been written by a man of the second century (as some assert),
we cannot even imagine a man existing in that century so
little affected by the contrarieties of his times, and so far
exalted above them. Could an age involved in perpetual
contradictions, an age of religious materialism, anthropo
morphism, and one-sided intellectualism have given birth to
a production like this, which bears the stamp of none of these
deformities ? How mighty must the man have been who, in
that age, could produce from his own mind such an image of
Christ as this ? And this man, too, in a period almost desti
tute of eminent minds, remained in total obscurity ! Was it
necessary for the master-spirit, who felt in himself the capacity
and the calling to accomplish the greatest achievement of his
day, to resort to a pitiful trick to smuggle his ideas into cir
culation ?
And then, too, while it is thought sufficient to say of the
three other Gospels that they were compiled from undesigned
fables, we are told that such a Gospel as this of John was the
work of sheer invention, as lately Dr. Baur has confessed,
with praiseworthy candour. Strange that a man, anxious for
the credit of his inventions, should, in the chronology and
topography of his Life of Christ, give the lie to the Church
traditions of his time, instead of chiming in with them ;
stranger still, that in spite of his bold contradiction of the

LECTURE VI. 307
opinions of his age in regard to the history, his fraud should
be successful ! In short, the more openly this criticism
declares itself against the Gospel of John, the more palpably
does it manifest its own wilful disregard of history.'

8

One of Schleiermacher's first colleagues and most De Wette,
1780—
intimate friends in the new University of Berlin, was 1849.
Dr. Wilhelm de Wette, and no one of the band laboured
more earnestly in the interests of rational theology
and scientific conceptions of both the Old and the
New Testaments. He had prepared a considerable Early
work on the Pentateuch, which was anticipated by
the publication of Vater's Commentary in 1803, and
was therefore published only in abstract, and as a
supplement to Vater's work. This, with other early
essays, sufficiently shows the liberal point of view,
to say the least, from which De Wette approached
his studies. A letter of generous sympathy — more His
generous, perhaps, than wise — to the mother of Lud wig
Sand, a student who in a passionate impulse of liberal
patriotism had murdered one whom he thought to be
an advocate of oppression, reveals the strong tendency,
which runs all through De Wette's work, to protect
at any cost the weaker side, and to be held back by
no reverence for conventionalities from that which
seemed to him to be right. But that letter cost him
his professor's chair, and cost the young university
one of its ablest men. In vain Schleiermacher and
others pleaded for their colleague, in vain they pleaded
8 Neander, Das Leben Jesu Christi, ed. 4, 1845, pp. 11, 12. Eng.
Trans. 1851, pp. 7, 8. x 2

308 LECTURE VI.
for the interests of the university. The autocratic king
would hear of no excuse, and in 1819 De Wette left
Berlin for a temporary retirement at Weimar, whence
he was to be called in 1823 to Basel. Here for
twenty- six years he devoted himself to the work of
his professorship and to philanthropic labours, such
as the formation of a ' Society for protecting the
Greeks against the oppression of the Turks ; ' and was
Liberal throughout a consistent leader of the party of pro-
"l( " gress. He has sketched his own character in a novel,
Theodore, or the Consecration of the Sceptic,9 which he
wrote at Weimar in 1822, and to which Tholuck
replied in the True Consecration of the Doubter.1 The
late Dr. Schenkel, who was De Wette's pupil, and
had himself certainly no leanings to conservative
orthodoxy, speaks of his memory with touching
gratitude, and represents the leading principle of his
theological labours to be that ' truth in none of its
relations of life, least of all in theology and the
church, can exist without freedom, or freedom with
out truth.' 2
The De Wette was in the thick of the discussion on
question, the Johannine question through the whole period of
Evanson, Bretschneider, Strauss, and Baur, and it is
9 Theodor, oder des Zweiflers logie u. Kirche, dieWahrheit nicht
Weihe, Berlin, 1822. bestehen kann ohne die Freiheit,
1 Die Lehre von der Siinde u. u. die Freiheit nicht ohne die
vom Versohner, oder die wahre Wahrheit.' Schenkel, W. M. L.
Weihe des Zweiflers, ed. 7, 1851, de Wette und die Bedeutung seiner
Hamburg. Theologie fiir unsere Zeit, 1849, p.
2 ' Dass in alien Verhaltnissen 111.
des Lebens, zumal aber in Theo-

LECTURE VI. 309
natural to expect both that he should write on the
subject, and that he should lean to the negative view.
He did write on the subject, both in his Introduction
to the New Testament, the editions of which extend
from 1826 to 1848, and in his Concise Exegetical
Commentary, the editions of which extend from 1837
to 1846.3 In the first edition of the Introduction, when the iheintro-
effect of Bretschneider's Probabilia was still strongly
felt, De Wette was inclined to take a middle course,
and to regard the authorship as not proven. After
the publication of the theories of Strauss and
Baur, and under the influence of Bleek's Contri
butions to Criticism of the Gospels,4 he became more
conservative. In the fifth edition of the Introduction, 1848, he
says : —
It will be found that I have placed myself decidedly more
than heretofore among the defenders of the Gospel of John,
although I am still far from being so decided as my friend
Bleek.6 ....
And again : —
A critical conclusion which denies to the Apostle John all
share in this Gospel, and declares the same to be of later
origin, not only involves the odious but inevitable confession
3 Lehrbuch der historisch-kriti- Neuen Testament : Johannes, ed.
schen Einleitung in die kanonischen 1, 1837; ed. 3, 1846.
Biicher des Neuen Testaments, ed. 4 Cf. infra, p. 314.
1, 1826; ed. 5, 1848; Kurzge- B Prefacetoed.5,Eng. Trans, by
fasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum Frothingham, 1858, pp. vii and viii.

310 LECTURE VI.
that the author was a forger, but is opposed by the impro
bability that Christian antiquity accepted a Gospel which
differed in important points from the evangelic tradition
without having found a sure and satisfactory ground in its
apostolic authority.6 ....
The And again in his Commentary : —
Cotnmen-
tary- The recognition of the Johannine authorship of our
Gospel will even after the latest and most violent attacks
never lose its hold in the Church, though it is to be hoped we
shall learn to test the doubts which are brought against it
with less prejudice ; and criticism will as little solve the
problem of explaining the mysterious origin of this Gospel
as she will lift the veil which rests upon the early history of
Christianity.7
Lucke, Another of the group of Schleiermacher's pupils
1855. and friends was Dr. Gottfried Liicke, who joined him
as a lecturer at Berlin in 1816, and was afterwards
Professor of Theology in the new University of Bonn
1818-27, and in Gottingen 1827-55. Lucke, in his
Commentary? which is known to all students of the
Johannine writings, speaks of Schleiermacher as his
' spiritual father ; ' 9 and reminds his old friend Hoss-
The Berlin bach of the scientific revolution caused by Schleier
macher, De Wette, and Neander, and of their studies
together in the crisis which followed the year
' thirteen.' J And in De Wette's Handbook to the
* Einleitung, ed. 5, Eng. Trans. des Evangelisten Johannes, 1820 ;
1858, ut supra, p. 212. ed. 2, 1833 ; ed. 3, part i.
7 Handbuch zum Neuen Testa- 1840.
ment, ed. 3, Bd. i. Th. 3, p. 9. s Ibid. ed. 3, p. viii.
3 Commentar iiber die Schriften l Ibid. p. vii.

LECTURE VI. 311
New Testament, which is dedicated to Liicke, there is
a touching reference to the good old days
when we lived and worked and disputed together in Berlin,
and often had the never-to-be-forgotten Schleiermacher in
our midst.2 Of Liicke's Commentary, De Wette says with jus- The
tice that Commen-
tary.
with the first appearance of this work began a new and
better era of New Testament interpretation,3
and to this day it remains the classic and unequalled
Commentary on S. John. The author did not con
fine himself to exegetical studies, but they had the
chief attraction for him, and the opus magnum of his
life was the interpretation of S. John's writings. He
brought to his task stores of wide and accurate
learning, and applied to it for the first time the
principles and results of exact philological and gram
matical knowledge. But he never forgot that the The
religious sense is also a necessary qualification for un- religiou>
*-> •/ J. KP71KP
derstanding a religious work. He is an artist, a poet,
a mystic, as well as a grammarian, a philologer, a
thinker. ' No man,' to use his own expression, ' can
really seek, but the man who hopes to find ' ; and
while others were forming theories of what the
Fourth Gospel ought to have been and then making its
facts agree with their theories, Liicke's receptive spirit
was really seeking, really finding, what the Fourth
Gospel was ; and it was to him through the whole
2 Handbuch, ed. 3, Johannes, Bd. i. Th. 3, Dedication. 3 Lbid.

s
sense.

theories.

312 LECTURE VI.
course of his investigations, as it was to Schleier
macher, ' the chief, the most delicate, the most pro
found of all the Gospels.' 4
Acquaint- Not that Lucke remained ignorant of, or un-
ThTne'wer interested in, any of the newer theories. He dis
cusses, the authorship and cognate questions with
full reference to them.6 Let his own words tell us
his relation to these theories : —
I have diligently used the newer exegetical works on
the Gospel and have gladly learnt from them. I have also
been careful to examine the more recent and critical treatises
on its genuineness and authenticity, and as far as in me lies
I have honestly tested them. You will find that though
I am unshaken in my convictions I have at the same time
gladly recognized truth and right on the opposite side. It
is, indeed, no good to disguise from oneself and others weak
points and defects in the historical and exegetical grounds of
belief, when once they have made themselves felt. A hidden
blemish is the most dangerous. Only the real and the true,
only the perfectly sound can bear the searchings of faith and
of knowledge. I have therefore given up much in the
interests of truth that seemed to me untenable, however dear
it had become to me.6
And again : —
Where I have to learn from others I seek the truth and
accept it, when once clearly shown, without caring whether
the man with whom I find it be rationalist, pietist, or any
thing else, or whether he be my friend or my foe. That
is my orthodoxy.7
4 Cf. Lichtenberger, Histoire 5 Commentar, ed. 3, pp. 89-
des idees religieuses, 1873, torn. iii. 246.
pp. 124-5. 6 Ibid. ed. 3, pp. ix sq.
7 Lbid. p. xii.

LECTURE VI. 313
The result of his investigations pursued in this Kesuitof
0 L his criti-
spirit and with resources such as up to that time cism.
had certainly never been combined in any writer on
the Fourth Gospel, and pursued, let us again remind
ourselves, in the very midst of the negative criticism,
when the impulse of the attack was felt as a living
power and not merely as an abstract theory — the
third edition from which I am quoting was published
in 1840 — is that Liicke accepts the common opinion
that John was the author of the Fourth Gospel,8 and
that Ephesus is the place at which the Gospel was
written ; 9 but thinks that there are no data by which
the time can be fixed within nearer limits than from
the seventh to the tenth decades of the first century ;
and that it was not earlier than the year a.d. 80, but
that how near it was to the death of the Apostle,
cannot be definitely stated.1
Dr. Friedrich Bleek was also, like Liicke, a pupil Bieek,
. . 1795-
and friend of Schleiermacher, and, under his influence, 1859.
began to lecture at Berlin in 1818. Five years later
he obtained a professor's chair there, but left it in
1829 for the professorship at Bonn which furnished
the work of his life. All men agree in their estimate Estimate
of the massive solidity of Bleek's learning and the powers.
absolute fairness of his judgment. ' He seems to
me,' says the English essayist, who has himself shown
the greatest mastery of Baur's theory, 'nearly the
8 Commentar, ut supra, pp. 6-160. 9 Lbid. pp. 161 sq.
1 Ibid. p. 167.

314 LECTURE VI.
only opponent of Baur I have met with worthy,
both from his candour and his ability, to cope with
Earlier him.' 2 These qualities were first fully appreciated
writings. x ./ j. j.
when Dr. Bleek published an edition of the Epistle
to the Hebrews.3 He wrote for the Berlin Society
for Siientific Criticism, in 1844, a review, which was
published in that and the following year,4 of Ebrard's
Scientific Criticism of the Gospel History? The review
attracted considerable attention, for it contained sub
stantial additions to the subject, which was one that
had occupied a prominent place in the writer's winter
The course of professorial lectures. It was republished,
in an enlarged form, in 1846, and dedicated to De
Wette.6 It deals principally with the Johannine ques
tion, and is justly regarded as an able, impartial, and
convincing defence of the authenticity of the Gospel.
De Wette acknowledges its effect upon himself.7
Tbe After Bleek's death his lectures on Introduction to the
Introduction. New Testament* were edited by his son. The later
editions 9 have been edited by Dr. Mangold.1 The
Johannine problem is treated with great fulness and
erudition, and a portion of it has been published
separately as a French treatise.2 The additions of
2 R. H. Hutton, Theological Kritik, 1846.
Essays, ed. 3, 1888, p. 209. 7 Vide supra, p. 309.
" Brief an die Hebraer, 1828- 8 Einleitutig in das Neue Tesla- '
36-40. ment, ed. 1, 1860 ; ed. 2, 1866.
i Jahrbiicher fiir wissenschaft- ° Ed. 3, 1875 ; ed. 4, 1886.
liche Kritik, 1844, Bd. ii. Nos. ' Cf. Lecture V. p. 262.
61-65 ; 1845, Bd. i. Nos. 41-46. 2 Ch. Bruston, Etmde critique
5 Vide infra, p. 317. sur Vevangile selon Saint Jean,
6 Beitriiye zur Evangelien- 1864.

LECTURE VI. 315
Dr. Mangold bring the work up to the present date
with an erudition which is in harmony with Bleek's,
though the opinion as to the authorship of the
Fourth Gospel is not. He is not himself able, as we
have seen, to accept the authenticity, because he
feels the force of the objection on internal grounds ;
but he bears abundant witness to the ability and
candour of Bleek himself, who held throughout the
Johannine authorship in the fullest sense.
No man filled a more prominent place in the eyes Bunsen,
of the churches, the nations, the philanthropists, the i860.
scholars of the last generation than the Baron de
Bunsen. The pupil' of Heyne and Lachmann; the
early friend of Niebuhr and Neander, and in this
country of Arnold, Maurice, Hare, and Stanley ; the
patron of Holtzmann and De Lagarde ; himself a
scholar, a theologian, a jurist, a statesman, a man of
affairs, and in touch with the first minds of Europe ;
a layman also, and one of singular freedom from
prejudice — unless it be a prejudice for freedom — his
opinion is of exceptional value both from his access
to evidence, and his power of forming a judgment
upon it. It is none other than Dr. Thomas Arnold Arnold's
who writes of Baron de Bunsen : — him.10n °
I could not express my sense of what Bunsen is without
seeming to be exaggerating ; but I think if you could hear
and see him even for one half-hour, you would understand
my feeling towards him. He is a man in whom God's graces
and gifts are more united than in any other person whom I
ever saw. I have seen men as holy, as amiable, as able ; but

316

LECTURE VI.

I never knew one who was all three in so extraordinary a
degree, and combined with a knowledge of things new and old,
sacred and profane, so rich, so accurate, so profound, that I
never knew it equalled or approached by any man.3

Fourth And to Bunsen the authenticity of the Fourth
'cardinal Gospel is a cardinal point of faith. To him if there
is no historic S. John, there is no historic Christ,
there is no Christianity : —
If the Gospel of John is not an historical treatise by an
eye-witness, but a myth, then there is no historical Christ,
and without an historical Christ universal belief in Christ is
a dream — all Christian knowledge hypocrisy or delusion,
Christian reverence for God an imposture, and, finally, the
Reformation a crime or madness.4

3 Stanley, Life and Correspond
ence of Dr. Arnold, 1844, vol. ii.
p. 137.
4 ' Ist das Evangelium des
Johannes kein geschichtlicher
Bericht des Augenzeugen, sondern
ein Mythus, so gibt es keinen
geschichtlichen Christus, und ohne
einen geschichtlichen Christus ist
aller gemeindliche Christenglaube
ein Wahn, alles christliche Be-
kenntniss Heuchelei oder Tau-
schung, die christliche Gottes-
verehrung eine Gaukelei, die
Reformation endlich ein Verbre-
chen oder ein Wahnsinn.' — Voll-
standiges Bibelwerk, 1858, Bd. i.
Vorwort, p. x.
I have not added the weighty
authority of Credner to the list
of those who support the Johan
nine authorship of the Fourth

Gospel, though he does so in the
strongest terms in his learned In
troduction (' So ist doch aus diesen
Streitigkeiten das Johanneische
Evangelium nach bestandener
Feuerprobe siegreich und gleich
einem verjiingten Phonix hervor-
gegangen . . .' Einleitung in das
Neue Testament, 1836, p. 262), and
maintains the view in his New
Testament (Das Neue Testament,
1847), because, in his posthumous
History of the Canon, edited by
Volkmar (cf. Lecture II. p. 57),
he is said to have abandoned it.
('Ammisslichsten endlich steht es
mit den altesten Zeugnissen fiir
das Ev. nach Matthiius u. nach
Johannes.' Geschichte des Neutes-
tamentlichen Kanon, 1860, p. 6.
See also references in Volkmar's
Register.)

LECTURE VI. 317
Dr. Johann Heinrich August Ebrard may be Ebrard,
taken to represent the school of Erlangen, where he
was born, and where, as well as at Zurich, he was
professor. Among his numerous writings are the writings
following works on our present subject : Scientific subject.
Criticism of the Gospel History, which, as we have
seen, gave rise to Bleek's essay ; The Gospel of John
and the latest Hypothesis on its Origin ; The Revelation
of John ; The Epistles of John? All are both learned
and able ; and though as against an adversary his
position is often weakened by excessive strength of
language, it is always based upon a solid found
ation of knowledge. His conclusion with regard strong
to the Fourth Gospel, after a careful examination the Fourth
of the evidence and a survey of the modern objec- 09pe '
tions, is : —
. . . that, with the exception of some of Paul's Epistles, no
book can be found throughout the whole of the ancient
literature, both Christian and profane, which can show such
numerous and reliable proofs of its genuineness as the Gospel
of John,.6 And again : —
Till figs grow upon thistles, the genuineness of the
Gospel of John will continue firm and impregnable in
the estimation of all who do not rank with the thistles
themselves.7 5 Wissenschaftliche Kritik der Johatmis, 1853 ; Die Briefe Jo-
evangelischen Geschichte, 1842, ed. hatmis, 1859 ; Eng. Trans. 1860.
3, 1868 ; Eng. Trans. 1863 ; Das 6 Gospel History, 1863, Eng.
Evangelium Johannis und die Trans, p. 598.
neueste Hypothese iiber seine Entste- 7 Ibid. p. 600.
hun 1845 ; Die Offenbarung

318

LECTURE VI.

and on
negative
criticism.

Tholuck, 1799-1877.

Hengstenberg, 1808-1869.

Their
commentaries

His view of the negative criticism of the Gospel
is summed up in these terms : —
There was a time when Teller's Lexicon was admired and
esteemed by many contemporaries, as much as ZeJler's annuals
are now. There was a time when the way in which Paulus
endeavoured to bring the consciousness of the age into har
mony with the writings of the New Testament was lauded as
unparalleled in its acuteness. There was a time when Strauss's
mythical hypothesis appeared to shake the foundations of the
world. But now Teller is laughed at ; at the name of Paulus
men shrug their shoulders; Strauss's mythical hypothesis
has been quietly laid aside as useless by the most kindred
spirit, to make room for the hypothesis of a pious fraud. The
time will come when men will not merely laugh, but shudder
at such a hypothesis as this.8
No sketch, however brief it may be, of the
German positive criticism of the last half century,
could omit the names of Tholuck of Halle, and
Hengstenberg of Berlin ; but I must refer to them
only to pass by them. Men of wholly different
characters, they were alike in this : that they
exercised a very wide influence over successive
generations of students and pastors at home and
abroad — Tholuck, by the charm of his personal in
fluence, Hengstenberg, by the pages of the Evangelical
Church Journal9 — and that their many works had
an enormous circulation. Both wrote, among other
works, important commentaries on the Fourth
Gospel ; 1 both threw the whole weight of their
8 Gospel History, pp. 600 sq. Evangelium Johannis, 1827, ed. 7,
9 Cf. Lecture IV. pp. 192 sq. 1857 ; Eng. Trans. 1836 and 1859 ;
1 Tholuck, Commentar zum Die Glaubwiirdigkeit der evange-

LECTURE VI. 319
influence into the defence of the authenticity, but on s.
they do not contribute any such substantial addition
to the facts or the arguments as to demand our special
attention. It should, however, be noted that their
exposition of the text and their general position as
witnesses have a distinct value, derived from their
quite unusual knowledge of the Semitic languages
and of the Old Testament.
Dr. Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer is known to Meyer 1800—
all students of the New Testament by his Critical and, 1873.
Exegetical Commentary ? The first edition of the por
tion on the Fourth Gospel was published as long ago
as 1834 ; the fifth — and the last during the author's
life — in 1869 ; the seventh, edited by Dr. Bernhard
Weiss, in 1886. Meyer's study of S. John was, wide
therefore, contemporaneous with the influence of workam
Strauss and Baur. His last edition contains a
critical Introduction which fills fifty-five pages of the
English edition, and ends by giving Ephesus as the
place, and a.d. 80 as the approximate time. But I
invite your special attention to the following words
in which the aged chief of commentators reviews, in
his own farewell, the negative criticism of the half
century during which he had himself felt the pulse
of every movement of New Testament thought and
knowledge : —
Uschen Geschichte, 1837-38. Heng- 2 Kritisch - exegetisches Hand-
stenberg, Das Evangelium des buck : Johannes, ed. 1, 1834 ; ed.
heiligen Johannes, 3 vols. 1863, 5, 1869, Eng. Trans. 1874 ; ed. 7,
ed. 2, 1867 ; Eng. Trans. 1865. 1886.

work and
time.

320 LECTURE VI.
Review of Such critical labour submits itself to be tried by the
tive116^" judgment of scholars, and has its scientific warrant. Nay,
criticism, should it succeed in demonstrating that the declaration of
the Gospel's apostolic birth, as written by all the Christian
centuries, is erroneous, we would have to do honour to the
truth, which in this case also, though painful at first, could
not fail to approve itself that which maketh free. There is,
however, adequate reason to entertain very grave doubts of
the attainment of this result, and to refuse assent to the
prognostication of universal victory, which has been too
hastily associated with these efforts of criticism. Whoever
is acquainted with the most recent investigations, will,
indeed, gladly leave to themselves the clumsy attempts to
establish a parallelism between the Gospel of John and
ancient fabrications concocted with a special aim, which
carry their own impress on their face ; but he will still be
unable to avoid the immediate and general duty of con
sidering whether those modern investigators who deny that
it is the work of the apostle have at last discovered a time
in which — putting aside meanwhile all the substantive
elements of their proof — the origin of the writing would be
historically conceivable. For it is a remarkable circum
stance in itself, that of the two most receSit controversialists,
who have treated the subject with the greatest scientific
independence, the one assumes the/latest, the other the
earliest possible, date. If now, Vith the first, I place its
composition not sooner than from( 150 to 160, I see myself
driven to the bold assertion ffi Volkmar,3 who makes the
evangelist sit at the feet of jSustin — a piece of daring which
lands me in an historical absurdity. If I rightly shrink from
so preposterous a Mess^ftid prefer to follow the thoughtful
Keim4 in his more judicious estimate of the ecclesiastical
testimonies and bhe relations of the time, then I obtain the
very beginning/ 0f the second century as the period in which
the work spranfg up on the fruitful soil of the church of Asia
3 Cf. Lecture V. pp. 236, 240 sq. 4 Cf. Lecture V. pp. 258 sqq.

LECTURE VI. 321
Minor, as a plant Johannine indeed in spirit, but post-
Johannine in origin. But from this position also I feel
myself at once irresistibly driven. For I am now brought
into such immediate contact with the days in which the aged
apostolic pillar was still amongst the living, and see myself
transported so entirely into the living presence of his numerous
Asiatic disciples and admirers, that it cannot but appear to
me an absolutely insoluble enigma how precisely then and
there a non-Johannine work — one, moreover, so great and so
divergent from the older Gospels — could have been issued
and have passed into circulation under the name of the
highly honoured apostle. Those disciples and admirers,
amongst whom he, as the high priest, had worn the irsraXov,
could not but know whether he had written a Gospel, and if
so, of what kind ; and with the sure tact of sympathy and of
knowledge, based upon experience, they could not but have
rejected what was not a genuine legacy from their apostle.
Keim, indeed, ventures upon the bold attempt of calling
altogether in question the fact that John had his sphere of
labour in Asia Minor ; but is not this denial, in face of the
traditions of the church, in fact an impossibility ? It is, and
must remain so, as long as the truth of historical facts is
determined by the criterion of historical testimony. Turning,
then, from Volkmar to Keim, I see before my eyes the fate
indicated by the old proverb : tov icairvov (ptviyovra sis
TO 77-0/3 SKTriTTTSlV.'
. . . After all that has been said for and against up to the Delight in
present time, I can have no hesitation in once more express- testimony
ing my delight in the testimony of Luther — quoted now and
again with an ironical smile — that ' John's Gospel is the only
tender, right, chief Gospel, and is to be far preferred before the
other three, and to be more highly esteemed.' 5
Dr. Gotthard Victor Lechler, who died last year, Lechler, 1811—
after filling for thirty years a chair of Theology in 1889.
5 Handbuch, ut supra, Eng. Trans., Preface, pp. viii, ix. Cf. Lecture
V. p. 246. Y

322 LECTURE VI. j
the University of Leipzig, was, in his student life, a
pupil of Baur at Tiibingen ; and to this master he was
probably indebted in large measure for the remark
able power of analyzing and tracing forms of thought
His works, which characterized his works. We have examples of
this in the History of English Deism, John Wiclif and
the Period before the Reformation, and other important
books and essays. In 1851 he published a work
on The Apostolic and post- Apostolic Tim,es, which had
gained the prize of the Teyler Theological Society
in Haarlem two years before. A remodelled edition
appeared in German in 1857, and a third edition
in 1885, which was published in English in the fol-
Doctrinai lowing year.6 The author has maintained through-
forms
prove out, in opposition to his teacher Baur, that the forms
author™6 of doctrme contained in the Fourth Gospel with the
s ip' Johannine Epistles and the Apocalypse are consist
ent with Apostolic authorship, and admit of no other
explanation. In the third edition the venerable author has in
effect produced a new work, and in particular has,
in both the Apostolic and post- Apostolic periods,
considered the Life before the Doctrine, whereas
in the earlier editions, in conformity with the terms
of the prize, he had considered the Doctrine before
change of the Life. In making this fundamental change, he
view. says : —
6 Das apostolische und das nach- Lehre und Leben dargestdlt, ed.
apostolischeZeitalter,mitRucksicht 1, 1851; ed. 3, 1885; En".
auf Unterschied und Einheit in Trans., 1886.

LECTURE VI. 323
I do so with the conviction that for individuals as well as
mankind, in the divine education of the human race and in
sacred history, life and experience are the foundation, while
consciousness, thought, and teaching form the superstructure.
Godet says on John iii. 3, with truth and beauty : —
' Une nouvelle vue suppose une nouvelle vie.'
In this way I touch upon a fundamental view that uncon
sciously dominated the master of the ' critical school,' and
that still seems to prevail among many of its advocates. I
refer to intellectualism, to which the world of thought and Intellec-
knowledge appears as a thing moving round itself and con- ua lsm"
eluded within itself; while the ethical world of action and
suffering, especially of life that streams from the fountain of
everlasting life, is to all appearance non-existent and unin
telligible.7 . . . Apart from such portions as have been worked
out afresh and fully, all that I give has been subjected to re
peated and honest examination. On all sides the writings and
treatises relating to the entire subject published in the last
decades, so far as they were accessible, have been thoroughly
examined, and many former judgments changed.8
But his judgment of the Fourth Gospel and the Abides by
Apocalypse has undergone no change : — S. John.
We abide firmly by unity of authorship, and recognize
both writings as apostolic and Johannine.9
Dr. Bernhard Weiss, professor at Berlin, occupies Weiss,
a well-recognized position in the first rank of living
theologians and New Testament critics. His works His works.
extend over a wide field, but those which deal with our
present subject would even if they stood alone justify
7 Das apost. Zeitalter, ut supra, 8 Ibid. p. ix.
ed. 3 ; Eng. Trans, pp. vii sq. 9 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 165. T 2

324

LECTURE VI.

the author's high reputation for learning as well as for
both exact and wide grasp of thought. He published
a work on the Doctrinal System of John in 1862, and
has since treated the subject more fully in the
Biblical Theology of the New Testament, in the Life of
Jesus, in his editions of Meyer's Commentary, and in
the valuable Introduction to the New Testament, the
second edition of which appeared only last year.
johannine Throughout this remarkable series of works, the
author- °_ ... . .
ship main- Johannine authorship is consistently maintained, and
tained through- they form from their moderation and candour as well
as from their learning, on both sides of the question,
one of the strongest presentations of the ancient view
which has been written in modern times.1
Dr. Weiss's conclusions are summarized in the
following extract from his latest work : —
Summary The solution of the Johannine problem must begin at the
point where Baur instituted his criticisms. It may be pos
sible to perceive many departures of the fourth Gospel from
the older ones, and to apprehend many features peculiar to it
and much of the material as ideal, explaining them by new
points of view from which the author set out. But it con
tains a fulness of detail of every bind, of supplements to the
synoptic tradition, of direct contradictions to it and even of
intended corrections of it, which the ingenuity of criticism

1 Der Johanneische Lehrbegriff,
1862 ; Lehrbuch der biblischen
Theologie des Neuen Testaments,
ed. 1, 1868 ; ed. 4, 1884 ; Eng.
Trans. 3vols.,1885, esp. vol. ii. pp.
311-416 ; Das Leben Jesu, 2 vols.,
1882 ; ed. 2, 1884 ; Eng. Trans., 3

vols., 1883-4, esp. vol. i. pp. 90-
210 ; Lehrbuch der Einleitung in
das Neue Testament, 1886, ed. 2,
1889; Eng. Trans., 2 vols., 1887-8;
Meyer's Evangelium des Johannes >
ed. 6, 1880; ed. 7, 1886.

LECTURE VI. 325
can never trace to the author's, ideal viewSj but on the con- of his
trary present difiiculty of union with them. And it is un- °°q?su~
questionable, that the author, who only made the reception
of his work difficult through these departures from the
tradition that prevailed in the Church, was limited by
definite recollections or traditions which would no longer
have existed in the second century. Besides, all assumption
of ideal inventions is inconsistent with the weight which the
Gospel lays upon the actuality of what it narrates, as Beyschlag
in particular has convincingly proved ; and it can be well
shown that the speeches of Christ in the Gospel are absolutely
unintelligible as mere expositions of the theology of logos-
philosophers. But criticism has not succeeded in fixing the
date of the Gospel viewed as a pseudonymous production.
Apart from the fact that it is much unsettled respecting this
point, the post- Apostolic time of the second century presents
no person, nor even any definite tendency of thought from
which a work of such spiritual significance as criticism itself
allows the Gospel to be, could have emanated. The work
cannot be either the cause or the product of a reconciliation
of contending opposites in the second century, since such re
conciliation did not take place ; on the contrary, the struggle
between ecclesiastical consciousness and gnosis only became
sharper after Judaism had been overcome. And yet both
parties frequently appealed to this very Gospel with like zeal ;
the gnostics first, so that the Church had every reason for
disavowing a pseudonymous production so suspicious. The
greatest riddle is always the pseudonymity itself. It is in
conceivable that the unknown could connect his writing
directly with the Apocalypse which, according to the concep
tion of its relation to the Gospel set forth by criticism itself,
and in spite of all that has been said about a certain affinity
of the two works, is still thoroughly adverse to the Gospel.
So also is the way inconceivable in which the writer claims
for himself identity with the Apostle John, though this is
only indirectly or slightly intimated ; a procedure opposed to
that of all pseudonymous writing; as is the fact that he

326 LECTURE VI.
directly vouches for his own ocular testimony, which can only
be pronounced a plain deception.2
Luthardt, Dr. Christoph Ernst Luthardt, formerly professor
at Marburg, 1854-56, and since 1856 at Leipzig,
has exercised a great influence as a prominent leader
in the Lutheran church, an eloquent preacher and
His works lecturer, a literary editor,3 as well as an author. His
theJohan- more critical studies have been chiefly devoted to the
Son. qUe Johannine question,4 and these works extending over
a period of more than thirty years, have become widely
known to all students of the subject in their English
as well as in their German form. It will be sufficient
for our present purpose of estimating modern criticism
on this question, to quote the following paragraphs
from S. John the Author of the Fourth Gospel, a work
which owes no small part of its value to the careful
editing and references of an American scholar, Dr.
Caspar Gregory : —
We can now sum up the results of our inquiries as to the
external attestation of the fourth gospel. We see that as
soon as traces of the gospel meet us, it is testified to, both
inside and outside of the Church, as a work of John's, and as a
book of unquestionable apostolic authority. But these traces
2 Weiss, Manual of Introduction Evangelium, 1852-3, 2 vols. ; ed.
to the New Testament, Eng. Trans. 2, 1875-6; Eng. Trans., 1878, 3
1887-8, vol. ii. pp. 399, 400. vols. ; Der Johanneische Ursprung
3 Theologische Literaturblatt, des vierten Evangeliums, 1874;
Evangelisch - lutherische Kirchen- Eng. Trans., with valuable biblio-
zeittmg, and Zeitschrift fiir kirch- graphical appendix by Gregory,
liche Wissenschaft und Leben. 1875 ; Evangelium nach Johannes
4 De Compositione Evangelii in Strack und Zockler's Kurzge-
Joarmei, 1852 ; Das Johanneische fasster Kommentar, 1886.

LECTURE VI. 327
and this testimony go beyond the middle of the second
century, and drive us back to the beginning of it. Now it
is fixed that the apostle John lived at Ephesus, and that till
late, to Trajan's time. And it is just there that we have to
seek for the home of John's gospel. But the nearer to the
time of John we are forced to go back with this book, the
more impossible it is that the recollections of the apostle,
which were still so fresh and general, would have so generally,
and without opposition, let such a book as the gospel is be
pressed on them if it had not been apostolic, and above all,
if it had been so foreign to John's sphere of thought and to
his leanings as men say it is.
Therefore the external testimony attests the Johannean
composition. The character of the book itself must needs
make this supposition impossible if we are not to believe this
testimony. In that case there would be nothing left for us
but to let this book stand as an insoluble problem. The ques
tion is, whether or not the character of the book itself forbids
its composition by John.
We may close these inquiries, then, with this result : That, Eesult.
choosing the most moderate expression, nothing has come in
our way that disproved the tradition as to the Johannean
origin of the gospel, but much that served to confirm it.
The decision of the Tubingen criticism and its successors,
with which the acts of this critical process were declared to
be closed, was far from corresponding with the real contents
of the subject, and from being ratified by the facts. In it
one must make up his mind to take the Johannean question
not as a historical but as a psychological question. His
torically, the matter is as clear and decided as the case can be
in such historical and critical inquiries. The question only
concerns the psychological possibility. But we have seen
that this question is not so insoluble as to be able to make a
point for appeal against the historical evidence.5
5 Der Johanneische Ursprung, Eng. Trans. 1875, pp. 162-3 and 278-9.

328 LECTURE VI.
Godet, Dr. Fr^denc Godet, professor at Neuchatel, the
1 Q 1 Q_ pupil of Neander, and the tutor of the late Emperor
of Germany from 1838 to 1844, published the first
edition of his Commentary on the Gospel of S. John in
1863-65. The second edition, completely recast,
appeared in 1876-77, and a third edition, in which
the work is again brought thoroughly up to date,
in 188 1-8 5.6 It has been translated into English
on both sides of the Atlantic,7 German — in which
form it has passed through several editions —
Dutch, and Danish. Perhaps no Commentary on S.
John has entered so fully into the spirit of the text ;
and the author's fine intuitive power is accompanied
by a broad and vigorous intellectual grasp, which is
specially felt all through the Critical Introduction in
the first volume.8 The result of his studies is best
expressed in his own words : —
Oonvic- The result of this renewed study has been a yet firmer
imprest scientific conviction of the authenticity of the writing which
sion, the Church has transmitted to us under the name of John.
There is another kind of conviction which arises in the heart
from simply reading such a book. This conviction does not
increase, it is spontaneous and hence complete from the first
moment. It resembles that confiding love at first sight, that
full and final impression to which thirty years of mutual life
and devotion can add nothing.
and by Scientific study cannot form such a tie : what it can do, is
stud1*160 on^ t0 war<^ °^ *^e hostile attacks which would threaten to
6 Commentaire stir VEvangile de pletement revue,' 1881-85.
Saint Jean, 1863-65, 2 vols. ; 7 1877, and from ed. 3, New
ed. 2, ' complktement refondu,' York, 1886.
1876-77, 3 vols. ; ed. 3, ' com- 8 Ed. 3, pp. 1-376.

LECTURE VI.

329

loosen or sever it. I can truly say I have never felt this
scientific certainty so fully confirmed, as after this fresh exa
mination of the proofs on which it rests, and of the arguments
recently advanced against it.9

Dr. Willibald Beyschlag has been since 1860 Bey-
Professor of Theology in the University of Halle, and 1823- '
is an acknowledged leader of the liberal-evangelical
party.1 Among his numerous writings is a volume
On the Johannine Question,2 and a recent important
work on the Life of Jesus? During his long public
career Dr. Beyschlag has consistently maintained
with freedom of thought and wide critical knowledge
the full Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel.
Soon after the publication of his German work Examina-
on the question, he wrote two remarkable articles Baur's
on The Gospel of John and Modern Criticism in an

9 ' Le resultat de cette dtude re-
nouvelee a ete^ chez moi la convic
tion scienfifique toujours plus
ferme de l'authenticit^ de l'ecrit
que l'Eglise nous a transmis sous
le nom de Jean. II y a une con
viction d'une autre nature qui se
forme dans le cceur h la simple
lecture d'un pareil livre. Cette
conviction ne s'accroit pas ; elle
est immediate, par consequent
complete des le premier instant.
Elle ressemble a la confiance et h,
l'amour du premier regard, a cette
impression decisive h, l'integrite' de
laquelle trente annees de vie com
mune et de mutuel devouement
n'ajoutent rien.
' L'dtude scientifique ne saurait
former un semblable lien : ce

qu'elle peut faire, c'est unique-
ment d'ecarter les pressions hos-
tiles qui menaceraient de le re-
lacher ou de le briser. Eh bien,
je puis dire que jamais je n'ai
senti cette assurance scientifique
aussi affermie qu'aprfes ce nouvel
examen des preuves sur lesquelles
elle repose et des raisons recem-
ment alleguees contre elle.' Com-
mentaire, ut supra, ed. 3, torn. i.
pp. vi and vii.
1 The Mittelpartei, represented
by the Deutsche Evangelische
Blatter, of which he has been
editor since 1876.
2 Zur Johanneischen Frage,
1876. 3 Das Leben Jesu, 2 vols. 1885

330 LECTURE VI.
English Review,4 which are mainly an examination of
Baur's theory as compared with the internal evidences
furnished by the Gospel itself. This is the result at
which he arrives : —
Result. Lastly, it is inconceivable that the Gospel should have
been composed in the second century. Not to speak of the
great character which is in it, which far exceeds anything
that the second Christian century has produced, and which
would have left behind no trace and no memory of itself, by
name, apart from these writings, the spirit of the century
does not harmonize with that of the book. That spirit had
already become traditional and ascetic, and it was no longer
one that would be stirred by purely religious questions but
by strongly theological and ecclesiastical ones. And by them
this remarkable book is entirely untinged, yea, it is alto
gether of another cast. It is an historical monstrosity which
the anti-Johannine criticism proposes for our acceptance.
But we are compelled to say, on the contrary, that only a
previous knowledge of the personality speaking in the Gospel,
only the notorious authority of the eye-witness and apostle,
from the first moment appealing on behalf of the book, could
have opened the way for the acceptance and recognition of a
Gospel, departing so much from all tradition, and that in an
age so careful of tradition, and already in possession of the
Synoptists.5 Among the later German writers on this subject,
I will ask your permission to take the evidence of
two.
zahn, One of these is Dr. Theodore Zahn, who is eminent
1838— u
as a writer on many subjects connected with the
early history and literature of the Church. He was
• * Contemporary Review, Oct. and Nov. 1877.
5 Lbid., loc. cit. p. 943.

LECTURE VI. 331
formerly privat-docent at Gottingen and professor at
Kiel and Erlangen, and has lately succeeded to the
chair at Leipzig vacated by the death of Dr. Lechler.
The eminence and learning of Dr. Zahn are placed
beyond all question, even by those who differ most
from some of his conclusions. Were evidence needed,
the edition of the Epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp,6
and the Investigations for a History of the New Testa
ment Canon and the Ancient Church Literature,1 which
have appeared at intervals during the last ten years,
would more than supply it. And with eminence and His inde-
learning, there is an individuality and independence per" '"'"""
which refuses to call any man master, or to think
any opinion unquestionable. At length the History The His-
of the New Testament Canon? for which so much canon.
preparatory work had been done, has begun to
appear. The first volume is now in our hands, and
two more are to follow. We have already the history
down to Origen ; and though some portions of the
arguments await further development in certain pro
mised Excursuses, we have enough to show that all
the weight of Professor Zahn's general erudition and
minute knowledge of the history of the second cen
tury, is to be thrown without any hesitation into the
scale in favour of the full Johannine authorship The
of the Fourth Gospel and its acceptance from the Gospel.

6 Patrum A postolicorum Opera : NeutestamentlichenKanonsundder
Von Gebhardt, Harnack, Zahn, altkirchlichen Literatur, 1881, etc.
1876, fasc. ii. 8 Geschichte des Neutestament-
7 Forschungen zur Geschichte des lichen Kanons, Bd. i. 1888-9.

662 LECTURE VI.
first. Here, as elsewhere, Dr. Zahn, with character
istic freedom, puts forth some opinions which are
peculiar to himself, and will probably remain so ; but
on the subject of our present inquiry there is in his
view no room for question.
Frante, The other German scholar to whose evidence I
1853- invite special attention is a young and, in this
country, comparatively unknown writer, Dr. August
Hermann Franke, formerly a privat-docent at Halle,
and director of Tholuck' s clergy school, but since
the publication, in 1885, of the work to which I am
about to refer, Professor of Theology at Kiel. This
The ou work is entitled The Old Testament in John,9 and, in
Testament -,-... .. -.. /¦ i -r i
in John, addition to being a strong vindication of the J ohan-
nine authorship of the Fourth Gospel, is specially
important in that it approaches the study of the
Gospel in the right way, always remembering what
the commentators on S. John have but too con
stantly forgotten, that the Divine subject and the
human author were alike Hebrew, both in speech and
the circumstances of life, and that the roots of the
thought and language must alike be found in the Old
Testament.
scope of Professor Franke commences with the inquiry,
What is the attitude of the Gospel to the Old Cove
nant, its people, its revelation, its writings ?
The second and chief part of the work deals with
9 Das alte Testament bei Jo- undBeurtheilungderJohanneischen
hannes, ein Beitrag zur Erklarung Schriften. Gottingen, 1885.

work.

LECTURE VI. 333
the Old Testament foundation of the doctrinal con
ceptions in the Gospel. In some points this is the
common Old Testament groundwork which underlies
all New Testament doctrine, including the Fourth
Gospel. This is illustrated by the doctrines taught
concerning God, the world, eschatology, the Messiah.
But there is also a specific Johannine type of doctrine, Johannine
type of
and the essential argument of the book is that the doctrine.
Old Testament lies necessarily at the root of this
doctrinal individuality. The proofs are based upon
an examination of the following doctrines : — Salva
tion in Christ as the fulfilment of that given in the
Old Testament ; the manifestation of God in Jesus
Christ ; the covenant sacrifice and the atonement ;
the new commandment ; eternal life through com
munion with God ; the new society.
The third division of the work treats of the Old Form of
the
Testament as the basis of the external form of the writing.
Johannine writings. The inquiry is here made as to
the Johannine use of the words of the Old Testament,
the use of the original text and the Septuagint, and
the point of view from which John interpreted the
Old Testament.
The result of this careful and minute examination The author
goes far to prove — even when we have drawn the pen spfakTnJ
through some more or less fanciful conjectures1 — that Ar^of the
the author of the Fourth Gospel must necessarily have century-
been a Hebrew-speaking Jew of the first century, and
1 Cf. esp. review by Riehm in Studien und Kritiken, 1885, pp.
563-582.

334 LECTURE VI.
in this proof Professor Franke makes a substantial
addition to the evidence in favour of the authenticity.
other Space would fail me for even a brief enumeration
writers. *¦
of other modern writers who have been convinced that
the Fourth Gospel is really the work of the Apostle
whose name it bears, and have felt constrained to
offer their evidence in its favour ; but the following
names, at least, must be added : Olshausen, the
Biblical commentator ; 2 the brilliant and able,
though erratic, Thiersch ; 3 Baumgarten-Crusius, the
Jena Professor of Theology ; 4 Andrews Norton, the
American Unitarian divine ; 5 our own Greek Testa
ment commentators Alford 6 and Wordsworth ; 7
Bishop Alexander,8 the rock of whose scholarship
is none the less solid for being clothed with forms
of poetic beauty ; Frederick Denison Maurice,9 ex
pounder of S. John in life and word ; Astie,1 the

2 Die Aechtheit der vier cano- hanneischen Schriften, 1843. Part
nischen Evangelien, 1823 ; Nach- II. 1845. Posthumous.
weis der Echtheit des Neuen Testa- 5 Genuineness of the Gospels,
ments, 1832 ; Biblische Commentar, 1837-44 ; ed. 2, 1846 : see esp.
edited after author's death by evidence of Justin and the early
Ebrard and Wiesinger, 1837-62 ; Heretics. Cf. Lecture II. p. 63.
Commentary on the Gospels, Clark's 6 Greek Testament, 1849-61.
Library, 1846. 7 Greek Testament, 1856-60,
3 Versuch zur Herstellung des 1872.
hist. Standpunkts fur die Kritik 8 Commentary on Epistles of S.
der N. T. Schriften, 1845 ; Einige John, 1881, ed. Canon Cook ; and
Worte iiber die Aechtheit der N.T. Epistles of S. John in the Ex-
Schriften, 1846 ; Die Kirche in positor's Bible, 1889.
apost. Zeitalter u. die Entstehung 9 Gospel of St. John, 1857.
der N. T. Schriften, 1852. 1 Explication de VEvangile selon
* Theologische Auslegung der Jo- Saint Jean, 1863-4.

LECTURE VI. 335
Professor at Lausanne ; Tischendorf,2 known as a
textual critic to us all ; Thenius,3 to whom it was the
Gospel of Gospels ; Fisher,4 Professor at Yale College ;
Uhlhorn,6 in various essays, especially the series on
Modern Presentation of the Lives of Jesus ; Riggen-
bach,6 who answers Volkmar, and Van Oosterzee,7
who answers Scholten ; De Pressens£8in many works,
especially the Jesus Christ ; Richard Holt Hutton,9
author of the ablest essay on Baur in the English,
perhaps in any language ; Schaff,1 especially in the
edition of Lange' s Commentary, and the History of
the Church ; Milligan,2 Professor at Aberdeen, in
separate essays and in the Commentary, where he had
the great advantage of Moulton 3 for a co-worker ;
Liddon4 and Leathes5 and Wace,6 our Bampton
Lecturers ; McLellan,7 whose learned work is un-

2 Warm wurden tmsere Evange- J Lange' s Commentary, 1872,
lien verfasst ? 1865-6. new edition, 1886 ; and History of
3 Das Evangelium der Evange- the Christian Church, New York,
lien, 1865. 1858, ed. 3, 1886, &c.
* Essays on Supernatural Origin 2 Contemporary Review, 1867 -
of Christianity, 1866 ; Article in 68-71 ; Journal of Sacred Litera-
American edition of Smith's Die- ture, 1867.
tionary of the Bible, 1868 ; Groutids 3 Popular Commentary on S.
of Theistic and Christian Belief, John's Gospel, 1879.
1885. 4 The Divinity of our Lord and
6 Vortrage . . . Lebens Jesu, Saviour Jesus Christ, 1866, ed. 13,
1866. 1889.
6 Die Zeugnisse, 1866. 5 Witness of St. John to Christ,
7 Das Johannes ¦ Evangelium, 1870 ; Beligion of the Christ,
1867 ; Eng. Trans. 1869. 1874.
8 Jesus-Christ, son temps, sa vie, 6 The Gospel and its Witnesses,
son ornvre, 1866. 1883.
9 Theological Essays, 1871, ed. 7 Four Gospels, 1875.
3, 1888.

dob LECTURE VI.
happily but a fragment ; Lias 8 and Murphy,9 whose
works on the doctrinal system furnish evidence of
hig-h value ; Ezra Abbot,1 whose name has occurred
to us already ; Charteris,'2 Professor at Edinburgh,
and author of a singularly modest and able work on
Canonicity ; Plummer,3 my own colleague at Dur
ham ; Schanz,4 Professor at Tiibingen, and one of the
ablest modern commentators of the Roman church ;
Reynolds,5 President of Cheshunt College, who has
lately contributed an original investigation of striking
cogency and freshness ; and the Abbe Fillion,6 whose
recent work on the Bible contains a valuable Intro
duction to the Gospels, and especially to the Gospel
according to S. John.
value of This is not merely a list of names : it represents
testimony, a body of men, differing in nationahty, language,
church, and creed, but, without an exception, able
and careful scholars, who have thought out the pro
blem for themselves. We may not accept all their
statements, but their convictions have been formed
side by side with, and in full consideration of, the
negative criticism of the Gospel ; and their combined
witness is at once in the strongest degree condemna-
8 Doctrinal System of St. John, * Commentar, 1885.
1875. 5 Pulpit Commentary : S. John,
9 Scientific Basis of Faith, 1873. Introduction, 1888.
1 External Evidences, 1880. _ 6 Introduction generate aux
2 Canonicity, 1880. Evangiles ; Sainte Bible, avec Com-
3 Greek Testament : St. John, mentaires, 1889.
1882.

LECTURE VI. 337
tory of this criticism, and in the strongest degree
confirmatory of the Johannine authorship.
Four names are absent from the above list which Four
will occur to all English-speaking students as repre- names
senting the most trustworthy body of opinion on this I0Tspeciai
subject. I have reserved them for somewhat fuller treatment-
notice, because I venture to submit that the opinions
of Bishop Lightfoot, Bishop Westcott, Dr. Salmon, and
Dr. Sanday form in combination a weight of evidence
upon this subject which not only overbalances any
similar combination, but is in itself absolutely unique.
I will first ask you to think for a few moments of character
the witnesses and then of their evidence. witnesses :
Of Bishop Lightfoot's special qualifications to Bishop
pronounce an opinion, a careful estimate was pub- foot,
lished three or four years ago by one of the few men
who is thoroughly able to judge : —
What, it may be asked, are the particular qualities which
have won for Bishop Lightfoot so pre-eminent a place, by
the universal consent of all competent judges both in England
and on the Continent ? It is necessary here to weigh our
words ; for though the impression which Bishop Lightfoot
has left upon the public mind is a very distinct one, yet
when a comparison is suggested with other illustrious names,
it is not enough to use general phrases, and it becomes im
portant to single out special points which are most character
istic and distinctive. I should be disposed to say, then, that
the place which Bishop Lightfoot holds was due not only to
his possession, but to his very remarkable balance and com
bination, of a number of distinct excellences — exactness of
scholarship, width of erudition, scientific method, sobriety of
Z

1828-89.

338 LECTURE VI.
judgment, lucidity of style.7 . . . All through his writings
we feel that we have before us the Senior Classic, who
was at home in Thucydides and Plato before he was at
home in St. Paul ; he had shown his skill in many a piece of
finished classical composition before he undertook to repro
duce the Greek of Polycarp where the Latin only was extant ;
and it was his practised hand and trained sensitiveness to
Greek idiom that made itself felt in his felicitous emenda
tions of Clement and Ignatius. It is here that the Cambridge
scholar has the advantage over his German competitors. ... In
reference to exegesis and criticism, I doubt if it is any
exaggeration to say that up to the date 8 of his transference
to Durham, not a monograph of any importance in England,
France, Italy, or Germany seems to have escaped him. . . .
His critics may hold different opinions themselves (based
very probably in large part upon the materials which Bishop
Lightfoot has given them), but I do not remember to have
seen or heard of an instance in which he was convicted of
what we should call a mistake. . . . We have only to think
of the range of his published works to realise what this
means.9 Other writers have had a scientific method, and yet
they do not command the same degree of confidence. It is
impossible altogether to eliminate the individual element in
critical decisions, and the peculiar reliance which is placed
in those of Dr. Lightfoot is due to the sense that they have
been most carefully and judicially weighed. . . . He never
takes up an idea hastily; and if he is slow to give his
thoughts expression, they come with all the more weight of
maturity when they are expressed.1
Bishop Of the scholarship, the knowledge, the thought,
the delicate powers of perception and intuition which
7 Dr. Sanday in the Expositor, 9 Dr. Sanday, ut supra, pp. 18,
July 1886, pp. 13, 14. 19, 20.
8 There was no occasion to fix 1 Lbid. pp. 21, 22.
this limit.

Westcott.

LECTURE VI. 339
the present Bishop of Durham has devoted for half a
century to the New Testament writings — their con
tents, their text, and their history — and above all to
the writings of S. John, it is unnecessary to remind
an English student. Many scholars and thinkers felt
what one of their number said, when the Commentary
on the Fourth Gospel was published : —
To appreciate in any degree the merit of Professor West
cott's work — the fullest, the most finished, the most entirely
decisive of its kind, we incline to think, in the whole compass
of English theological literature — it is necessary to see what
the most advanced position of sceptical criticism actually is,
that it may be perceived how quietly and completely it is
pulverised by this great master.2
Of the special value of Dr. Salmon's judgment, Dr.
like testimony from a like competent authority is at Salmon'
hand : —
Dr. Salmon's ' Historical Introduction to the New Testa
ment' is one of those remarkable books which can only be pro
duced at rare intervals, and of which the importance depends on
a singular combination in their subject-matter, their author
ship, and the circumstances in which they appear. . . . The
name of Dr. Salmon is of European reputation, and the
weight it carries is all the greater, because this reputa
tion was originally gained in another field of labour. Dr.
Salmon's works have, for many years, been the standard
treatises for advanced students in some of the highest
branches of modern mathematical science. They still hold
their ground, notwithstanding the great progress which has
been made in the abstruse subjects of which some of them
treat. They have been translated into two or three of the
Continental languages, and the eminence they have won was
2 Church Quarterly Review, Jan. 1880, p. 329. z 2

340 LECTURE VI.
marked, not long ago, by the election of their author to the
rare distinction of a Member of the French Institute.3 . . .
Considering the prevalent superstitious worship of science
and its high priests, it must add to the attention a man can
command if he is one of the initiated in this mystery. Dr.
Salmon speaks with full authority in this respect, and he is
one of the most eminent of the many examples around us,
including the present President of the Royal Society, that
profound scientific knowledge is fully compatible with a
devout faith in the Creed of Christianity. ... It will be
seen, that the real truth is, that the inveterate prejudice is on
the part of the chief opponents of Christian tradition. But
it is none the less valuable that the truth should be main
tained, as in this volume, in a spirit which must impress
every fair reader with the scientific calmness of the writer's
spirit and method. 'Although,' says the author in his Pre
face, ' my work may be described as apologetic in the sense
that its results agree in the main with the traditional belief
of the Church, I can honestly say that I have not worked in
the spirit of an advocate anxious to defend a foregone conclu
sion. I have aimed at making my investigations historical, and
at asserting nothing but what the evidence, candidly weighed,
seemed to warrant.' The tone, no less than the method, of
Dr. Salmon's argument fully sustains this claim, and engages,
from the outset, the reader's confidence. One feels oneself in
the hands of a quiet and masterly guide, who is only con
cerned to point out to us the facts with which we have to
deal, and who will not press a single conclusion merely
because it conforms to his own inclination or presump
tions. ... In discussing any question of criticism, Dr.
Salmon writes in just the same manner as if he were investi
gating a problem in conic sections or the higher algebra.4
8 Since these words were writ- Copley Medal of the Royal Society
ten, the high academical distinc- (1889) have been conferred on
tion of the Provostship of Trinity Dr. Salmon.
College, Dublin (1888), and the 4 Quarterly Review, Oct. 1886,
high scientific distinction of the pp. 460-463.

LECTURE VI. 341
Our own Professor of Exegesis has been fewer Dr.
years before the world than any one of the three with
whom he is here grouped ; but if a like number of
years is given him for his work, a future generation
of scholars will probably think him not the least
competent of the group to express an authoritative
judgment on the present question. It was to the
Johannine problem that Dr. Sanday devoted his first
published work ; and it is this problem which has
occupied much of his later studies. He has the
peculiar fitness for it which comes from the addition
to sound scholarship and an untiring power of taking
pains, of a delicately balanced judgment which appre
ciates the weight of every objection and sympathizes
with the feeling of every difficulty. The reader of
Dr. Sanday's writings may sometimes think that he
carries this sensitiveness to modern objections too
far ; and that he is too ready to invert the legal
maxim and to give the accuser the benefit of the
doubt ; but the balanced mind which estimates even
the trifling weight of a passing theory is never
unaffected by the solid weight of historic fact, and the
final judgment is definite and clear.
It is the more necessary to invite attention to the
really remarkable position of these English divines,
because, on the one hand, some continental writers
seem to live in unhappy ignorance of them ; and, on
the other hand, many English students, taking omne
ignotum pro magnifco, seem to think it necessary to
their reputation as scholars, to give ready credence to

342 LECTURE VI.
the last essay which has appeared in a Zeitschrift, or,
as German is now more commonly known, to the last
thesis which has been printed at a Dutch university.
They import rushlights from abroad, apparently un
aware that they have sunlight at home.
Their It is very much to the loss of German science, and
unnoticed it is in itself almost incredible, for example, that in a
7 ee ' book so full and able, and in most respects thoroughly
up to date, as the last edition of Bleek's Introduction5 by
Mangold — a work extending to more than a thousand
closely-printed pages — there is hardly a reference to
any writer of this group. Ephesians, Colossians, Phi-
lippians and the Ignatian question are dealt with in
1886 without a reference to Bishop Lightfoot ; and
the writings of S. John, and the Canon of the New
Testament, without a reference to Dr. Westcott !
Weiss, Weiss's Introduction is later still. I have already
referred to its excellence. In the preface, printed in
English in 1887, the author says : —
Of actual fellow-workers on the problems of the New
Testament I hope I have forgotten none. But I have not
been able to follow up foreign literature to any extent.6
There is no trace of any acquaintance with a single
English writer. Nor is this serious omission amended
in the German edition of last year.
Meyer. Meyer's Commentary on the Gospel of S. John 7 has
passed through seven German editions, of which the
5 Cf. supra, p. 314. 6 Cf. supra, pp. 324 sq.
7 Cf. supra, pp. 319 sq.

LECTURE VI. 343
last was issued by Dr. Weiss in 1886. He is apparently
quite unaware that Dr. Westcott had published his
great work seven years before — though he has ' natu
rally ' referred to the modern English editions of the
text — and he explains that he makes no use of the
third edition of Godet' s Commentary, because it had
not yet been translated from French into German.8

But in England at least we know what value to Their
6Y1Q.6I1C6 •
attach to the evidence of these witnesses. I will de
tain you but a few moments by reference to it.
And first, the evidence of Bishop Lightfoot. I Bishop
have already quoted his final opinion, based upon the foot's :
internal evidences of the Fourth Gospel.9 This is
his view of the external evidences written in 1876,
and republished last year : —
We have now reached the close of the second century, The school
and it is not necessary to pursue the history of the School of ?f S.John
... . . ~ in second
St. John in their Asiatic home beyond this point. . . . Out of century.
a very extensive literature, by which this school was once
represented, the extant remains are miserably few and frag
mentary ; but the evidence yielded by these meagre relics is
decidedly greater, in proportion to their extent, than we had
any right to expect. As regards the Fourth Gospel, this is
especially the case. If the same amount of written matter —
occupying a very few pages in all — were extracted accident
ally from the current theological literature of our own day, the
chances, unless I am mistaken, would be strongly against our
finding so many indications of the use of this Gospel. In every
one of the writers, from Polycarp and Papias to Polycrates,
we have observed phenomena which bear witness directly or
8 Op. cit. 2te Halfte, p. viii. 9 Cf. Lecture III. p. 165.

344 LECTURE VI.
indirectly, and with different degrees of distinctness, to its
recognition. It is quite possible for critical ingenuity to find
a reason for discrediting each instance in turn. An objector
may urge in one case, that the writing itself is a forgery ; in
a second, that the particular passage is an interpolation ; in a
third, that the supposed quotation is the original and the
language of the Evangelist the copy ; in a fourth, that the in
cident or saying was not deduced from this Gospel but from
some apocryphal work, containing a parallel narrative. By a
sufficient number of assumptions, which lie beyond the range
of verification, the evidence may be set aside. But the early
existence and recognition of the Fourth Gospel is the one
simple postulate which explains all the facts. The law of
gravitation accounts for the various phenomena of motion, the
falling of a stone, the jet of a fountain, the orbits of the
planets, and so forth. It is quite possible for any one, who
is so disposed, to reject this explanation of nature. Provided
that he is allowed to postulate a new force for every new fact
with which he is confronted, he has nothing to fear. He will
then ' gird the sphere
With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er,
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb,'
happy in his immunity. But the other theory will prevail
nevertheless by reason of its simplicity.1
Again : —
Irenaeus is the first extant writer in whom, from the
nature of his work, we have a right to expect explicit infor
mation on the subject of the Canon. Earlier writings, which
have been preserved entire, are either epistolary, like the let
ters of the Apostolic Fathers, where any references to the
Canonical books must necessarily be precarious and incidental
(to say nothing of the continuance of the oral tradition at this
1 Contemporary Review, xxvii. pp. 495-6 ; Essays on Supernatural
Religion, 1889, pp. 249 sq.

LECTURE VI. 345
early date as a disturbing element) ; or devotional, like the
Shepherd of Hermas, which is equally devoid of quotations
from the Old Testament and from the New ; or historical, like
the account of the martyrdoms at Vienne and Lyons, where
any such allusion is gratuitous ; or apologetic, like the great
mass of the extant Christian writings of the second century,
where the reserve of the writer naturally leads him to be silent
about authorities which would carry no weight with the Jewish
or heathen writers whom he addressed. But the work of
Irenasus is the first controversial treatise addressed to Chris
tians on questions of Christian doctrine, where the appeal lies
to Christian documents. And here the testimony to our four
Gospels isiiill and clear and precise.2
This is the definite witness of Bishop Westcott : — Bishop
West-
As far, therefore, as indirect internal evidence is con- cotts:
cerned, the conclusion towards which all the lines of inquiry evidence
converge remains unshaken, that the fourth Gospel was
written by a Palestinian Jew, by an eye-witness, by the
disciple whom Jesus loved, by John the son of Zebedee.3
Again : —
Three passages (John i. 14 ; xix. 35 ; xxi. 24) appear to
point directly to the position and person of the author. . . .
The general result of the examination of these passages is
thus tolerably distinct. The Fourth Gospel claims to be
written by an eye-witness, and this claim is attested by those
who put the work in circulation.4
Again : —
In considering the external evidence for the author- External
ship of the Fourth Gospel, it is necessary to bear in mind evidence.
2 Contemporary Review xxviii. 3 The Gospel according to St.
pp. 419, 420 ; Essays, ut supra, John, ed. of 1886, p. xxv.
p. 271. 4 Ibid. pp. xxv and xxviii.

346

LECTURE VI.

All evi
dence points in
one direc
tion.

the conditions under which it must be sought. It is
agreed on all hands that the Gospel was written at a late
date, towards the close of the first century, when the
Evangelic tradition, preserved in complementary forms in the
Synoptic Gospels, had gained general currency, and from its
wide spread had practically determined the popular view of
the life and teaching of the Lord. And further, the substance
of the record deals with problems which belong to the life of
the Church and to a more fully developed faith. On both
grounds references to the contents of this Gospel would
naturally be rarer in ordinary literature than references to the
contents of the other Gospels. Express citations are made
from all about the same time.5
Again : —
In reviewing these traces of the use of the Gospel in
the first three quarters of a century after it was written,
we readily admit that they are less distinct and numerous
than those might have expected who are unacquainted with
the character of the literary remains of the period. But it
will be observed that all the evidence points in one direction.
There is not, with one questionable exception, any positive
indication that doubt was anywhere thrown upon the authen
ticity of the book. It is possible to explain away in detail
this piece of evidence and that, but the acceptance of the
book as the work of the Apostle adequately explains all the
phenomena without any violence ; and hitherto all the new
evidence which has come to light has supported this universal
belief of the Christian Society, while it has seriously modified
the rival theories which have been set up against it.6

Dr. Salmon's :

Gospeland

The evidence of Dr. Salmon is not less remark
able : —
I do not think it necessary to spend much time on
the proofs that the first Epistle and the Gospel are the work

The Gospel, ut supra, p. xxviii.

6 Lbid. p. xxxii.

LECTURE VI. 347
of the same writer. ... It would be waste of time if I were First
to enumerate and answer the points of objection to this view EPlstle fcy
made by Davidson and others of his school, whose work seems writer.
to me no more than laborious trifling. These microscopic
critics forget that it is quite as uncritical to be blind to re
semblances as it is to overlook points of difference. ... I
am sure that any unprejudiced judge would decide that while
the minute points of difference that have been pointed out
between the Gospel and the first Epistle are no more than
must be expected in two productions of the same writer, the
general resemblance is such, that a man must be devoid of
all faculty of critical perception who cannot discern the
proofs of common authorship. The main reason for denying
the common authorship is that, if it be granted, it demolishes
certain theories about St. John's Gospel.7
Again : —
The Fourth Gospel, as I have said, has been the subject Date
of far more serious assaults than the others. If the others of GosPel-
are allowed to have been published soon after the destruc
tion of Jerusalem, the fourth is not assigned an earlier date
than the latter half of the second century. Such, at least,
was Baur's theory ; but in the critical sifting it has under
gone, the date of the fourth Gospel has been receding
further and further back in the second century, so that now
hardly any critic with any pretension to fairness puts it later
than the very beginning of that century, if not the end of
the first century, which comes very close to the date assigned
it by those who believe in the Johannine authorship.8
Again : —
Now, with respect to external evidence, I have already External
expressed my belief that John's Gospel stands on quite evidenoe-
7 Historical Introduction to the New Testament, ed. 2, 1886, pp.
210, 211. 8 Lbid. p. 213.

348

LECTURE VI.

Conditionsof author
ship met
only by S.
John.

as high a level of authority as any of the others. Suf
fice it now to say that if it be a forgery it has had the
most wonderful success ever forgery had: at once received
not only by the orthodox, but by the most discordant heretics
— by Judaising Christians, Gnostics, Mystics— all of whom
owned the necessity of reconciling their speculations with
the sayings of this Gospel.9
Again : —
The author of the Fourth Gospel was a Jew.1 .... The
writer was a Jew of Palestine.2 .... I regard it, then, as
proved that the writer of the fourth Gospel was a Jew, not
very distant in time from the events which he relates. Is
there, then, any reason why we should refuse credence to the
claim, which he himself makes four times, to have been an
eye-witness of our Saviour's life (i. 14 ; xix. 35 ; xxi. 24 ;
1 John i. 1) ? There is nothing against admitting this
claim, but everything in favour of it.3 .... I think
we may also conclude that the writer had been a disciple
of the Baptist as well as of our Lord.4 .... And no
account of the matter seems satisfactory but the traditional
one, that the writer was the Apostle John.5

Dr. This is the evidence of Dr. Sanday, taken from
his Inaugural Lecture before this University : —
Advance I* is now some ten years since I published a book
of positive (Authorship of the Fourth Gospel) on the subject, and in the
meantime this question, too, has not stood still. I have
already alluded to the remarkable change in the aspect of the
external evidence. When I wrote I excused myself from
dealing with this on the ground that its results were in
conclusive. This could not be said now. Justin, Tatian,

9 Historical Lntroduction,
supra, pp. 215, 216.
1 Lbid. p. 268.
2 Ibid. p. 271.

ut

3 Ibid. p. 275.
4 Ibid. p. 276.
5 Ibid. p. 284.

LECTURE VI. 349
the Clementine Homilies, no longer give an uncertain sound.
If only the textual argument of which I have spoken
holds good — and I have great confidence that it will be
found to hold good — then it seems to me that the date
of the Gospel is all but demonstrated. As it is, the
date assigned to it by some eminent critics has become little
less than ludicrous in the light of our fuller knowledge.
Baur's 160-170, Volkmar's 155, Scholten's 140, are all dates
at which not only is it certain that the Gospel existed, but
highly probable that it was already translated, or at least being
translated, and that with a text some way advanced on the
road of corruption. I am running a little ahead of the proof
in asserting this, but not, I suspect, very far. Dies docebit.
But if the case is made out in all its strength, a priori con
siderations must yield, and the Gospel must take rank as the
work of a contemporary, as it professes to be.6
The Gospel of St. John presents an unique phenomenon. Internal
It contains two distinct strata of thought, both quite unmistake
able to the critical eye ; and in each of these strata, again, there
are local peculiarities which complicate the problem. When
it comes to be closely investigated, the complexities of the
problem are such that the whole of literature probably does
not furnish a parallel. The hypothesis of authorship that
shall satisfy them thus becomes in its turn equally compli
cated. It is necessary to find one who shall be at once Jew
and Christian, intensely Jewish, and yet comprehensively
Christian ; brought up on the Old Testament, and yet with
a strong tincture of Alexandrian philosophy ; using a lan
guage in which the Hebrew structure and the Greek super
structure are equally conspicuous; one who had mixed
personally in the events, and yet at the time of writing stood
at a distance from them ; an immediate disciple of Jesus, and
yet possessed of so powerful an individuality as to impress the
mark of himself upon his recollections ; a nature capable of
the most ardent and clinging affection, and yet an unsparing
6 An Inaugural Lecture : The Study of the New Testament. Oxford,
1883, pp. 28, 29.

evidence.

350

LECTURE VI.

One key
only fits
the wards.

denouncer of hostile agencies of any kind which lay outside
his own charmed circle. There is one historical figure which
seems to fit like a key into all these intricate wards, — the
figure of St. John, as it has been handed down to us by a
well-authenticated tradition. I can conceive no second. If
the St. John of history did not exist, he would have to be
invented to account for his Gospel.7

Conclu
sion :

Persona
lity.

Anony
mity.

In presenting to you this sketch of modern criti
cal opinions, which, imperfect as it is, must now be
brought to a close, I have made no attempt — though
in our age it has been not seldom put forward as
an excellence — to look at opinions altogether apart
from the personality of those who have formed them.
I make no claim to be able to estimate testimony
without reference to the person who testifies. The
author of Supernatural Religion, in the Introduction to
his Reply to Dr. Lightfoot s Essays, adopts the opposite
point of view, which he expresses in the following
words : —
I may distinctly say that I have always held that argu
ments upon very serious Subjects should be impersonal, and
neither gain weight by the possession of a distinguished name
nor lose by the want of it. I leave the Bishop any advantage
he has in his throne, and I take my stand upon the basis of
reason and not of reputation.8

Evidence
largely

And ' Testimony,' as Dr. Johnson reminds us,
' is like an arrow shot from a long bow ; the force of
it depends on the strength of the hand that draws it.
7 The Study of the New Testament, ut supra, p. 32.
8 A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays, 1889, p. vi.

LECTURE VI. 351
Argument is like an arrow from a cross-bow, which a question
1 -I 1 > q T> °^ rePllta"
has equal force though shot by a child. But tion.
history is not chiefly a question of pure reason, and
evidence is largely a question of reputation. What
we want to know is, not what the very ablest man
may from his own point of view conceive that the
first and second century ought to have been, but what
the first and second century were. And the special
value of Bishop Lightfoot's testimony to us is,
not that he spoke from the throne of a bishop, but
that he spoke as a prince among scholars, placed upon
his throne by the universal suffrages of students. It
is not that he was the successor of prince-bishops,
and himself a prince among bishops, but that he was
the humblest and most laborious of students who
in singleness of purpose sought the truth with energy
which knew not what it was to be weary, with in
dustry which knew not what it was to leave the
remotest byways of knowledge unexplored, with
anxious care which wiped the very dust from
the scales of judgment which he held ; who never
trusted himself nor asked a reader to trust him, and
never bade you take a step with him on a road
which was not supported by arches of thought and
builded up by buttresses of minute investigations.
Of a witness to the first and second century, as to

9 Boswell says that Johnson under Crossbow, in a slightly
called this 'a beautiful image in different form, as from Boyle.
Bacon'; hut it is given in the See Hill, Boswell' s Lifeof Johnson,
later editions of the Dictionary, vol. iv. p. 281.

352

LECTURE VI.

ledge,

Requisites a witness to any incident, the first requisite is, Was he
witness : there ? Did he see what took place ? Now Bishop
Lightfoot, pre-eminently among men who have lived
in this century, fulfilled this requisite. He never at
tempted to write a page before he had investigated the
principles and facts which he meant to teach. Start-
fuiiknow- ing from highest intellectual and moral gifts, with
every advantage of most exact academic training, the
early history of the Church became a first aim in all
his studies. He essentially went there. To him the
persons, the places, the incidents of the first Christian
centuries became a living reality. The skeletons of
the chroniclers were clothed with the flesh and blood
of real persons. He moved among them in the
familiar intercourse of old acquaintance. And when
he came to testify, he ' testified what he had seen.' 1
perfect And the second requisite is, absolute honesty. I
have read to you some opinions of others on the work
of Bishop Lightfoot. Our ears still listen to the
echoes of the Church's wailing when he was taken
from us. His transparent character is known to us.
It is as the brightness of the sun, in the presence
of which the earth-born mist of suspicion vanishes

honesty.

1 'The distinction between testi
mony, argument, and authority
may be briefly summed up thus : —
' In questions of testimony, I
believe » matter of fact, because
the witness believes it.
' In questions of argument, I
believe the conclusion to be true,
because it is proved by reasons

satisfactory to my understanding.
' In questions of authority, I
believe a matter of opinion, be
cause it is believed by a person
whom I consider a competent
j udge of the question. ' Sir George
Cornewall Lewis, On the Influence
of Authority in Opinion, 1875,
p. 18.

LECTURE VI. 353
away. ' We know that Ms testimony is true.' Who
will think that such testimony is independent of the
great personality which stands behind it ? I have
chosen this personality to illustrate our position
because of its acknowledged characteristics, and be
cause I may speak more freely of one who, while
in the freshness of memory he is still with us, has
in bodily presence been taken from us ; but who will
not also feel that, while this witness stands in the
foremost rank, he is accompanied and followed by
others whose personality joins with his, and that
these witnesses together with their witness make
the positive evidence of this age a strong confirma
tion of and a substantial addition to that of the
centuries which have gone before, and a solid support
for that of the centuries which are yet to come ?
At the mouth of two witnesses or three shall every word be
established. In the next lecture it will be my duty to give
some account of the results which are to be derived
from recent discoveries and other actual additions
to our knowledge of our present subject.

A A

LECTURE VII
'OUR AGE'
RECENT ADDITIONS TO OUR KNOWLEDGE

A A 2

AP OTN AErOMEN Tl AOHAN EINAI ;
nns tap or;
nOTEPON AAAHN ATNAMIN ElllSf HMH2 H THN ATTHN ;
AAAHN. En AAAJ1 APA TETAKTAI AOHA KAI En AAAfl EILLSTHMH, KATA THN
[ATTHN] ATNAMIN EKATEPA THN ATTH2.
OTTOS. Plato.

LECTURE VII.
Therefore every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of
heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth
out of his treasure things new and old. — Matt. xiii. 52.
' Our age ' is remarkable not only for the eminent state-
writers who have given to us the benefit of their of6^
thoughts on the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, subJeot
but also for positive additions to our knowledge of
the subject, the first numbers, probably, of an ex
tended series, the results of wMch no one can esti
mate.1 The earth has revealed facts which have for

1 What, for example, would be
the effect of the discovery of the
complete works of Papias 1 And
we may be near to it. They were
perhaps known in the thirteenth or
fourteenth centuries, as appears
from the following extract : —
' Utinam vero ad nos usque
pervenissent ilia ! Et supererant
quidem sseculo xiii ineunte, ut e
codicum MSS. catalogo circa
annum Christi 1218 confecto eru-
dimur quem ex ecclesise Nemau-
sensis tabulario erutum, cl. Me-
nardus haud ita pridem evulgavit :
ut proinde viri eruditissimi recte
conjecisse existimantur, quod
Trithemii quoque setate, ut ipse-
met innuere videtur, sseculo
nimirum xv exeunte, eadem ex-
stitisse potuerint : licet Caveus

et Fabricius neutiquam id sibi
persuadeant.' S. Papias Hiera-
politanus Episcoptis, Notitia iii.
Migne, Series Grxca, 1857, torn.
v. p. 1254.
About the same time there
seem to have been four copies
of the works of a Papias in
the library of the monastery at
Canterbury, one of which is de
scribed as 'mpfectus,' and one
has the words 'Luce de Wyn-
chelese ' attached. Bibl. Cotton.
Galba, E. IV. pp. 134 col. 2, 135
col. 2, 137 col. 1, 143 col. 3.
Bernard gives references to two
other works of a Papias, one in the
Cathedral Library at Worcester,
the other in the Library of Robert
Burscough. Catalogi Librorum
Manuscriptorum, 1697.

Width of
field.

358 LECTURE VH.
centuries lain concealed beneath its surface. Monas
teries and libraries have rewarded the patient inves
tigation of scholars by discoveries of priceless value.
Language has furnished its students wdth the key of
hidden treasures. Criticism has, in the hands of its
masters, arrived at inductions which must take their
place in the domain of established fact.
In entering upon this part of our subject it
will at once be seen that a vast field of inquiry is
presented to our view, and that we must limit our
selves to a mere reference to large portions of it.
We cannot, for example, enter into any details of the
interesting work of the Palestine Exploration Fund,
of that of Mr. Wood in Ephesus, or of Mr. Ramsay
in Asia Minor ; we must remind ourselves only of
the discoveries of the Codex N, Codex Sangallensis,
Codex Tischendorfianus hi., and Codex Holmiensis ;
of the Curetonian Syriac ; of the Epistle of Barnabas,
of portions of the so-called Homilies of Clement of
Rome, and of the Didache. But let us do this much
at least, for our familiar knowledge may lead us to
forget how much additional light has come to us,
and is still coming to us, in this ' our age.'
Nor ought we to be unmindful how textual criti
cism in the person of students such as Lachmann,
Tischendorf, Tregelles, Scrivener, Burgon ; and in
these later days in the hands of Westcott and Hort,
Gregory, Sanday, Wordsworth, and White, has dis
covered the links by which the text of our present
copies of the Gospel is to be traced at least well

LECTURE VII. 359
back into the second century. Nor yet ought we to
forget how, in special departments of this field, the
labours of the Archbishop Bryennios in the East, of
Cardinal Pitra and of Commendatore de Rossi in
Rome, of the Abbe" Martin in Paris, of Dr. Belsheim
in Sweden, of the rising school of textual critics in
Holland, of Professors Zahn, Yon Gebhardt, and
Harnack in Germany, of the American Professors Hall
and Warfield, of the Dublin Professors Gwynn and
Abbott, of many others whom these names do but
represent, are daily increasing the mass of evidence ;
and how the results all lie in the same direction.
But there are some additions to our knowledge
which claim from their immediate connexion with
our own subject a fuller, though it must still be a
fragmentary, notice.2
And in the first place let us consider the import
ance of a discovery in the practical utilization of
which the University of Oxford took considerable
part. M. Mynoide Mynas, a Greek scholar in the employ m. vnie-
of the French Government, who had been sent out by search ex-
M. Villemain, the Minister of Public Instruction, on Pedition-
a search expedition among the libraries of the Greek
monasteries, brought from Mount Athos in 1842,
among other MSS., one of the fourteenth century,
2 Cf. generally Lechler's slight have been saved some trouble in
but interesting tract, Urkunden- references, had I met with it
funds zur Geschichte des christ- before this lecture was in print.
lichen Alterthums, 1886. I might

Dis
coveries

360 LECTURE VII.
containing ten books, which professed to include a
Refutation of all Heresies.3 Among the other trea
sures which M. Mynas had acquired were a transcript
of the long-lost Fables of Babrius, a MS. of the
Dialectica of Galen, and one of the Gymnastica of
^ ^s Philostratus ; 4 and attention was first naturally
directed to these works of more general interest.
The MS. treatise to which I am inviting your pre
sent thought was not on a very attractive subject,
and M. Emmanuel Miller, one of the officers of the
Bibliotheque Nationale, in which these treasures had
been deposited, described it in 1844 simply as a
Manuscript of the fourteenth century on cotton paper,
containing a refutation of all heresies? The MS. was
incomplete, beginning in the middle of the fourth
book, but apparently had never contained books
i.-iii. ; and book x., which is a summary of the
work, gives nothing of the contents of books ii.-iv.
Further investigation convinced M. Miller that the
MS. was part of the Philosophumena which had been
published by Gronovius and the Benedictine editors
as the work of Origen.
ThePMio- He thereupon proposed to the delegates of the
mena Clarendon Press to undertake the printing and pub-
3 Kara iraoav alpto-eaiv eXpyxos. refutation de toutes les heresies.
4 Cf . Rapport adresse d M . le Get ouvrage, d'un autewr anonyme,
Ministre de I'instruction publique, est divise en dix livres ; mais les
par M. Myno'ide Mynas, charge trois premiers manquent, ainsi que
d'une mission en Orient in the la fin.' Ut supra, p. 91. Cf.
Revue de Bibliographic Analytique, Origen's Philosophumena ; or Be-
1844, v. pp. 80 sqq. futation of all Heresies, ed. Miller,
5 ' Manuscrit en papier de coton, Oxford, 1851. Preface, p. v.
du XlVe siecle, contenant une

lecture vn. 361
lication of the work. His proposal was commended edited by
M Miller
by Dr. Gaisford, to whom he was known as a Greek
scholar, and in 1851 the work appeared under the
title, Origen 's Philosophumena, or Refutation of all
heresies? The first three books and part of the
fourth are wanting, as we have just seen, in the Paris
MS.; but M. Miller found it possible to supply the
first book from four previously known MSS. in
Italian libraries. When attention was once directed
to the work, it attracted the notice of scholars far and
wide. A striking example of this is found in the
fact that an article from the pen of Professor Jacobi, views
of Berlin, controverting M. Miller's view of the Jacobi,
authorship, appeared in the Methodist Quarterly
Review of New York in October of the same year.7
From a careful examination of the contents of the
work, Professor Jacobi comes to the conclusion that
it could not be by Origen, but that it was certainly
by a contemporary of Origen. Everything points, in
his opinion, to the presbyter Caius, or to Hippolytus.
But Caius he remembers was specially distinguished
by his opposition to Cerinthus, of whom our author
has nothing new to tell us. Caius ascribed the
Apocalypse to Cerinthus, our author to the Apostle
John ; Caius was a strenuous opponent, our author
probably an advocate, of sensuous chiliastic views.
If the matter of the work is minutely examined, it
6 Origenis Philosophumena sive edidit Emmanuel Miller.
Omnium Heeresium Refutatio. E 7 Methodist Quarterly Review,
Codice Parisino nunc primum Oct. 1851, pp. 645-652.

362 lecture vh.
falls in so strikingly with all we know of Hippolytus,
as to leave little room for doubt that it was written
by him ; and it is also known that a work bearing
this or a similar title was ascribed to Hippolytus by
Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, and Nicephorus, and
that on the back of the seat of the statue of Hippo
lytus, which had been dug up at Portus in 1551,
there were the names of writings which our author
claims as his own. Professor Jacobi enlarged this
article, and republished it in the fuller form in the
German Journal for Christian Knowledge and Chris
tian Life?
Duncter Meanwhile Dr. Duncker had quite independently
Schneide- ascribed the treatise to Hippolytus in a review of
M. Miller's work in the Gottingen Literary Adver
tiser,9 and undertook to produce an edition of the
MS. This he commenced in conjunction with Dr.
Schneidewin, but unhappily died before half the work
was printed. His colleague completed and published
the book in 1859, and their edition became the
classical authority.1
Bunsen, Meanwhile also the Baron de Bunsen, who as a
statesman and a diplomatist had special interests in
8 Deutsche Zeitschrift fiir christ- and the article by Dr. Salmon,
liche Wissenschaft und christliches Hippolytus Romanus, in Smith
Leben, 1851, Nos. 25, 26 ; 1853, and Wace's Dictionary of Chris-
Nos. 24, 25. tian Biography, vol. iv. pp. 783-
9 Gottingische gelehrte Anzei- 804.
gen, 1851, Stiick 152-155. See ' Cf. Hippolyti Refutatio om-
also the valuable English treatise tiium Hxresium, ed. Duncker et
by Wordsworth, S. Hippolytus and Schneidewin, Gottingen, 1859.
the Church of Rome, ed. 2, 1880 ;

LECTURE VII. 363
the Great Exhibition of 1851, had written to Arch
deacon Hare telling him how in the midst of it all, he
had been interested in this new discovery of a monu
ment of early Christianity, which he thinks to be the
most important made on that ground for a century.
His attention had been called to it by Dr. Tregelles,
who told him what importance Dr. Routh attached
to it, and he accordingly at once sent for the book
and examined it for himself. He also came quite
independently of other inquirers to the conclusion
that it is the work of Hippolytus, and published
the results of his investigations at great length.2
Dr. Lommatzsch, the editor of Origen, had also Lom-
, . . . , matzsch,
written to Bunsen to express the opinion that the
work could not be attributed to Origen, and that in
his opinion it was the work of Hippolytus.
Dr. von DoUinger followed in 1853,3 admitting Von D6i-
that the treatise is by Hippolytus, but seeking to
prove from the character of the work that the author
must have been a schismatic and an anti-pope.
The Abbe Cruice felt convinced that the work Cruice,
was not written by Hippolytus, and in the valuable
Introduction to Ms edition of it, arrives at the hesitat
ing result that it is a ' work ascribed to Origen.' 4
Baur was of opinion that the work was by Caius, Baur and
3 Hippolytus and his Age, 1852, 4 Etudes sur des ... . Philoso-
4 vols., esp. Five Letters to Arch- phumena, 1853 : Histoire de
deacon Hare, vol. i. ; Christianity VEglise de Rome, 1856 ; and esp.
and Mankind, 1854, 7 vols. Philosophumena, sive Heeresium
3 Hippolytus und Kallistus, omnium, Confutatio, opus Origeni
1853, Eng. Trans. Plummer, 1876. adscriptum, Paris, 1860.

364

LECTURE VII.

Fessler.

Consensus
of opinion
in favour
of Hippo
lytus.

Import
ance of
the dis
covery.

and was supported by Fessler, from the opposite
Tubingen camp,5 but he has now no following in
this view, and indeed seems himself to have aban
doned it.6
Ritschl, Yolkmar, Overbeck, and, with the ex
ception of Lipsius (wTho is still doubtful, and
quotes the work as pseudo-Origen), almost every
authority of first importance now accepts the view
that the discovery of Mynoide Mynas has really
placed in our hands an original work of Hippoly
tus which dates from the first quarter of the third
century. The interest and importance of the work, which
this University had the honour of giving to the world,
have not been overrated. Now for the first time we
hear of Justin the Gnostic ; now we know something
more than the names of Monoimus, and of the Pera-
tici ; now we have a much fuller treatment than
before of the doctrines of Simon Magus and the
Simonians. Now for the first time in the history
of Gnosticism there was presented a theory not of
dualism, but of pantheistic monism, not of emanation
from the higher to the lower, but of evolution from
the lower to the higher. The position of Basilides
at the beginning of the second century, as disclosed
in this work, which was unknown in modern times
until it was issued by the Clarendon Press of this
5 Theologische Quartalschrift, 6 Christenthum und christliche
1852, ii. pp. 299 sqq. ; Theolo- Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhun-
gische Jahrbiicher, 1853, Heft 1, derte, 2te Aufl. 1860, p. 344.
3, and 1854, Heft 3.

LECTURE VII. 365
University less than forty years ago, reminds more
than one of its exponents 7 of the position of Hegel
in the nineteenth century.
The question naturally arose, and was eagerly Which is
discussed: — Is tMs the true Basilides ? Are we to Basilides?
accept the statements of Hippolytus as representing
the founder of the school, or have they been influ
enced by the teaching of later disciples ? It is of
course just possible that the explanation of the dif
ference between this new picture and the features
previously known to us, is to be found in an exoteric
and esoteric doctrine, or that Hippolytus presents
the doctrine in an earlier, and Irenaaus in a later
stage of the development, both being alike representa
tions of the personal Basilides. But most thinkers
have felt that they must choose between the old and
the new ; and whether we count names, or weigh
them, a strong preponderance of the best critical Critics
opinion is in favour of the view that we have in the prefer
pages of Hippolytus a faithful representation of the lytus?
original work of Basilides himself. This deduction
is based upon an examination of the passages m
Hippolytus, and a comparison of them with the por
tions of the Exegetica of Basilides which are known
to be preserved in Clement of Alexandria ; and this
view has been accepted by, among others, Jacobi,8
7 Mansel, Gnostic Heresies, sententias ex Hippolyti libro Kara
1875, edited by Bishop Lightfoot, iracrmv alpeo-eav nuper reperto illus-
p. 147 ; Schaff, History of the travit 1852, Zeitschrift fur Kir-
Church, vol. ii. p. 453. chengeschichte, 1876-7, i. pp. 481
8 Basilidis philosophi gnostici sq.

366

LECTURE VII.

Excep
tions.

Opinions

Baur,9 Uhlhorn,1 by Gundert, though he thinks that
there is a dualistic principle in the Hippolytean
account,2 and by Moller.3 On the other side, Hil
genfeld prided himself on being the first to oppose
this view, and has remained consistent in his convic
tions.4 He has been followed by Lipsius, whose
opinion is of great weight, but who has taken an
exceptional line on the whole of the Hippolytean
question ; 5 by Yolkmar,6 and by Scholten.7 In our
own country the prevailing opinion that Hippolytus
represents the original Basilides has been maintained
in a lecture delivered before this University by the
late Dean Mansel, as Professor of Ecclesiastical His
tory,8 and in an article by the Cambridge Professor,
Dr. Hort, which leaves little room for any further
investigation into our present material for knowing

9 Clvristenthum und christliche
Kirche, ut supra, lte Aufl. 1853,
pp. 187 sqq. ; 2te Aufl. 1860, pp.
204 sqq.
1 Das Basilidianische System
mit besonderer Riicksieht auf die
Angaben des Hippolytus, 1855.
2 Das System des Gnostikers
Basilides in Zeitschrift fur lutheri-
sche Theologie und Kirche, 1855,
pp. 209-220; and 1856, pp. 37-
54. 3 Geschichte der Kosmologie in
der griechischen Kirche bis auf
Origenes, 1860, pp. 344 sqq. ; Zeit
schrift fiir wissenschaftliche Theo
logie, 1862, iv. pp. 452 sqq.; and
Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte,
1877-78, ii. pp. 422 sqq.

* Theologische Jahrbiicher, 1856,
i. ; Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaft
liche Theologie, 1862, pp. 400 sqq.,
and especially 1878, pp. 228
sqq. 5 Her Gnosticismus, sein Wesen,
Ursprung und Entwickelungsgang,
1860, pp. 101 sqq. ; Zur Quellen-
kritik des Epiphanios, 1866, pp.
101 sqq. ; Die Quellen der altesten
Ketzergeschichte, 1875, pp. 118 sqq.
6 Hippolytus und die rbmischen
Zeitgenossen, 1855 ; Ursprung
unserer Evangelien, 1866, pp. 70
sqq. 7 Oudste Getuigenissen, 1866,
pp. 69 sqq.
8 Mansel, Gnostic Heresies,
1875, ut supra, pp. 144-165.

LECTURE VII. 367
the whole position of Basilides. Dr. Hort's inquiries of Dr.
Hort,
lead him to conclude that —
The freshness and power of the whole section, wherever
we touch the actual words of the author, strongly confirm
the impression that he was no other than Basilides himself.
Thus we are led independently to the conclusion suggested
by the correspondence with the information of Clement,
whom we know to have drawn from the fountain-head, the
Fxegetica. . . . We shall therefore assume that the eight
chapters of Hippolytus (vii. 20-27) represent faithfully
though imperfectly the contents of part at least of the
Exegetica of Basilides. . . .9
M. Renan reached a similar conclusion quite and
independently, but having done so he is naturally
more positive : —
The author of the Philosophumena has without doubt
made this analysis from the original works of Basilides.1
This judgment has been arrived at, and is now This con-
generally held by critics of all schools of opinion, dependent
quite apart from any theory as to the Fourth Gospel, view^f
It is the result of an investigation into the sources of Gospel
our knowledge of Gnosticism, arising out of the dis
covery and publication of the Philosophumena?
9 Art. Basilides in Smith and by all the editors in the opening
Wace's Dictionary of Christian sentence of this section is, as they
Biography, vol. i. p. 271. themselves note, in opposition to
1 ' h'sbateuv des Philosophumena the Parisian Codex, which is
a sans doute fait cette analyse sur their sole authority. They read :
les ouvrages originaux de Basi- Bao-iXei'Si/r roivvv xai 'la-iSuipos, 6
lide.' L'Eglise Ghritienne, 1879, Ba<riXei'8ou vais yvr)aios <a\ fiadrjrrjs,
p. 158, note. (pao-iv flptjKevai Mar Slav . . . .
2 It is worthy of special remark (Duncker et Schneidewin :
that the reading which is given Cruice. Miller makes the ob-

368

LECTURE VII.

But this
Basilidescontains
clear quo
tations
from the
Gospel.

Meaning
of (priaiv.

But when we come to read these eight chapters,
which with great probability, not to say ' without
doubt,' represent faithfully a work of Basilides, we
meet with two passages which are — I think we may
now say ' without doubt ' — verbal quotations from
the Fourth Gospel.
The first of these quotations occurs in the twenty-
second chapter of the seventh book, which is upon ' the
origin of the world and upon sonship.' In the earlier
part of the chapter there has been a definite mention
of Basilides, and this is followed by a series of refer
ences in the singular number, ' he says.' 3 In the midst
of the series there is one plural reference to the
school generally, ' as these men say.' 4 Then the
singular recurs, and is followed until the definite
quotation, ' And this, he says, is that wMch is spoken
of in the Gospels,'

He was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh
into the world.8

vious mistake of correcting
Mardlav, which he gives as the
reading of the Codex, into
Mardaiov. All read (paalv ; all
give the MS. reading cpvo-iv.)
Taken in connexion with the
contents of the section, and the
remarkable use of the word iprja-lv,
it is probable that the singular is
to be preferred as indicating that
the teaching is that of Basilides,
in which the son played only a
subsidiary part. They are, as
teachers, one person, not two. Cf.

P. Hofstede de Groot, Basilides,
Deutsche Ausgabe, 1868, p. 4.
3 (prjo-iv.
a>s Xe'yovo-iv ol avdpes ovroi.
5 Eire\8erjvanopovel7reivirpoBo\riv
riva roil firj ovros Beov yeyovevai ri
ovk ov, — (pevyeiyap ndvv (cat SeSoiKe
ras Kara npoSoXrjv rav yeyovortav
ov(rias o Bao'i\flBrjS — iroias yap
7rpo8o\rjs xP*'La) V rroias v\tjs vno-
Beats, iva koc/iov debs epyaar\rai,
Kaddirep 6 apaxvr)s ra pr)pvp.ara, ^
Svrjrbs avBptonos ^aXxoi/ fj giikov rj
ti rii>v rrjs v\rjs pepav epya£6p.evos

LECTURE VII. . 369
The second quotation occurs in the twenty- seventh
chapter of the same book, which deals with ' the des
tiny of the creature,' where, in the midst of a series of
references m the third person singular, ' he says,' 6
we read : —
Now that each has its own seasons (he says), the Saviour
is sufficient proof when he asserts 'Mine hour is not yet
come.' 7
That Hippolytus here represents some one as quot
ing the Fourth Gospel is admitted on all sides ; it is
indeed quite impossible to deny it. I confess that I
XapBdvei; 'AXXa erne, (prjal, Ka\ eye- *Hv to (pas ri> dXtjdivbv 6
vero, Kal tovto e'o'Tiv, as Xe'yovaiv ol (parl£ei iravra avBpairov e p-
livhpes oZtoi, to \e%6ev virb Maaeas' \6 pevov els tov Koapov. —
TeVT)6T)TU> <f>£>s, Kal eyevero John i. 9.
(pas. HoBev, (prj<Tt, yeyove to (pas;
e£ oidevos- ov yap yeypanrai, (prjcri,
noBev, dXX' airb fiovov eK Trjs (pavrjs
rov Xeyovros, 6 Se Xeytov, (prjaiv, ovk
tjv, oiide to yevdpevov rfv. Teyove,
(brjaiv, e'£ ouk ovrav to o-ireppa tov
Koo-pov, 6 Xoyos 6 \ex8eis • y e v r\ 6r\ t a
(pas, Kai tovto, (prjalv, ecrri to Xe-
yopevov ev rois eiiayyeXiois' Hv to
(pas to dXrjOivdv, o1. (pari£ei
•trdvra avGpairov ep\o pevov
els tov Koa-pov- Hippolyti
Refutatio omnium Hmresium, vii.
22. Ed. Duncker et Schneidewin,
p. 360.
6 (pTJITlV.
7 "On 8e, (pija-lv, eKaarov lliiovs Kal Xe'yei avrrj o 'Irjo-ovs Ti
exei Kaipovs, Uavos 6 aarTjp Xeyav ' epol Kal aoi, yvvai ; o6'jr<o rJKei fj
OvTra rjKei r] apa pov, Kal ol apa pov. — John ii. 4.
pdyoi tov aarepa reBeapevoi'rjv yap,
(prjo-l, Kal avrbs virb yeveaiv aarepav
Kal apav aTroKaTaardo-eas e'v ra>
peyaKa 7rpo\e\oyio-pevos (rapa.
Ibid. vii. 27, p. 376.
B B

370 LECTURE VH,
should have thought it to be also impossible to deny
that Basilides is himself here referred to, were it not
that it has been denied. I know not who else in the
whole school stood out so prominently that he could
be referred to for an ipse dixit. For the purposes of
our present inquiry it is not indeed of primary im
portance to ascertain whether this is the language of
Basilides or of a disciple who represents him. If the
disciple accepted the Gospel, he did so because the
master had done so before him. But as a matter of
literary criticism I invite you to a perusal of the
context of the passages. They are now easily within
reach, and I submit that the natural, nay, more, the
only reasonable interpretation of the whole is, that we
are here readmg the words of the founder of the
school. We saw but just now that, as a question of
history and philosophy, and quite apart from any
inquiry about the Fourth Gospel, a remarkable con
sensus of critical opinion had expressed itself in
favour of the view that these chapters come from the
Critical original Basilides. A certainly not less remarkable
opinions: ' . .
consensus of opinion, regardmg the question now as
one of the Fourth Gospel — you will of course see how
the separate lines of investigation support each other
— may be alleged in favour of the view that Basilides
is quotmg S. John.
Bunsen's, Baron de Bunsen, to whose investigations of Hip
polytus we have referred, states in the preface to his
work : —
We have here, amongst others, quotations from the Gospel

LECTURE VII. 371
of St. John by Basilides, who flourished in the beginning of
the reign of Hadrian, or about the year 117; furnishing a
conclusive answer to the unfortunate hypothesis of Strauss,
and the whole school of Tubingen, that the fourth Gospel
was written about the year 165 or 170. 8
Dr. Keim says — I quote from the English transla- Keim's,
tion of the Jesu von Nazara : —
In the first place, it is certain that the Philosophoumena
repeatedly and distinctly introduce the Johannine quotations
of Basilides, and of no other ; ' he says ' and not ' they say,'
as it would have been were the writer quoting Isidore and the
chorus of successors : and if the possibility of some confusion
is admitted-^though the evidence of such confusion is weak —
yet the fact remains sufficiently clear that the fourth Gospel
actually existed in the time of Basilides, and that the
Gnostics — masters and scholars — eagerly laid hold of the
book.9 On a question which is much more one of literary
perception than of theological learning, you will
attach very high importance to the opinions of M.
Renan and of Mr. Matthew Arnold.
M. Renan says without hesitation : —
Basilides makes use of the New Testament for the most
8 Hippolytus, ut supra, ed. behalten, sosehr der Aufweis des
1852, vol. i. p. v. Rechtes schwachlich ist, so fallt
9 ' ImVoraus ist hier sicher, dass die Thatsache genugsam in's
jene Schrift wiederholt bestimmt Gewicht, dass Johannes zur Zeit
die johanneischen Citate des Basi- des Basi"des wirklich existirte
lides einfiihrt und keines Andern, und dass die Gnosis nachweislich
"er sagt" und nicht "siesagen," in den Meistern und Schulern
etwa Isidor und der folgende sein Buch eifrig ergriff.' Jesu von
Chor; und mag man die Mog- Nazara, 1867, vol. i. p. 144; Eng.
lichkeit einer Verwechslung vor- Trans., 1876, vol. i. p. 196.
b b 2

M. Benan's,

372 LECTURE VII.
part in accord with the general consent, excluding certain
books, especially the Epistles to the Hebrews, to Titus, to
Timothy, but admitting the Gospel of John.1
Mr. Mr. Arnold is not less certain : —
Arnold's. Now it is true that the author of the Philosophumena
sometimes mixes up the opinions of the master of a school
with those of his followers, so that it is difficult to distinguish
between them. But if we take all doubtful cases of the kind
and compare them with our present case, we shall find that
it is not one of them. It is not true that here, where the
name of Basileides has come just before, and where no mention
of his son or of his disciples has intervened since, there is
any such ambiguity as is found in other cases. It is not true
that the author of the Philosophumena habitually wields the
subjectless he says in the random manner alleged, with no other
formula for quotation both from the master and from the
followers. In general, he uses the formula according to them
(/car avrovs) when he quotes from the school, and the for
mula he says ((frycrl) when he gives the dicta of the master.
And in this particular case he manifestly quotes the dicta
of Basileides, and no one who had not a theory to serve
would ever dream of doubting it. Basileides, therefore,
about the year 125 of our era, had before him the Fourth
Gospel.2 Mr. Arnold follows the author of the Philoso
phumena to an earlier stage in Gnostic development
in the East, and finds the predecessors of Basilides

1 ' II se servait du Nouveau Tes- k Tite, a Timothee, admettant
tament, tel a, peu pres que le l'Evangile de Jean.' L'Eglise
consentement general l'avait fait, Chretienne, 1879, p. 162.
excluant certains livres, en par- 2 God and the Bible, 1875, pp.
ticulier les Epitres aux H^breux, 268 sqq.

LECTURE VII. 373
in the Naaseni or Ophites 3 and the Peratae. These
are his words : —
So we must take the Naaseni and the Peratas, whom the
author of Supernatural Beligion dismisses in a line as ' obscure
sects towards the end of the second century,' we must take
them as even earlier than Basileides and the year 125.
Mr. Arnold continues : —
These sects we find repeatedly using, in illustration of their
doctrines, the Fourth Gospel. We do not say that they use
it as John's, or as a canonical Scripture. But they give say
ings of Jesus which we have in the Fourth Gospel and in no
other, and they give passages from the author's own prologue
to the Fourth Gospel.4
I have had occasion in a previous lecture to refer The cie-
to the Clementine Homilies and to the fact that they Homines.
are connected with an interesting modern discovery.5
Our earliest knowledge of this work comes from
Turrianus, who in his treatise on the Apostolic
Canons in the sixteenth century 6 made use of a MS.
of the Homilies which is not now known. They were
printed by Cotelier in his edition of the Apostolic
Fathers of 1672, from one of the Colbertine MSS.
in the Library at Paris. The manuscript was, how
ever, both defective — breaking off in the middle of
the nineteenth Homily — and manifestly corrupt.
Clericus published three editions, 1698, 1700, 1724,
but without any fresh MS. authority. Schwegler
3 Cf. esp. Honig, Die Ophiten, 5 Lecture II. pp. 83 sq.
1890. 6 Defensio pro Canonibus Apo-
4 God and the Bible, 1884, p. stolorum et Epistolis Pontificum,
155. Lutetian, 1573.

374 LECTURE VH.
published an edition of the work in 1847, which did
not add much to what had gone before. Meanwhile,
Dressel's in 1837, Dr. Albert Dressel had observed, in the
1837-63. ' Ottobonian Library at the Vatican, a MS. of the early
part of the fourteenth century which contained the
hitherto unknown portion of the Homilies. From
defect of eyesight caused by unskilful treatment,
and by pressure of work which he thought more im
portant, he was obliged to postpone the publication
of his proposed edition of the MS. A further delay
was caused by the scarcity of modern books in Rome.
At length the work was published in Gottingen in
1853.7 Now the sixteen years during which this
MS. was known to Dr. Dressel, but not yet published,
were the most vigorous years of the Tubingen school.
The denial that the Fourth Gospel was quoted in
the Clementines was necessary to the position of the
school, and the denial was made both by Baur and
by his followers, Zeller, Schwegler, and Hilgenfeld ; 8
but here was a MS., the authenticity of which
could not be denied, and it contained a quotation the
source of which could not be questioned. Hilgenfeld
Quotation and Volkmar at once admitted, in Baur and Zeller's
now admitted Year-book, that this was undoubted ; and Hil
genfeld called attention to the changed position in
various subsequent works.9
7 dementis Romani . . . Ho- pp. 446-7 and 534. Cf. especially
milix Viginti . . . 1853. Hilgenfeld, Kritische Untersuch-
8 Baur, Kritische Untersuchun- ungen iiber die Evangelien Justin's
gen, etc., 1847, p. 576. der clementinischen HomiUen und
9 Theologische Jahrbiicher, 1854, Marcion's, 1850, with his Evange-

LECTURE VII. 375
There was no ground for discussion upon this onaii
point now left. On all hands the reference to the
Fourth Gospel was admitted, and by no one more
frankly than by Strauss in the Life of Jesus for the
German People, which was published in 1864.1
Zeller was particularly unfortunate in his asser- Zeiier's
tions, for he published in the Tubingen Year-booh nate
an article upon the Citations from the Fourth Gospel asse lon'
in the Refutation of All Heresies, in which he declares
that it is in vain men seek for any knowledge of the
Fourth Gospel in the Clementine Homilies.2 This
article was published in the year 1853, in Tubingen,
and at that moment Dressel's new discovery, which
was to establish that knowledge beyond question,
must have been already in type at Gottingen.
Another remarkable story of discovery in our Tatian's
own time is connected with the Diatessaron of Tatian,3
lien, 1854, p. 346, and his note in thun sucht.' Theologische Jahr-
the Einleitung in das Neue Testa- biicher, 1853, p. 145.
ment, 1875, p. 43. Cf. also refer- 3 Cf. Lightfoot, Contemporary
ence to position of author of Review, May 1877, and Essays on
Supernatural Religion in Lecture Supernatural Religion, 1889; Ezra
II. p. 84. Abbot, The Authorship of the
1 ' In dem erst kiirzlich aufge- Fourth Gospel, 1880 ; Adolf Har-
fundenen Schlusse der dementi- nack, Texte und Untersuchungen,
nischen Homilien ist unlaugbar Bd. i. Heft 1, and art. Tatian in
die Geschichte vom Blindgebo- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1888,
renen, Joh. 9, beriicksichtigt, xxiii. p. 80 ; Moller, art. Tatian
vielleicht auch an einer andern in Herzog-Plitt, Real-Encyklo-
Stelle, Joh. 10, 3.' Das Leben padie xv. p. 208 ; Euller, art.
Jesu, 1864, p. 69. Tatian in Smith and Wace's Dic-
2 'Die clementinischen Homi- tionary of Christian Biography,
lien, deren Bekanntschaft mit vol. iv. p. 783 ; Hemphill, Dia-
Johannes man vergeblich darzu- tessaron, 1888.

376 LECTURE VII.
mates- the pupil of Justin. A dozen years ago when public
attention was much excited by the appearance of the
work entitled Supernatural Religion, and by some
wise and many unwise reviews of it and replies to it,
one of the questions to which special thought was
directed was the old dispute of the critics whether
this Diatessaron, or Harmony of the Four Gospels,
which was known to have been composed by Tatian,
did or did not include the Fourth Gospel. That the
pupil of Justin Martyr was acquainted with the
Gospel was clear enough from his Apology ; i but
how different would the position be could it be
fully established that he had or had not received and
handed on, as a sacred writing of the Church, the
The Gospel according to S. John. And at that time no one
discovery, of the disputants seems to have had the least idea that
the key to this lock was not only close at hand, but
had been discovered, and was waiting to be used. K
had been for some years on Bishop Lightfoot's book
shelves, as he himself tells us ; but it was in Arme
nian, and he had not then the means of sifting the four
volumes which contained it.5 The learned Dr. Lip
sius of Jena does not seem to have been aware, when
he wrote the article on Apocryphal Gospels for the
Dictionary of Christian Biography, that the Armenian
version of the Diatessaron had been published.6
Dean Payne Smith, one of the few English scholars
4 Oratio ad Grxcos, capp. iv. 5 Essays, ut supra, 1889, p. 278.
v. xiii. xix., ed. von Otto, 6 Smith and Wace's Dictionary
Corpus Apologetarum, torn. vi. pp. of Christian Biography, vol. ii.
18, 20, 22, 60, 88. p. 713, col. 2.

LECTURE VII. 377
who could have read it, must have had it in his
hands when he wrote for the same work the article
Ephraim the Syrian, for he refers to the commentary
on S. Paul's Epistles in the third volume of the
Armenian translation of Ephrem's works,7 and the
translation of the Diatessaron was lying unnoticed in
the second volume all the while. Bishop Lightfoot's
article was published in May 1877,8 and the volume
of the Dictionary of Christian Biography which
contains the articles by Dean Payne Smith and Dr.
Lipsius was published in 1880. And yet the
Armenian translation of the works of Ephrem had
been published by the Mechitarist monks as long
ago as 1836, this Armenian translation had been
noticed by Dr. de Lagarde in 1862, and at the very
moment when all this discussion was taking place,
had already been issued in a Latin translation from
the press at Venice.
The history of the Diatessaron is long, and our
time is short. The story has often been told during
the last ten years, and there is no need for me to tell
it with any fulness again. The chief facts will suffi
ciently illustrate the importance of this recent addition
to our knowledge.
Now, in the first place, it was known from Reference
Eusebius that Tatian had composed a Harmony of work
the Four Gospels wMch he called a Diatessaron,
though it is not clearly established that Eusebius
7 Dictionary, ut supra, p. 141, 8 Contemporary Review, May
col. 1. 1877.

378

LECTURE VII.

by Eusebius,

and Epi
phanius.

had any personal acquaintance with the work. His
language seems, indeed, to imply that he was speaking
of a commonly known matter of fact : —
But their chief and founder Tatian formed a sort of con
nexion and compilation of the Gospels, I know not how, which
he called the Diatessaron. This work is current in some
quarters (with some persons) even now.9
Epiphanius tells us how, after the martyrdom of
Justin, Tatian went to the East and fell into all sorts
of errors, and adds : —
The Diatessaron Gospel is said to have been composed by
him, but some persons call it the Gospel according to the
Hebrews.1 That is, Epiphanius himself knows nothing about it,
and gives two reports which were current in his time.
The second of these reports is a natural mistake of
people who had heard of this Gospel in the region of
Edessa, and of the Gospel of the Hebrews in the region
of Aleppo, and understanding the language of neither,
knowing only that they were both Oriental and both
supposed to be heretical, took them to be the same.
When he comes to speak in his own person of the
Gospel according to the Hebrews he, as other Catholic
writers, follows the Ebionites in connecting it with

9 'O pevroi ye nporepos avrav
dpxrjybs 6 Tariavbs avvd(peidv riva
Kal cvvayayrjv ovk olb' oiras rav
evayyeKiav avvBels to ' Ala Tftr-
<rdpav' tovto trpocavopaaev •
h Kal irapd ruriv elae'ri vvv (peperai.
Hist. Eccl. iv. 29. See especially
Bishop Lightfoot's note on ovk
old' oiras, op. cit. p. 278 : and

Hemphill, Diatessaron, ut supra.
Introd. p. xiv.
1 Aeyerai Se to 8ia reo~o~dpav
evayyeXiov (Scaliger text, eiiayye-
Xiav) vir' avrov yeyevrjcrBai oirep,
Kara 'EBpaiovs rives Ka\ovo~i.
Hxr. xlvi. 1 ; ed. Oehler, Corpus,
torn. ii. p. 710.

LECTURE VII. 379
the Gospel according to S. Matthew.2 Beyond these
notices in Eusebius and Epiphanius, we do not meet
the Diatessaron on purely Greek ground, and these
writers only prove that it was unknown in the Greek
church. In the Western Church it is unnoticed under Not
... , . .ii i known in
circumstances wmch make it practically certam that Western
it was unknown until the time of Victor, bishop of
Capua, in the sixth century, a name which will be
remembered from its connexion with the Codex Ful-
densis, and with a work on the Paschal Cycle. Victor
found a Latin compilation of the four Gospels without
any name or indication of authorsMp, and he was led
by the passage of Eusebius, to which I have referred,
to think it must be the same as the work by Tatian.
His identification was not accepted by scholars, and
as late as Dr. Ernest Ranke's edition of the Codex
Fuldensis,3 it was generally thought that he had made
a mistake. To this point we must presently return.
This ignorance of the Diatessaron in the Greek Known in
and Latin churches confirms the impression wMch is church.
on every ground probable, that Tatian's Diatessaron
was written in Syriac and for the use of Syriac- written in
speaking churches.4 And when we come upon

Syriac.

2 Hxr. xxviii. 5 ; xxx. 3, 13, andrino authore in Orthodoxo-
14; ed. Oehler, torn. ii. pp.222, grapha Patrum Monum. Basilese,
246, 262, 264. 1855, pp. 116 sqq.
3 Codex Fuldensis. Novum i This . view is accepted by
Testamentum Latine interprete Bishop Lightfoot, Zahn, and Hil-
Hieronymo exManuscriptoVictoris genfeld, and now by De Lagarde
Capuani, 1868. Cf. Evangeliorum and Bathgen. Cf. Fuller, art.
quatuor Harmonia, Tatia.no Alex- Tatian, ut supra, p. 801 col. 1 ;

380 LECTURE VH.
Oriental ground we at once meet with it. The
erudition of the late Dr. William Wright has given
good reason for believing — and Zahn and Lipsius are
agreed in believing — that the quotations in the
Homiius Homilies by the Persian sage and bishop, Aphraates,
Aphrahat. or more accurately Aphrahat, who flourished in the
middle of the fourth century, are made from this
Harmony ; 5 and Zahn's views are accepted fully,
perhaps too fully, by Dr. Georg Bert in a German
translation of the Homilies which has recently
appeared.6
Doctrine This is further confirmed by the Doctrine of
Addai, an apocryphal Syrian work, which is assigned
with much probability to the middle of the third
century, and which professes to give an account of
the church at Edessa. The people are described as
coming together ' to the prayers of the service, and
to [the reading of] the Old Testament and the New
of the Diatessaron."1 7
Theodoret. The widespread use of the Diatessaron in the
Catholic churches of the East in the first half of the
fifth century is illustrated by Theodoret, bishop of
Wordsworth, Church History to WeisenHomilienausdetnSyrischen
the Council of Nicaza, ed. 4, 1889, iibersetzt und erlUutert. Von Geb-
p. 482, note by J(ohn) S(arum) ; hardt u. Harnack, Texte u. Unter-
and especially the interesting note suchungen, 1888, Bd. iii. Heft 3
in Hemphill, Diatessaron, App. and 4.
A, pp. 53-4. 7 Cureton, Ancient Syriac Docu-
5 Wright, Homilies of Aphraates ments, 1864, p. 15 ; Phillips, The
(Syriac), vol. i. 1869. Cf. espe- Doctrine of Addai, 1876, p. 34
cially Zahn, Forschungen, 1881, and note. On the text, see note
vol. i. pp. 72-89. in Ezra Abbot, Authorship, ut
6 Bert, Aphrahats des persischen supra, p. 53.

LECTURE VII. 381
Cyrrhus, near the Euphrates, from a.d. 420 or 423 to
a.d. 457 or 458, who testifies that ' Tatian composed
the Gospel which is called Diatessaron,' and tells us
how he found more than two hundred copies in use
and put them away, and introduced in their place
the Gospels of the four Evangelists.8
Our next firm ground is reached only after a con- Bar-
siderable leap. Dionysius Bar-Salibi, an Armeman
bishop of the twelfth century, speaks of a Commentary
which was written on the Diatessaron by the well-
known Syrian Father, Ephraim of Edessa. His state
ment 9 distinguishes the Diatessaron of Tatian from a
Harmony by Ammonius — the two works being wholly
different in arrangement — and says that it began
with ' In the beginnmg was the Word.' He also
speaks of a third and later Diatessaron composed by
Elias of Salami a, who could not find the work of
Ammonius and constructed one to supply its place.
He himself quotes the works of Tatian and Ammonius
in the same passage of his Commentary, niaking
their distinctness absolute.1
In the year 1836 the Mechitarist Fathers of the The Me
chitarist
8 Kal to. rav rerrdpav eiayye- fuisse supra dixi, auctores hi ab
Xia-rav avretoriyayov EiayyeXta. — ipso citantur : videlicet, Dionysius
Hxreticarum Fabularum Compen- epist. ad Timotheum, fol. 262.
dium, i. cap. 20 ; ed. Migne, iv. Clemens epist. adversus eos, qui
p. 372. matrimonium rejiciunt, fol. 155.
9 Assemani, Bibliotheca Orien- Ammonii, et Tatiani Diatessaron,
talis, i. p. 57 ; ii. pp. 159 sq. fol. 30.' Ibid. ii. p. 158 ; cf. Bishop
1 ' Prseter Ephraemum verb, Lightfoot, Essays, 1889, ut supra,
Chrysostomum, Cyrillum, Mosen pp. 280 sq. ; Hilgenfeld, Einlei-
Barcepham, et Joannem Daren- tung, p. 77.
sem, quibus Bar-Salibseum usum

382 lecture vn.
Fathers. Monastery of San Lazaro, in Venice, published the
collected works of Ephraim in Armenian, in four
octavo volumes, the second of which contained this
Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron, from an Arme
nian version of the fifth century. The work natu
rally attracted little attention, the Armenian language
being hardly known in Western Europe ; but Father
Aucher, one of the monks of San Lazaro, made a
literal Latin translation, which he placed in the
Dr. hands of Dr. Mosinger, Professor of Biblical Criticism,
at Salzburg, who compared it with one of the Armeman
codices and published it in Venice in 1 8 7 6 ? European
scholars did not, as we have seen, at once awake to
the importance of the discovery. A passing notice
appeared, indeed, in Schurer's Literary Journal5 but
does not seem to have attracted attention ; and by a
Ezra strange fate it remained for Dr. Ezra Abbot, in a paper
to wMch I have more than once referred, read before a
Ministers' Institute in America, to invite the atten
tion of scholars in Europe to this treasure from the
East, which had long been hidden, and now had been
made known in their midst. The important contri
butions of Drs. Zahn, Harnack, Wace, and others,
soon followed ; and there is now a general agreement
among the scholars who have devoted special atten
tion to this subject, that we have in our hands
a commentary which is written in Armenian of the
2 Aucher and Mosinger, Evan- 3 Theologische Liter uturzeitung,
gelii concordantis Expositio facta a 1878, No. 25, p. 607.
Sancto Ephrxmo, Venice, 1876.

lecture vn. 383
fifth century, which Armenian is an extremely literal
translation from the Syriac, which Syriac is a writ
ing of Ephrem, which writing of Ephrem is his Com
mentary on the Diatessaron of Tatian.
The special contribution which Dr. Wace made Dr. wace.
to the subject was the investigation of the relation
between the Diatessaron of Tatian and the Harmony
of Victor of Capua, to which reference has already
been made ; and the result of an elaborate ana
lysis is to establish their substantial identity, with
the natural difference that in Victor's Gospel the
text of Tatian appears in Jerome's Latin, whereas
Ephraim's Commentary was upon the Syriac text.
Another link, which we must not now be tempted
to follow, connects Tatian not only through a
Latin translation with Victor, but through an old
German translation of Victor's Latin Codex, with
the Saxon epic the Heliandf with the martyr Boni
face, and with much of old German literature and
Christianity.5 While these investigations were being published Dr. Zahn's
by Dr. Wace in an English periodical, Dr. Zahn tion of the
was issuing from the press his elaborate monograph
on the Diatessaron,6 which not only dealt minutely
with all the historical and other side questions, con
firming the results which Dr. Wace and others
had arrived at independently, but also attempted
4 Deutsche Dichtungen des Mit- pp. 1-11 ; 128-137; 193-205. See
telalters. IV. Heliand, by Riickert, ibid. , 1882, pp. 161-171; 294-312.
1876. 6 Forschungen, 1881, vol. i.
5 Dr. Wace, Expositor, 1881, Tatian's Diatessaron.

384

LECTURE VII.

to reconstruct, on the basis of Mosinger's edition of
Ephraim' s Commentary, together with the quotations
in Aphrahat, the original text of the Diatessaron.
Whatever opinion may be formed as to some of the
results of this bold attempt, which have naturally
been challenged, the work remains as a striking ex
ample of critical acumen and devoted labour. It may
not be proved that the Diatessaron was originally
written in Syriac, though this, if Dr. Harnack will
allow me to say so, is now hardly doubtful, or that
the Syriac of Tatian proves the still earlier existence
oiderthan of the Syriac of Cureton. This latter point Zahn
tonian has himself abandoned. In a letter which he was
ynao' kind enough to address to me, dated April 24th,
1888, he says : —
In reality I have not changed my first opinion. Only that
I am now agreed with Bathgen in Per griechische Text des
Cureton' schen Syrers, 1885, that the Syriac of the Diatessaron
is older than the Curetonian. I had not examined this side
of the question with sufficient thoroughness when I first
wrote upon it.7
Result But in any case this one great fact remains.
stated by Here ig in sukstance Tatian's Diatessaron. The fact
itself and the consequences which are to be drawn

7 ' Im Wesentlichen habe ich
meine anfangliche Ansicht nicht
geandert. Nur darin bin ich jetzt
mit Bathgen Der griechische Text
des Cureton'schen Syrers, 1885,
einverstanden, dass das syrische
Diatessaron alter ist als der Syrus

Cur. Diese Seite der Frage hatte
ich nicht grundlich genug erwogen,
als ich zuerst dariiber schrieb.'
Cf. Geschichte des Neutestament-
lichen Kanons, 1888, Bd. i. pp.
406 sq.

LECTURE VII. 385
from it will gain in emphasis by being expressed in
the words of Dr. Adolf Harnack, who is not too P/-
' Harnack.
friendly a critic of Zahn : —
In details much of what Zahn has given as belonging to
the text of the Piatessa/ron remains problematical, . . . but
in all the main points his restoration has been successful.
The rediscovery of such a work is in a variety of ways of the
very highest importance for the early history of Christianity.
. . . We learn from the Piatessa/ron that about 160 A.D. our
four Gospels had already taken a place of prominence in the
church and that no others had done so ; that in particular
the Fourth Gospel had taken a fixed place alongside of the
three synoptics.8
Nor does the romantic history of the Diatessaron
end here. The interest which was excited by Dr.
Zahn's remarkable investigations led to the publica
tion of fuller mformation than had been previously
available about an Arabic MS. of the Diatessaron Arabic
which was known to exist in the Vatican Library.9 Vatican,
Zahn himself knew it only from the writings of
Assemani, Rosenmiiller, and Aberklad ; * but in the
fourth volume of Cardinal Pitra's Analecta Sacra,
which was published m 1883, there appeared a full
account of this version from the pen of Father Ciasca,2
with a half promise that he might at some time in the
future be able to edit it. Meanwhile his account of
8 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Spicilegio Solesmensi parata, torn.
1888, xxiii. p. 81. iv. pp. 465-487 (De Tatiani
9 Cod. Vat. Arab. xiv. Diatessaron Arabica Versione, P.
1 Forschutigen, ut supra, pp. Augustinus Ciasca, Ordinis S.
294-298. Augustini, published also separ-
2 Cardinal Pitra, Analecta Sacra ately). C C

386

LECTURE VII.

it confirmed Zahn's opinion of its close connexion
with the Syriac Diatessaron?
Leisure did not come to Father Ciasca more than
to others, and the MS. was therefore handed over, m
1885, to Professor de Lagarde,4 who proposed to
edit it, but to him came difficulties of both time and
type, and the work was returned to Father Ciasca.
Meanwhile the vicar apostolic of the Copts, Rihus
Antonius Morcos, when on a visit to Rome, was
shown the treasures of the Vatican, and on looking at
this Arabic MS. remembered that he had seen one like
it in Egypt. He forwarded the Egyptian treasure to
Rome, and it proved to be such a beautiful specimen
of caligraphy that the scribes of the Vatican selected
it to publish as an offering to the pope at his jubilee.
edited by "phis gave Father Ciasca the opportunity of editing,

Arabic MS. in
Egypt,

3 ' Id vero (ut ad rem nostram
veniamus) potiori ratione dici
debet de Diatessaron in codice
arabico Vaticano No. xiv. con-
tento, ut ipse Zahn suspicatus
est, qui ejusdem codicis integram
editionem perutilem putat. Ea-
dem omnino opinio nobis est,
qui, si facultas esset, id libenter
prsestaremus. Verum cum an-
gustia temporis, saltern hoc anno,
id operis perficere minime sinat,
contenti erimus talem exhibere
codicis descriptionem quse satis
sit ad confirmandum viri eruditi
opinionem, intimum nempe dari
nexum inter hoc opus ac syriacum
Diatessaron. Quinimo cum textus
arabici codicis e fonte syriaco
directe proveniat, ut inf erius fuse

probabitur, fit inde, ut ejusdem
larga notitia, non modo ad con
firmandum textum syriacum
quoad Evangeliorum concordan-
tiam, verum etiam ad ipsum tex
tum restituendum, plurimum
valeat.' Analecta, ut supra, p.
466. 4 ' Septem tantum pagellas im-
pressit, quas edidit in Nachricten
von der koniglichen Gesellschaft der
Wissenschaften und der Georg-
Augusts- Universit&t zu Gottin
gen, 17. Marz, 1886, No. 4, pagg.
151-158.' Tatiani Evangeliorum
Harmonix Arabice nunc primum
ex duplici codice edidit et transla-
tione Latina donavit P. Augus-
tinus Ciasca, Romas, 1888, note,
p. v.

LECTURE vn. 387
with an introduction full of interesting information, padre
both the Arabic MSS. of the Diatessaron in a work
which appeared at Rome in 1888.5 The Codex Bor-
gianus, as Ciasca called the second MS., is professedly
an Arabic translation from the Syriac of Tatian's
Diatessaron, and supplies many of the lacunar which
existed in the Vatican MS. The claim to be a
translation of the Diatessaron is fully borne out by a
comparison of Father Ciasca's Latin rendering with
Professor Mosinger's rendering of the Armenian
version ; and both these Arabic versions afford, as
their learned editor shows, strong support to the
various steps by which, during the last few years,
we have been led to the restoration of Tatian's
Diatessaron. As we pass from it, let us remember that if these import-
steps are established, and if we are really in the pre- this
sence of a Harmony of the Four Gospels which was
composed by Tatian the pupil of Justin, and included
our present Fourth Gospel, then there follow neces
sarily not only the deductions which I gave just now
in the words of Dr. Harnack, but the more important
deduction still that it cannot be reasonably doubted
that the Fourth Gospel was received by Justin as by
Tatian, and that the Gospels of the pupil were iden
tical with the Memoirs of the master.6
Another instance in which recent investigations The mar-
have cast light upon a point which is of considerable yr "
5 Ciasca, Tatiani, ut supra. 6 Cf. Lecture II. pp. 70 sq.
C C 2

388 LECTURE VII.
of Poly- importance in connexion with our subject, is the date
L of the martyrdom of Polycarp.7 Five and twenty
years ago the date which was accepted by almost
Older universal consent was the year a.d. 167. This was
viewa.d. 167. supposed, but without sufficient reason, to be based
upon a passage in the Chronicon of Eusebius, which
was read as though it placed the martyrdom in the
seventh year of Marcus Aurelius, while, as a matter
of fact, the martyrdom is not placed opposite the
year, but below it, without a date, and grouped with
other events.8 The mistake was one which it was
easy to make, and which when made it was natural
to follow.
The key. An independent key to the chronology of Poly
carp is furnished by the life of the rhetorician, vElius
Aristides, who refers twice, in certain Sacred Dis
courses which are included in his works, to one
Quadratus, a proconsul of Asia, that is, to the pro
consul who was in office at the time of Polycarp's
martyrdom.
Usher, The keen sight of Archbishop Usher noticed this
and™ "' clue ; and it was afterwards investigated by Valesius,
Bishop Pearson, and Cardinal Noris, but without
very satisfactory results. Masson carried the inquiry
further,9 fixing the date at a.d. 166 ; but his whole
7 Bishop Lightfoot, Apostolic Eusebi Chronicorum Canonum, ed.
Fathers, 1885, i. pp. 629 sq. ; ed. Schoene, 1866, torn. ii. p. 170.
2, 1889, i. pp. 646 sqq. 9 Aristides, 'lepol Xo'yoi, ed.
8 Bishop Lightfoot, op. cit., Dindorf, 1829, vol. iii., contains
p. 629, ed. 2, vol. i. p. 647. The Masson's Collectanea Historica ;
Armenian version of the Chronicon first published with Jebb's Ari-
is quoted on pp. 557 sqq. Cf. stides, Oxford, 1722.

others.

LECTURE VH. 389
argument is vitiated by the mistaken interpretation
of Eusebius. A hundred years later Letronne x showed that the Letronne
chronology must be pushed back, and Borghesi 2 in Borghesi.
the next generation carried his conclusions further by
the light of special study of the tenure of Roman
offices. He placed the condemnation of Polycarp by
Quadratus in a.d. 155.
In the year 1867 M. Waddington followed3 with m. Wad-
a complete reconstruction of the chronology of decfdes
Aristides. The key-stone is the proconsulship of or
Julianus, who is also mentioned by Aristides, and this
date is fixed by an apparently unimportant inscrip
tion which was discovered in March 1864 by Mr.
J. T. Wood in the excavations at the Odeum in
Ephesus,4 together with an Ephesian medal com
memorating the marriage of M. Aurelius (Verus
Caesar) and Faustina.5 After most minute investiga
tion and careful dovetailing of incidents — we cannot
here follow the remarkable detailed argument — M.
Waddmgton came to the conclusion that Quadratus
was proconsul of Asia in a.d. 155-56, and that the
' great Sabbath ' on which Polycarp was martyred was
1 Letronne, Becherches sur Asie Mineure, Inscriptions Grec-
VEgypte, 1823, pp. 257 sqq. ques et Latines, 1870, torn. iii. pt.
2 Borghesi, Iscrizioni di Sepino, i. pp. 655-744 ; No. 138, pp. 726
1852. sq. ; Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus,
3 Waddington, Vie du Rheteur 1877 ; Studia Biblica, Oxford,
Aelius Aristide in Memoires de 1885, No. ix., Randell.
I'Institut, etc. ; Inscriptions et 4 Waddington, op. cit. Inscr.
Belles Lettres, 1867, xxvi. pp. 203 v. iii. p. 6.
sq. ; and Fastes des Provinces Asia- 5 Waddington, op. cit. , Me-
tiqties in Le Bas and Waddington's moires, p. 211.

390 LECTURE VII.
Feb. 23, the twenty-third day of February a.d. 155. This is
the year, you will remember, which had been fixed by
the earlier inquiries of Letronne and Borghesi.
A result which shifted one of the chronological
pivots of the second century backwards by eleven
years was not likely to escape the crucible of the
critics, and every known test was speedily applied to
it. By the consent of almost all competent judges
General it has in every respect stood these tests. It is not
accept- x
ance of only Letronne, Borghesi, and Waddington who now
result. place the martyrdom of Polycarp in a.d. 155, but
also Renan,6 Aube,7 Volkmar,8 Funk,9 Zahn,1 Egli,2
Friedlander,3 Marquardt,4 Schiller,5 Harnack ; 6
Lipsius,7 Hilgenfeld,8 and Von Gebhardt,9 prefer a.d.
156 ; Keim1 and Bishop Wordsworth 2 were not con
vinced ; Wieseler 3 and Uhlhorn 4 adhered to the
older date.5
6 V Antichrist, p. 566 ; and 6 Encyclopxdia Britantiica, ed.
L'Eglise chrMienne, pp. 452 sq. 9, vol. xix. art. Polycarp, p. 415.
7 Histoire des Persecutions, pp. 7 Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaft-
319 sq. ; La Polemique paienne, liche Theologie, 1874, pp. 188 sq.
1878, pp. 184 sq. * Ibid. pp. 325 sq.
8 Jenaer Literaturzeitung, 1874, 9 Zeitschrift fiir historische Theo-
No. 274, p. 291. logie, 1875, pp. 377 sq.
9 Patr. Apost.Opp., 1878, i. ppv. 1 Aus dem Urchristenthum, Bd.
Ixxxiii, xciv sq. i. 1878, pp. 90 sqq.
1 Ibid., 1876, ii. p. 165. 2 Church History, i. pp. 161 sq.
2 Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaft- 3 Die Ghristenverfolgungen der
liche Theologie, 1882, 1884, 1888. CUsaren bis zum 3ten Jahrhundert,
3 Sittengeschichte Roms, iii. pp. 1878, pp. 75 sqq. ; Theol. Studien
440, 442, 654. u. Kritiken, 1880, pp. 141 sqq.
4 Rbmisehe Staatsverwaltung, 4 Art. Polykarp in Herzog-
1873, i. p. 375. Plitt, Real-Encyklopadie, ed. 2,
5 Geschichte der Rb'mischen Kai- vol. xii. pp. 103 sqq.
serzeit, 1883, i. ii. p. 684. 5 Cf. for these references :

LECTURE VII. 391
Bishop Lightfoot signified his acceptance of M. Bishop
Waddington's results as early as 1875, 6 and after- foot's
wards in his editions of the Apostolic Fathers 7 sub- tions lga"
jected the whole question, including M. Waddington's ?t°nfirm
essays, to a minute re-investigation, which, while it
confirms that learned author's results, does so with
the addition of matter which is not less important
than that of M. Waddington himself. The correc
tion of the error of centuries in the interpretation
of the Chronicon of Eusebius, of which I have already
spoken, has in effect removed the only serious diffi
culty in the way of accepting the year a.d. 155 as
the date of the martyrdom.
The importance of tMs rectification of date to the import-
present question will be seen when it is remembered this date.
that Polycarp was eighty- six years old at the time of
his death,8 and that Irenaeus speaks of him as a dis
ciple of John, and as appointed bishop of Smyrna
by Apostles ; and again speaks of ' the successors of
Polycarp to the present time,'9 that is, from a.d. 177
to a.d. 190. If he lived from a.d. 70 to a.d. 155,
both statements are natural; if from a.d. 81 to
a.d. 167, neither is free from difficulty. Living

Richardson, Bibliographical Syn- 1875, pp. 827 sq.
opsis, 1887, p. 10 ; and Bp. Light- ' Ed. 1, 1885 ; ed. 2, 1889.
foot, Apostolic Fathers, 1889, pt. 8 Martyrdom of Polycarp, cap.
ii. vol. i. pp. 667 sqq. The ix. Cf. Bishop Lightfoot's note,
simplest statement of the question Apost. Fathers, 1889, pt. ii. vol.
in English will be found in Har- ii. p. 379.
nack's art. Poll carp, ut supra. 9 Adv. Hser. iii. 3, 4 ; ed. Har-
6 Contemporary Review, May vey, ii. pp. 12.

392 LECTURE VU.
from a.d. 70 to 155, his life and work link together
S. John, Ignatius, Florinus, Justin, Tatian, Irenaeus ;
and they become an argument for the authenticity of
the Fourth Gospel, the force of which it is impossible
to deny.
The In the fourteenth number of the Dublin Herrn-
JJ.B7'7ft~
athena. athena, a collection of papers published from time to
time by the members of Trinity College, and looked
for by scholars with an interest which is seldom
disappointed — this number was published in 1888,
and the paper to which I am about to refer is dated
"on'Hi71^ J^y m tna,t year — appeared an article by Dr. Gwynn,
iytus and ^e successor to Dr. Salmon m the chair of divinity,
which is entitled Hippolytus and his ' Heads against
Cuius."1 It gave us for the first time five passages
from an medited MS. of a Syriac Commentary on the
Apocalypse, Acts, and Epistles, of Dionysius Bar-
Salibi, to whose Commentary on the Gospels I have
but just now referred. The MS. is part of the
Rich Collection acquired by the British Museum in
1830. The Heads against Caius are replies made
by Hippolytus to some objections which Caius made
to the Apocalypse, on the ground that it was
opposed to the teaching of the Gospels and S. Paul.
In the first of these replies — I pass over the ob
jection of Caius which is not material to our
inquiry — Hippolytus explains the passage ' the day
of the Lord cometh as a thief,' by a reference
to the children of light who walk not in the night,

LECTURE VII. 393
wMch is certainly Ephesian and probably Johannine.1
In the fifth ' Head ' Hippolytus uses the words
' the Prince cometh and findeth no sin in me,'
which are a definite quotation from the Fourth
Gospel.2 Caius is spoken of in these replies as ' the Both
Heretic,' and it is clear that he did not, and that the Fourth
Hippolytus did, accept the Johannine authorship
of the Apocalypse. It seems to be equally cer
tain that Caius as well as Hippolytus accepted
without any question the authenticity of the Fourth
Gospel. When I turn to the other side of this part of our No dis

coveries

evidence, and ask what fresh facts have been dis- oppose
covered which tend to cast doubt upon the Johannine author-
authorship of the Gospel, I find no answer to the s ip'
question. I cannot assert that no such fact is pro
ducible, but I must confess that if it is I have spent
a good deal of time in a fruitless search, and that I
shall be much surprised if it has been made acces
sible in the ordinary channels by which such facts
are made known.
1 John xi. 10 ; xii. 35, 36 ; adopted into the text of the New
Eph. v. 8. College MS. of that version, sup-
2 John xiv. 30. ' Observe that posed to be the result of a recen-
the quotation from St. John xiv. sion made by Barsalibi, and known
30, follows the reading evpia-Kei, or as the Codex Barsalibxus. I
evprjo-ei, for exei. This reading is supply the diacritic point under
found in some copies, and in early »Sl_Xs from Bodl.' — Hermathena,
patristic citations, and is given in No. xiv. Hippolytus and his
the margin of the Harkleian ver- ' Heads against Caius,' 1888. Dr.
sion. It is noteworthy, that it is Gwynn's note, p. 417.

not
oppose

but support.

394 LECTURE VII.
Frag- Some stress was laid last year,3 indeed, on the
Papias°do discovery of fresh fragments of Papias which are
probably from the Ecclesiastical History of Philip
of Side, who wrote in the early part of the fifth
century.4 The fragment which affects the Johannine
question and makes Papias say that John the theo
logian and James his brother were put to death by
Jews,5 had been met by anticipation by Bishop
Lightfoot, who, as long ago as 1875, explained quite
satisfactorily 6 the similar blunder of Georgius Hamar-
tolos, which is also given on the authority of Papias.7
It is, moreover, more than counterbalanced by a frag
ment of Hegesippus hi the same collection, which
states that Domitian confined the Apostle and Evan
gelist John in Patmos.8
weight of And this negative proof which is furnished by
negative recent additions to our knowledge is not less signifi-
pr0" cant than that which is positive. In the very nature
of things the positive evidence must be fragmentary.
3 BeeJWcheT,Th.eologische Lite- Xeyei, oti 'ladvvqs b OeoXo'yos Kal
raturzeitung, 1889, No. 13, pp. 'laKaBos 6 d8e\<pbs avrov imb '\ov-
331 sqq. ; and cf. Hilgenfeld, haiav dvypiBria-av, Ibid. No. 6, p.
Eirdeitung 1875, p. 63, and Zeit- 170.
schrift fiir wissenschaftliche Theo- 6 But cf. on the other side
logic, 1875, p. 269. Schiirer in Theologische Literatur-
4 Neue Fragmente des Papias, zeitung, 1890. No. 6, p. 142.
Hegesippus und Pierius in bisher 7 Bishop Lightfoot, Contempo-
wnbekannten Excerpten aus der rary Review, October 1875 ; Essays
Kirchengeschichte des Philippus on Supernatural Religion, 1889,
Sidetes von Dr. C. de Boor — Von pp. 211 sq.
Gebhardt und Harnack, Texte 8 Kal tov dnoaroXov Kal evayye-
und Untersuchungen, Bd. v. Heft \io-ttjv 'ladvvrjv ev Jldrpa irepi-
2, pp. 165-184. apicrev- De Boor, ut supra, No.
5 Hernias ev ra Sevre'pa) \6ya 3, p. 169.

LECTURE VII. 395
Its value lies in the fact that it is fragmentary.
A coin in Ephesus, an inscription in Phrygia, a
burial chamber in Rome, a MS. in a monastery, a
site in Samaria or Galilee — these are, if you will,
not more than fossils of a past life, but, differing
each wholly from the other, they tell of that life with
unquestionable certainty, and they speak in voices of
perfect harmony. Is further evidence asked for ?
It exists in the fact that the whole field of our recent
discoveries has disclosed not a single instance of coin,
or inscription, or MS., or evidence of any kind what
ever, which is, I will not say inconsistent with the
Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel, but
which even suggests that any other person had ever
been named or thought of as the author.
I pass now to another branch of recently acquired Re- inves-
evidence, which is not indeed independent of the materials.
discovery of new materials, but depends mainly upon
the re-investigation of materials which were already
known ; and my choice of instances is guided by
their importance, by their general acceptance, and by
the fact that it will be possible to state them briefly
and refer to a full discussion which lies immediately
to hand. First among these instances will come naturally The
the Ignatian Epistles. The storehouse of materials Bustles!
relating to this subject which has been gathered
during nearly thirty years by Bishop Lightfoot9
9 Apostolic Fathers, part ii. , hardt, Harnack and Zahn, Patrum
1885, ed. 2, 1889. Cf. Von Geb- Apost. Opp., fasc. ii. 1876 ; Zahn,

396 LECTURE VII.
contains much that has been made accessible in our
own age : as the Syriac Recension, edited by Cureton
in 1845 and 1849 ; the Armenian, edited by Peter-
mann, also in 1849 ; the Coptic Additions, published
by Father Ciasca in 1883, and by Bishop Lightfoot
himself in 1885; and all has been subjected to
microscopic re-examination. The result is a decisive
judgment for ' the priority and genuineness of the
seven Vossian Letters.' 1
Bishop It is the more striking because it is not the
convinced opinion with which the investigation was commenced.
gation6S 1_ Ln fne dissertation on ' The Christian Ministry,'
attached to the Commentary on the Epistle to the
Philippians, the author writes : —
Throughout this dissertation it is assumed that the Syriac
version represents the epistles of St. Ignatius in their origi
nal form. ... At the same time, I agree with Lipsius that
the epistles of the short Greek recension cannot date later
than the middle of the second century ; and if so, they will
still hold their place among the most important of early
Christian documents.2
Dr. Zahn's The change of opinion is indicated in 1875, and
of the is complacently described by Zahn in these words : —
change. But there are at present in England — where excellent
service was of old rendered on the Ignatian question — those
who value truth more than the opinions of their countrymen,
though these opinions have been received with the greatest
Ignatius von Antiochien, 1873; Polycarp, 1885, vol. i. Preface,
Funk, Die Echtheit der Ignatian- p. vii.
ischen Briefe, 1883. 2 Epistles of S. Paul, Philip-
1 Apostolic Fathers, Ignatius, pians, eds. 1-3, 1868-73, p. 232.

LECTURE VII. 397
applause in other countries ; and it is to me a special satis
faction to observe that J. B. Lightfoot, a man of sober judg
ment, and having great weight through his exquisite learning,
who formerly took Cureton's side, has gradually come over to
my opinion.3 ... In a paper published in the Contemporary
Review, February 1875, he said with great modesty that he
could not decide between the three epistles of Cureton and
the seven of Eusebius, but he wrote to me on the sixteenth of
December in the same year in the following terms : I ought
to explain that, since I wrote the article on Ignatius, I have been
more and more strongly impressed with the unity and priority
of the seven Ppistles as representing the genuine Ignatius.4
In 1879, in the new edition of the Commentary on
the Epistle to the Philippians, the bishop gives the
following note on his change of view : —
In the earlier editions of this work I assumed that the
Syriac Version published by Cureton represented the Epistles
of Ignatius in their original form. I am now convinced that
this is only an abridgment and that the shorter Greek form
is genuine ; but for the sake of argument I have kept the two
apart in the text. I hope before long to give reasons for this
change of opinion in my edition of this father.5
3 Patrum Apost. Opp. , ut supra, eandem mecum convenire sen-
p. vi. tentiam cognovi. . . . cum in
4 ' At sunt etiam hodie in tractatu edito in Contemporary
Britannia, optime quondam de Beview 1875 (Febr.) p. 358 mo-
Ignatio merita, quibus magis destissime dixisset haasitare se
arnica Veritas, quam opiniones e utrum tres epistulse Curetonii ac
Britannia ortse, quamvis magno septem Eusebii genuinse habendse
exterorum applausu exceptse ; ac essent, litteris die 16 Dec. 1875,
magno me affecit gaudio, quod ad me datis hsec mecum commu-
I. B. Lightfootium, sobrii judicii nicavit. . . .' Patrum Apost. Opp.,
virum ac doctrina exquisita pol- ut supra, p. vi, foot-note.
lentem, qui e Curetonii parte 5 Philippians, ut supra, ed.
quondam steterat, paullatim in 1879, p. 234, note.

398 LECTURE VII.
In 1885 Bishop Lightfoot writes : —
Indeed Zahn's book, though it has been before the world
some twelve years, has never been answered ; for I cannot
regard the brief and cursory criticisms of Renan, Hilgenfeld,
and others, as any answer.
And then adds, as always, modestissime — -
Moreover there is much besides to be said which Zahn has
not said.6
Eesult. Another's estimate of what the bishop has himself
said will help us to see the importance of the judg
ment which he has given : —
It has been our wish to exhibit in all its bearings the main
questions which Dr. Lightfoot has sought to answer ; and we
have no hesitation in saying that he has answered these
questions with triumphant success. The genuineness of the
Vossian letters has been finally established ; the wisdom of
Ussher has been fully vindicated ; and the Ignatian contro
versy has been set at rest, with little chance or none of being
again reopened. Dr. Lightfoot's mode of dealing with the
evidence which his unwearied toil has brought together, will
commend itself even to those who may take up the book with
prepossessions in favour of the Tubingen school of critics ;
and his main conclusions will, beyond doubt, be accepted by
all impartial and independent students and thinkers. Those
who can appreciate, further, the critical skill, the vast labour,
the wide range and variety of learning, and the conscientious
care needed for the achievement of this great task, will feel
grateful for efforts which, in spite of all hindrances and dis
tractions, have been crowned with decisive success.7
still fresh Nor has even the short period since Bishop
materials ^ _ L
Lightfoot s work was published been without its
6 Apostolic Fathers, ut supra, 7 Edinburgh Revieio, No. 335,
Pref. p. vii. July 1886, pp. 136-7.

LECTURE VII. 399
additional evidence. A second edition appeared just confirm
C 1 ¦ J 1 TT i 1 r *ke view-
before his death. He was able to announce fresh
converts, including M. de Pressens£, who had pre
viously expressed a strong view agamst the Vossian
recension, and is able to refer to additional materials,
in versions, manuscripts and inscriptions, all of which
support the view which he had adopted.8
Dr. Harnack is well known to hold views differ- Dr.
ing widely from those of Bishop Lightfoot on import- judgment.
ant questions connected with the Ignatian Epistles,
and he expresses these with his usual candid friend
liness in his review of the bishop's work. But he
has no doubt about the genuineness : —
Whether these Epistles are genuine or not, is one of the
main problems of early Church history. Upon the decision
of this question depends more than can be indicated in a
short sketch. After repeated investigations, the genuineness
of the Epistles seems to me certain, and I hold the hypo
thesis of their spuriousness to be untenable. In this conclu
sion I agree with Lightfoot, and I also thank him for having
removed many difficulties in detail which I had previously felt.9
Dr. Harnack has held in connexion with his Date of
general view' of the chronology of the bishops of Epistles.
Antioch, an opinion which is probably peculiar to
himself as to the possible date of the Ignatian Letters,
and his latest expression of it is : —
8 Cf. Apostolic Fathers, 1889, and Schiirer has just endorsed the
pt. ii. vol. i. Preface, pp. vii, viii. opinion (Lbid. 1890, No. 6, p. 142)
9 Expositor, Jan. 1886, p. 10. — as ' wohl die gelehrteste und
Cf. Theologische Literaturzeitung, sorgfaltigste patristische Mono-
1886, No. 14, pp. 316-319, where graphie, welche im 19. Jahrhun-
Harnack speaks of this work— dert erschienen ist,'

400

LECTURE VII.

The Epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp were probably
written after the year A.D. 130. '
But a consensus of the judgments of scholars has
practically determined that the death of Ignatius
cannot be placed later than A.d. 117.2
johannine One of the results of modern investigation then is
quotations T
about a.d. that we possess seven Letters written by Ignatius,
and addressed severally to the Ephesians, the Mag-
nesians, the Trallians, the Romans, the Phila-
delphians, the Smyrnseans, and Polycarp. Nor is
there further place for intelligent doubt that these
Epistles contain quotations of the Fourth Gospel ; 3

1 Expositor, March 1886, p. 192.
Cf. Harnack, Die Zeit des Igna
tius, u.s.w., 1878.
2 ' His martyrdom may with a
high degree of probability be
placed within a few years of a.d.
110, before or after.' Bishop
Lightfoot, Apost. Fathers, ed.
1889, pt. ii. vol. i. p. 30.
' . . .we shall be doing no
injustice to the evidence by setting
the probable limits between a.d.
100-118, without attempting to
fix the year more precisely.' Lbid.
vol. ii. p. 472.
The following is a summary of
the opinions of the chief autho
rities : —
a.d. 105-117. Zahn, R. T.
Smith. a.d. 107. Usher, Ruinart, Tille-
mont, Ceillier, Gallandi, Busse,
Wieseler, Mohler, Funk, Roberts,
and D. Schmid.
a.d. 114. Borghesi.
a.d. 115. Chronicon Paschale,

Volkmar, Ueberweg, Kurtz.
a.d. 115-6. Lloyd, Pagi, Grabe,
Smith, Routh, Gieseler.
a.d. 116. Pearson.
a.d. 138 ?. Harnack.
See Richardson : Bibliographi
cal Synopsis, 1887, p. 15.
* It is not within the compass
of a note to examine these quota
tions fully, but the following
references will justify the state
ment in the text. The numbers
refer to the pages of the edition
of Ignatius in Bishop Lightfoot,
Apostolic Fathers, pt. ii. vol. ii.
1889. Ephes. v. : lav pi] tis § evrbs rov
BvaiaaTTipiov, vcrTepeirai tov aprov
[roil Geov], pp. 43, 44.
Rom. vii. : aprov Qeov BeXa, 8
eoT-iv ab.p£ rov Xpiorot), k. t. X.
These passages are best taken
together, as both are clearly sug
gested by the Gospel (cf. John vi.
27, 31, 33, 48 ; and for the context
the whole passage, vi. 27-59). The

LECTURE VII.

401

that is, the result of our present most learned and
widely accepted criticism on the Ignatian question,

Bvo-iao-rrjpiov is here the court of
the congregation, and seems to be
suggested by the Manna of S.
John, pp. 225, 226.
Two lines before the passage
just quoted, the letter to the
Romans contains the expression
v8ap 8e £5>v\ Kal XaXoCi/f — ' Doubt
less a reference to John iv. 10, 11,
as indeed the whole passage is
inspired by the Fourth Gospel,'
p. 224. If we adopt the reading
i&v dXXopevov from the Interpola
tor's text, we have a further
striking parallel with John iv. 14.
Ephes. vi. : ovras 8ei rjpds
avrbv hexeoBai, as avrov tov
Trepyj/avra. p. 46. John xiii. 20.
Ephes. xvii. : Aia tovto pvpov
eXaBev eVt Trjs KeqbaXrjs [atirou] 6
Kvpios, iva irver] rfj ckkXi;o'(C[ dqbBap-
o-iav. Cf. John xii. 3. ' Joannes
vero exhibet quod prsetermiserunt
Matthseus et Marcus, ^ 8c oiKia
£irXr)pa>8ri eK Trjs ocrpris tov pvpov.'
Zahn, Pair. Apost. Opp. ut supra,
p. 22. ' Zahn truly remarks that
the allusion here implies a know
ledge of S. John's Gospel.' Pp.
72, 73.
Ibid. \ tov apxovros rov alavos
tovtov,. Again, cap. xix. Magn.
i., Trail, iv., Bom. vii., Philad.
6. Cf. John xii. 31 ; xiv. 30 ;
xvi. 11, p. 73.
Magn. vii. : "&o-nep ovv b Kvpios
avev tov jrarphs oi8ev eno'irjo'ev,

k.t.X., p. 121. 'Respicere Igna-
tium ad Joann. v. 19, 30 ; x.
30 ; xv. 4 ; xvi. 15, tantum non
afErmo,' Zahn, ut supra, p. 35 ;
cf. Const. Apost. p. 54, 23, ed.
Lagarde ; cf. also John viii. 28.
Lbid. ad fin. : els eva ovra, p. 123.
' Quoniam autem redux e mundo
apud patrem versatur, apte dic
tum est : els rbv eva . . . non ev
ra evi. Cf. Joann. i. 18,' Zahn, ut
supra, p. 35. Cf . also John i. 1 ;
xiii. 3 ; xiv. 12, 28 ; xvi. 10, 16,
17, 28.
The chapter of the Epistle to
the Magnesians to which these
references are made, occupies ten
lines in the large print of Bishop
Lightfoot's edition.
Magn. viii. ad fin.: bs Kara ndv-
ra evrjpeo-rrjaev t<£ Trepijravri avrov.
p. 126. Cf. John viii. 29.
Rom, iii. ad fin. : orav pnryrai
vrrb Kocrpov. Cf. John vii. 7 ; xv.
18, 19 ; xvii. 14 ; 1 John iii. 13,
p. 205.
Philad. vii.: oioev yap noBev
epxerai Kal ttov virdyei, a
definite quotation from John iii.
8. ' The coincidence is quite too
strong to be accidental. Nor can
there be any reasonable doubt that
the passage in the Gospel is prior
to the passage in Ignatius. The
application in the Gospel is
natural. The application in Igna
tius is strained and secondary ; nor
is his language at all explicable,
D D

402 LECTURE VII.
is to assert that the Fourth Gospel was received by
Ignatius and by the churches of Asia Minor, includ
ing the church of Ephesus, at a date which is earlier —
it may be several years earlier — than the year a.d. 117.
other con- The dates of the Epistle of Barnabas and of the
temporary . „
writings. Didache are too uncertain for us to lay much stress
upon them here as witnesses —both may be earlier
than the death of the Apostle John ; but they, as
well as the Epistles of the Roman Clement and the
Shepherd of Hermas, at least support the Johannine
authorship of the Gospel by a stream of Johannine
doctrine and phraseology which is too strong to have
been accidental.4
Epistie of Closely bound up with the question of the Ignatian
Letters, and standing or falling with them, is the
genuineness of the Epistle of Polycarp.5 This is a
Letter of the martyr to the church at Philippi, exist
ing in a Latin translation which was first published
in 1498. Of the Greek, only part has been preserved,
and this wais first edited in 1633. The external
except as an adaptation of a perhaps be permitted to the article
familiar passage,' p. 266. 'John, Gospel of,' in the forth
coming edition of Dr. Smith's
Philad. ix. : avrbs av 8vpa rov Dictionary of the Bible. For the
warpos, Cf. John x. 9 and Rev. Didache, cf . Von Gebhardt u. Har-
iii. 8. Bishop Lightfoot notes nack, Texte u. Untersuchungen,
that this latter image is also in a Bd. ii. Heft 2 ; Schaff, The Oldest
letter to the Philadelphians, pp. Church Manual, ed. 3, 1889 ; and
274, 275. Plummer, article in the Church-
4 Cf. Patr. Ap. Opp., ut supra, man, July 1884.
esp. the Indices ; and Charteris, 5 Cf. Bishop Lightfoot, op. cit.,
Canonicity, 1880, pp. i-xxxiii and i. pp. 562 sq.
167-176. Reference may also

LECTURE VH. 403
evidence of its genuineness includes Irenasus, who
speaks of ' a very powerful Epistle of Polycarp,
written to the Philippians ' ; Eusebius,6 who quotes
the testimony which the Epistle bears to the Igna
tian Letters ; 7 and Jerome, who tells us 8 that it was
publicly read in the churches of Asia. Everything
in the Letter itself supports the statements which are
thus made about it, and Dr. Harnack is justified in Dr. Har
nack's
saying : — view.
It would certainly never have occurred to any one to
doubt the genuineness of the epistle, or to suppose that it had
been interpolated, but for the fact that in several passages
reference is made to Ignatius and his epistles.9
But, if the Ignatian Letters are independently
proved to be genuine, this argument against the
Letter of Polycarp is not only cancelled, but it gives
a considerable positive quantity on the other side.
The Ignatian Letters are genume : then the only
argument against the Polycarp Letter disappears. The
Polycarp Letter is genuine : then it strongly confirms
the genuineness of the Ignatian Letters, which has
been independently established.
The importance of the genuhieness of the Letter import-
of Polycarp in the present question is indirect but theLetter.
therefore of the greater value. Beyond question it
bears witness to the First Epistle of S. John, and
6 Adv. Hxr. iii. 3, 4 ; ed. Har- Benedict., Verona, 1735, torn. ii.
vey, ii. pp. 14 sq. p. 843.
7 Hist. Eccles. iii. 36. 9 Encyclopxdia Britannica,
8 De Vir. ittust.c&p. xvii. ; ed. 1885, xix. p. 414. B d 2

404 LECTURE VII.
equally beyond question is this Epistle a witness to
the Gospel.1 The Letter dates from the martyrdom
of Ignatius, — after the journey of Ignatius to Rome,
and before Polycarp had heard of the martyrdom ; that
is to say, not later than a.d. 118, perhaps as early as
a.d. 112, there is a Letter of Polycarp which quotes as
authentic the First Epistle of S. John, which itself
is subsequent to the Fourth Gospel and was written
by the same hand.
silence of ^he name 0f Bishop Lightfoot will be remembered
also in connexion with an induction which is, I venture
to think, second in far-reaching importance to nothing
which he has left to us on the early history of the
Church. I refer to the essay on the Silence of Euse
bius, which was first published in the Contemporary
Review in January 1875, and again in the collected
essays on the work entitled Supernatural Religion last
year.2 This is not an example of new material, but
a generalization from already existing materials.
Eusebius is the chief source of information about the
ecclesiastical literature of the second century ; and
this induction, which is based upon a minute exa
mination of particulars, and was placed before the
' world as a distinct challenge now fifteen years ago,
has acquired the position of a law of interpretation,
the value of which cannot be too highly estimated.
Let me read it to you in the author's own words :—
1 Cf. Lecture VI. pp. 346 sq.
3 Essays on Supernatural Religion, pp. 32-58.

LECTURE VII. 405
' Hypotheses non fingimus. We have built no airy castles
of criticism on arbitrary a priori assumptions as to what the
silence of Eusebius must mean. We have put the man him
self in the witness-box ; we have confronted him with facts,
and cross-examined him ; thus we have elicited from him his
principles and mode of action. I may perhaps have fallen
into some errors of detail, though I have endeavoured to avoid
them, but the main conclusions are, I believe, irrefragable.
If they are not, I shall be obliged to anyone who will point
out the fallacy in my reasoning ; and I pledge myself to make
open retractation. . . .
' I now venture on a statement which might have seemed
a paradox if it had preceded this investigation, but which,
coming at its close, will, if I mistake not, commend itself as a
sober deduction from facts. The silence of Eusebius respec
ting early witnesses to the Fourth Gospel is an evidence in its
favour. Its Apostolic authorship had never been questioned
by any church writer from the beginning, so far as Eusebius
was aware, and therefore it was superfluous to call witnesses.
It was not excused, because it had not been accused. . . .
' If any one demurs to this inference, let him try, on any
other hypothesis, to answer the following questions : —
' (1) How is it that, while Eusebius alleges repeated
testimonies to the Epistle to the Hebrews, he is silent from
first to last about the universally acknowledged Epistles of
St. Paul, such as Romans, 1, 2 Corinthians, and Galatians ?
' (2) How is it that he does not mention the precise and
direct testimony in Theophilus to the Gospel of St. John,
while he does mention a reference in this same author to the
Apocalypse ?
' And this explanation of the silence of Eusebius, while it
is demanded by his own language and practice, alone accords
with the known facts relating to the reception of the Fourth
Gospel in the second century.' 3
3 Essays, ut supra, pp. 51-2.

406

LECTURE VII.

Syriac ver
sion of
Eusebius.

Cureton.

Dindorf.

Nor is it by silenca only that Eusebius is speak
ing, and about to speak, afresh to this generation.
Up to the year 1855 the great work of the Father of
Church History was known to us from Greek sources
only, and of the available Greek MSS. none are earlier
than the tenth century.
But Canon Cureton published in that year a selec
tion of Syriac documents, and gave an extract with
a translation of a Syriac version of the Ecclesiastical
History by Eusebius.4 In 1871 Dr. Dindorf published
in his own edition of Eusebius the following note
from Canon Cureton : —
I am occupied in preparing an edition of the ancient
Syriac version of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. I
have two manuscripts of it at my disposal. One, most kindly
lent to me by His Majesty the Tzar, from the Imperial public
library at S. Petersburg, dated A.D. 462. This volume con
tains, with certain lacunas, books i.-iv. and viii.-x. Of books
v. and vii. only small portions remain, and book vi. is wholly
wanting. The Nitrian manuscript, preserved in the British
Museum, which I am now collating with my copy of the
Petersburg manuscript, is of somewhat later date (the date
has been erased and is no longer legible), but very carefully
written. It contains books i.-v. almost complete. 5
Professor Dindorf gives a specimen of the version
from a comparison of the texts of the British Museum
and the Imperial Library at S. Petersburg. This he
was enabled to do through the kindness of Professor
William Wright and Professor Ludolph Krehl.

4 Spicilegium Syriacum, 1855,
pp. 56-60.

5 Eusebius, ed. Dindorf, torn.
iv. Pref. pp. vi sq.

LECTURE VII. 407
In 1880, Professor Adalbert Merx announced, at
the meeting of the Oriental Congress at Florence, that
Professor Wright had prepared an edition of this
version, which he hoped to publish together with an
English translation and notes by Dr. Field, who is
known to us all as the learned editor of the Hexapla
of Origen.6 But Dr. Merx heard the first news of this Syriac Armenian
MS. when he was at , Venice, learmng Armeman ; Merz '
and his friend and tutor, P. Arsemus Sukrean, in
formed him that an Armenian version of Eusebius had
been printed the year before. He was convinced, and
gives reasons which are, I think, fully convincing, that
the Armenian is not made from the original in Greek
but from the Syriac, and that it contains the sections
which are wanting in the Syriac. The Armenian has
also independent notes of time which confirm the
early date assigned to the Syriac version. This
throws us back then far into the fourth century,
and makes it probable that not long after the work
of Eusebius became known in Greek, it was known
also in Syriac, and thus made accessible to both
Eastern and Western Christendom. This view is
confirmed by the practice of Cyril of Alexandria,
who at the beginning of the fifth century published
his work On the Faith in both Greek and Syriac.7
You will see of what immeasurable importance
6 Atti del iv. Congresso interna- 7 Wright, Catalogue of Syriac
zionaledegliOrientalisti. Firenze, MSS. in the British Museum,
1880, vol. i. pp. 199-214. pt. ii. p. 719.

408 LECTURE VII.
this discovery may prove to be. It may reveal to us,
with a certainty which has not been attainable in
modern times, the history of the Church during the
first three centuries ; and it is already known that it
fully confirms the history on which we have been
hitherto dependent. Cureton and Wright and Field
and Bishop Lightfoot are no longer with us in bodily
presence ; but it is to be hoped that the work pre
pared, now some years ago, may be forthcoming
without much delay. Professor Merx writes to me
on the last day of last year with reference to the
Armenian version : —
I hope I will get assistance to complete the whole, which
is difficult for me as it is to be printed in English, so that
without the correcting eye of an Englishman it cannot be
accomplished.
Syriac I have referred in an earlier lecture 8 to an
Apology addressed to the Emperor Antoninus, which
was also given to us from the same Collection of
Nitrian MSS. by Canon Cureton in 1855.9 Many
critics of weight regard this Apology as really the
work of Melito, and some would identify it with the
Apology of which we have fragments in Eusebius.1
The matter is not one of sufficient importance to
justify our further discussion of it. There seems to
me good ground for not ascribing it to Melito him
self, and equally good ground for believing that it
dates from his period. It is interesting as showing
8 Lecture I. p. 35. 9 Spicilegium, ut supra, pp. 41-56.
1 Hist. Eccl. iv. 26.

LECTURE VII. 409
the kind of evidence which has been lying all around
us though we knew it not, and the wide field which
is open for the investigation of scholars.
But the time has now arrived when this division of conciu-
our subject must be brought to a conclusion. I have
endeavoured in the three lectures of the Lent term
to set before you 'the judgment of centuries' upon
the Fourth Gospel, and have in the four lectures of
this term tried to examine the criticism of ' our age.'
I am well aware how fragmentary the treatment of so
wide a subject has necessarily been, but I have de
sired to give every important witness some hearing,
and especially every witness who has anything to
adduce against the Johannine authorship of the
Fourth Gospel. Your patient endurance will con
firm my conviction that wMle some names have been
passed over, others might have been omitted without
serious loss.
And, now, what does it all prove ? Where is No body
this destructive criticism, which is, by a definite and tive cri-
compact body of measured proof, to establish the fact WMch is
that the convictions of all previous ages are a series destruc-"
of mistakes, and that ' our age has cancelled the judg- tlve'
ment of centuries ' ? Evanson, Bretschneider, Strauss,
Baur, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, Renan, Scholten, Keim,
Davidson, and the rest — where is their collective
wisdom, where the fixed results of their investiga
tions ? By what laws of evidence is a case to be
supported in which almost every witness contradicts

410 LECTURE VII.
the witness on his own side who has gone before, and
then contradicts himself ? What is the value of that
man's evidence who tells us plainly, first, that he is
certain, then that he is doubtful, then that he is
doubtful about his doubts, then that he is certain
as to his doubts about his doubts — but thinks his
opinion may yet change ? What verification is pos
sible for theories which assure us nowT that the Gospel
is the growth of unconscious myth, now the result
of deliberate design ; now that its roots are meta
physical, now that they are mystical ; now that the
work is clearly composite, now that it is absolutely
one ; now that the discourses are trustworthy, but
not the history ; now that the history is trustworthy,
but not the discourses ; now that the author is clearly
a Jew, now that he is certainly a Greek ; now that
he is a Syrian, now that he is an Alexandrian ; now
that the whole teaching bears the impress of Philo,
now that it is permeated by the Gnosticism of Basi
lides ? What dependence can be placed upon inves
tigations which assure us with equal confidence that
the gospel was written in a.d. 180, 170, 160, 150,
140, 120, 110, or even far back into the first century?
The . If all these clashing, contradicting, self-destroying,
is to the each-other-cancelling theories of ' our age ' are now
criticism placed beside the calm and deliberate judgment of the
second and all succeeding centuries, and with the posi
tive judgment and knowledge of our own day, what
is the effect ? Is it less than to divide positive unity
by a positive zero, and is not the result a positive

LECTURE VII. 411
infinity ? As I am speaking these words, a sentence
from Strauss comes back to my thoughts, and I know
not how better to express my meaning — it will not be
thought that Strauss applied his words in quite the
same sense : —
The subjective criticism of the individual is like a water-
pipe which any urchin can stop up for a time. Criticism,
when in the course of centuries it accumulates objectively,
rushes along like a roaring river, against which dams and
dykes are powerless.2
I will not detain you by asking what answer the Sugges-
negative criticism of this century would give to author
° . other than
the legitimate demand that it should find an author s. John
¦y 3,1 u. G 1 G S S
who would meet the complex conditions of the
Johannine problem ; 3 though, as we have seen,4 the
'judgment of centuries' could not be cancelled by
any body of destructive criticism even if it existed.
The answers are valueless, as the guesses about
Nathaniel or Apollos, or they are worse than value
less. Is it not almost incredible that a man, know
ing anything of the Origins of Christianity, should
have thought of Cerinthus as the author of the
Fourth Gospel ? But this suggestion comes from
M. Renan.5 Is it not more than incredible that any
2 'Die subjective Kritik des nichts vermogen.' Die christliche
Einzelnen ist ein Brunnenrohr, Glaubenslehre, 1840, i. Preface,
das jeder Knabe eine Weile zu- p. x.
halten kann : die Kritik, wie sie s Cf. the opinion of Dr. Mar-
im Laufe der Jahrhunderte sich tineau, quoted in Lecture V. p.
objectiv vollzieht, stiirzt als ein 287.
brausender Strom heraus, gegen 4 Cf. Lecture IV. p. 173.
den alle Schleussen und Damme 5 ' Tout est possible a ces

412

LECTURE VII.

The river
of the past
strengthened in

one who had ever read a chapter of this Gospel
should have suggested that the disciple whom Jesus
loved, the original author of the Gospel, was Judas
Iscariot ? But this is the distinction of Herr Ludwig
Noack, who published four erudite but most repulsive
volumes on the Life of Jesus, in 1870-71.6 These
are not dams or dykes — they are mere drams, which
the roaring river carries away without leaving a mark
behind. Meanwhile, the nineteenth century has been like
those wMch have preceded it. On every hand fresh
fountains of deeper knowledge, fresh streams of posi
tive criticism, have contributed to the volume of the

epoques tendbreuses ; et, si l'E-
glise, en venerant le quatrieme
Evangile comme l'oeuvre de Jean,
est dupe de celui qu'elle regarde
comme un de ses plus dangereux
ennemis, cela n'est pas en somme
plus strange que tant d'autres
malentendus qui composent la
trame de l'histoire religieuse de
1'humaniteV L'Eglise Chretienne,
1879, p. 54. Cf. ' Jean, a ce qu'il
parait, repoussait les doctrines de
Cerinthe avec colere.' Les Evan-
giles, 1877, p. 420.
6 Aus der Jordanwiege nach
Golgotha. Darstellung der Ge
schichte Jesu auf Grund freier
geschichtlicher Untersuchungen
iiber das Evangelium und die Evan
gelien. Mannheim, 1870-71. I
cannot advise anyone to ex
perience the pain of referring to
a work which reaches a deeper
depth than any which I have else

where known with any pretension
to scholarship or thought. The
Fourth Gospel is treated in vol.
iii. pp. 37-236. The following
passage will sufficiently show the
writer's view of the authorship :
'Wir erkennen also im Busen-
j tj sr g e r des vierten Evange
liums den Judas Thaddaus
oder Lebbaus der synopti
schen Ueberlieferung und finden
diesen nicht verschieden von dem
andern Judas, der in letzterer als
Verrather bezeichnet ' . . . Ibid.
p. 190. After this, nothing will
cause surprise, or it would seem
startling to learn that Golgotha
is not in Jerusalem but in Sa
maria at Kefer Lud,a,n& that Gab-
batta = Gennatha, with much more
of the same nature and the same
value. Ibid. iv. pp. 78 and 141-
143.

LECTURE VII. 413
flood ; and the river of the past rolls on in the present the Pre-
SGJlt.
fuller, stronger, more irresistible than it has ever been
before. And now I trust that the technicalities which
have wearied us too long are ended. In the next
and concluding lecture, I hope to deal for the most
part with the influence which modern thought should
have on our conceptions of the spiritual realities of
the Fourth Gospel.

LECTUBE YIII
INTEEPEETATION OP THE FOUETH GOSPEL
THE PROBLEM OF TRANSLATION

AAAA KAI EAN *H2 AEIHON MOI TON 0EON SOT, KAH1 SOI
EinOIMI AN AEIHON MOI TON ANQPmiON SOT KAH1 201 AEIHn
TON 0EON MOT 
IIANTE2 MEN TAP EXOT2I TOTS O#0AAMOT2, AAAA ENIOI TIIO-
KEXTMEN0T2 KAI MH BAEIIONTA2 TO *flS TOT HAIOT. KAI 0T
IIAPA TO MH BAEIIEIN TOTS TT$A0T2 HAH KAI OTK E2TIN TO $n2
TOT HAIOT #AINON, AAAA EATT0T2 AITIASOnSAN Ol TT*AOI KAI
TOTS EATTON O*0AAMOT3. Theophilus.

LECTURE YIII.
Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of his disciples,
which are not written in this book :
but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name. —
John xx. 30, 31.
If you have been good enough to follow the argu- Results
ments which I have endeavoured to place before earlier
you in the earlier lectures of this course, you will, I
believe, admit that sufficient reason has been showm
for accepting the judgment of ages expressed now
by tradition, nowr by the religious consciousness of the
community or of the individual ; here by decree of
council, or statement of a Father of the Church, there
by the inner light, or the canons of historical and
literary criticism. You will, I believe, also admit
that sufficient reason has been shown for refusing
to accept the statement that any consistent body of
negative criticism has arisen in our own age which
can cancel that judgment ; and for believing that in The
this century, as in the Christian centuries which Gospel is
have preceded it, there has been an accumulatmg ing to s.
mass of evidence in favour of the genuineness of ° n'
the writing which we are justified in calling, without
trace of uncertainty in our voice, ' The Gospel ac
cording to S. John.' I shall also venture to hope,
E E

418 LECTURE VIII.
though I confess my confidence is here less sure,
that no one will be unprepared to admit that, when
the writer of this Gospel claims that his Master
promised His abiding spiritual presence to the
Church and promised the inspiration of the Comforter
in these words, —
But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things,
and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you, l
the promise was made and fulfilled for ' all things,' for
the substance, that is, and not for the mere form of
the revelation of Christ Himself. In other words, it
inspira- will, I trust, be admitted that even in this most
tion is of . .
the es- spmtual Gospel, it is the matter, that is to say the
of the eternal reality, and not the form, that is to say the tem
poral expression of the reality ; the essence of the truth
and not the accident of language, construction, word ;
the spirit which quickeneth, and not the letter which
killeth ; — that it is the matter, essence, spirit, not
the form, accident, letter, which is inspired. It is
the Gospel of Jesus Christ ; it is the Gospel accord
ing to S. John. The treasure is divine ; the vessel
is earthen. I am making no claim on behalf of this
writing, or any other writing of the New Testament,
that it is more than the earthen vessel in which the
treasure of inspired truth is contained. The ' Word
of God' is contained in, but is not identical with,
the written or spoken word of even inspired men.
The necessity of human thought which seeks some
1 John xiv. 26.

form.

LECTURE VIII. 419
visible form of the Divine, and is rightly satisfied in
the Incarnation and spiritualized in the Ascension,
has expressed itself when these doctrines have not
been known or have not been fully grasped, as in
idolatry, in human infallibility, in Mariolatry, in sen
suous modes of worship, so also in a bibliolatry which
claims for the material form the divinity which be
longs only to the spiritual essence. But the treasure The vessel
c J ¦"¦ , . is not, the
would not be affected, even if the vessel which con- contents
tains it were cracked or marred. It should not there- divine.
fore seriously disturb our faith in the divine Gospel, if
the immediate connexion of this one outward form of
it with the Apostle John were much less certain than
it is ; nor should it greatly concern us if some or
all of the many flaws which microscopic critics think
that they have found in this earthen vessel were
really to be seen there, though the more they are
examined by. men of sober vision, the more they are
found to be in the critic or in the instrument of his
criticism, in the eye or in the microscope, and not
in the object upon which they are directed. If,
then, I make no claim for even this Gospel according
to S. John that it is in the external form which is
human, absolutely free from every possibility of error,
I do claim none the less that the Gospel of Jesus
Christ which it contains, is divine, and that to the
divine there can be no ascription of error.

But this discussion of modern criticism and the This dis
authenticity of the Fourth Gospel has not been to

cussion
1 to
E E 2

420 lecture vni.
not an me simply an academical exercise. I may be mis-
apologia. L J ... 7
taken, but in my own view, it is not an apologia for
a creed. Had it been that, there could have been
no justification either for my presence in this place,
or for my absence from the practical work of ' that
state of life unto which it hath pleased God to call me.'
This Gos- The justification to myself at least, for venturing to
treasureof address you, is the conviction that this writing is the
aiy' most sacred in our worlds of time and space, that it
contams the fullest revelation of God to man, that in
the depth of this divine treasure there is the truest
satisfaction of human needs, and the truest solution
of human problems for the nineteenth century as
for the first, for the present as for the past, for the
Danger of future as for the present : and in the conviction that
missing it. _
some men are in danger of missing the treasure, be
cause they claim for the outward form of it a perfec
tion which it has not, and in the very nature of
things cannot have ; that other men are in danger
of missing the treasure, because they cannot help
seeing and attacking the weakness of this claim to
outward perfection ; and that other men are in danger
of missing the treasure, because amidst these loud
and conflicting words of man they cannot hear the
still small voice of God.
Differ- The purpose of the present lecture, then, is to
GHC6S II 6_
cessary in show that while those who accept the results of the
tion; previous lectures, and believe that the Fourth Gospel
is 'the Gospel according to S. John,' have still to

lecture viii. 421
meet the problem of the marked differences between ™\vpepus
this Gospel and the Synoptics, such differences find tjhW.
their explanation in the circumstances under which
the Gospel was written, and, so far from causing any
difficulty, are even necessary to the fulness of the
revelation of God in the varying conditions of man.
Now the fourfold frame in which God has willed Different
that the Church should receive the one Gospel of Jesus the one
Christ ought to have made it impossible to confound
form and substance ; and though this has not always
been the case, any serious attempt to understand the
Gospel according to S. John must, in the present
state of knowledge, start from the conviction that it
is in form widely different from that according to S.
Matthew, or S. Mark, or S. Luke.
When Bretschneider supposes, for example, that if This ex-
"Dressed, bv
the Gospel of John had remained unknown through Bret-
the eighteen earlier centuries, and at length had been
discovered in the East, and had been published in
our own day, we should all have admitted with one
voice that the Jesus described by John is very
different from the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
and that both representations could not be at the same
time true, and that there wrould be good reason for
our doing so ; 2 when M. Renan asserts that if Jesus
2 ' Si forte accidisset, ut Joannis Jesum a Joanne descriptum longe
evangelium per octodecim secula alium esse ac ilium Matthasi,
priora prorsus ignotum jacuisset, Marci et Lucse, nee utramque
et nostris demum temporibus in descriptionem simul veram esse
Oriente repertum et in medium posse. Nee ita sine gravi judica-
productum esset, omnes haud retur ratione.' Probabilia, 1820,
dubie uno ore confiterentur, p. 1. Cf. Lecture IV. pp. 181 sq,

422 LECTURE VIII.
and spake as Matthew makes hhn speak, he could not
have spoken as John makes him speak,3 and sends
us to our New Testaments, and we read the Sermon
on the Mount side by side with the Capernaum
discourse of the sixth chapter or the farewell of the
sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of S. John, or
compare the parables of the one writing with the
allegories of the other, we feel that though all this
may be explained, too much explanation is not quite
satisfactory, and that Dr. Bretschneider and M. Renan
have some reason for their opinion.
Baur's And when Dr. Baur and those who think with
view of a
tendency- fiim assert that the Gospel is not history but theology,
writing, _ r J .
that from beginnmg to end it is marked by unity of
purpose, that it is a Tendenz-Schriftf and send us to
the Gospel itself, and we analyze it, and see how
light and darkness, love and hatred, truth and error,
life and death, are made the sustaining ideas running
through the whole warp and woof of the material ;
how just those signs are chosen — they are signs, there
is no miracle, but all becomes natural in his intense
realization of the Divine presence — which illustrate
these thoughts ; and how every sign is the text of a
sermon, j ust as if it were chosen out of the book of
nature, answering to the touch of nature's God, in order
that this very sermon should be preached from it ; we
s ' Si Je"sus parlait comme le Jesus, ed. 1, 1863, Introduction,
veut Matthieu, il n'a pu parler p. xxix.
comme le veut Jean.' Vie de i Cf. Lecture V. p. 234.

LECTURE VIII. 423
feel that in this respect Dr. Baur and the tendency
school are as wholly right, as Dr. Strauss and Ms theory
of myth are wholly wrong. The Fourth Gospel is a and the
theological unity ; it is marked all through by distinct claims to
design; events are so narrated and discourses are so
connected with them, as to carry out this design from
beginning to end. But it did not need Dr. Baur to
tell us this, though at the moment he did great good
by telling it. The Gospel itself, in the words which
formed its original ending and which supply the text
of our present thoughts, tells us clearly — and the
statement is repeated in hyperbolic form in the pre
sent ending — that it is a selection of signs, that the
selection was made with a definite threefold purpose,
and declares what this purpose was : —
Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of
the disciples, which are not written in this book :
[And 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 would not contain the books that should
be written.]
but these are written, (1) that ye may believe that Jesus is
the Christ, (2) the Son of God ; and that (3) believing ye
may have life in his name.
And when Bretschneider and Strauss and Baur Difference
and M. Renan and others agree in the opimon that the admitted.
whole Gospel is in form different from the Synoptics,
and belongs to an altogether different point of view,
they agree in stating what no intelligent and well-
instructed reader denies. The details of supposed or
real differences may be here passed over, because they

424

LECTURE VIII.

Details
may be
here

The differ
ence as a
whole,

the sub
ject of
inquiry.

take their place in a class of minor questions which
belong to the form and not to the essence of the
Gospel, and they have been more than sufficiently
discussed in recent essays and commentaries. The
chief of them may serve as an example in passing :
The supposed discrepancies as to the Paschal Feast
which have such a prominent place in the arguments
of Baur, have been made the subject of minute inves
tigations by Dr. Schiirer,5 who in this particular line
of Judaistic lore is an acknowledged authority ; and
he seems to establish the fact that, whatever the
solution of the problem may be, the authorship of
the Fourth Gospel — you will remember that he does
not himself accept the Johannine authorship 6 — is in
no way affected by it.
But the feeling about the discourses and the
general tone upon which Dr. Baur and M. Renan
have from different points of view laid so much
stress, is one which every student of the Gospel
must more or less fully share, though he would in
reverence shrink from their particular forms, or per
haps from any forms of expressing it ; and this is of
the essence of the matter and touches the Gospel
itself, and therefore lies immediately in the path of our
inquiry.

6 De Controversiis paschalibus,
secundo p. Chr. nat. sxculo exortis,
1869 ; Die Passastreitigkeiten des
2. Jahrhunderts in Zeitschrift fiir
die historische Theologie, 1870, pp.
182-284. A good risumi of Dr.

Schiirer's arguments is given in
English in Luthardt's St. John
the Author of the Fourth Gos
pel, ed. Gregory, 1875, pp. 154-
165. 6 Cf Lecture V. p. 283.

LECTURE VIII.

425

I have stated but just now, and have elsewhere
tried to show 7 that this difference in the discourses
admits to some extent of explanation, and is to some
extent exaggerated.8 Still, the more the Gospel is
read and studied, the more the feeling asserts itself
that we are touching an altogether different circle
of expressions, constructions, and even modes of

7 Cf. Bishop Ellicott's New
Testament Commentary for English
Readers, vol. i. p. 557 ; Excursus D,
The Discourses in St. John's Gospel.
8 Dr. Plummer gives the fol
lowing interesting extract from a
letter written by Cardinal New
man on July 15, 1878 : —
' Every one writes in his own
style. S. John gives our Lord's
meaning in his own way. At
that time the third person was
not so commonly used in history
as now. When a reporter gives
one of Gladstone's speeches in
the newspaper, if he uses the first
person, I understand not only the
matter, but the style, the words,
to be Gladstone's : when the third,
I consider the style, etc. to be the
reporter's own. But in ancient
times this distinction was not
made. Thucydides uses the dra
matic method, yet Spartan and
Athenian speak in Thucydidean
Greek. And so every clause of
our Lord's speeches in S. John
may be in S. John's Greek, yet
every clause may contain the
matter which our Lord spoke in
Aramaic. Again, S. John might
and did select or condense (as
being inspired for that purpose)

the matter of our Lord's dis
courses, as that with Nicodemus,
and thereby the wording might
be S. John's, though the matter
might still be our Lord's.' Cam
bridge Greek Testament for Schools,
S. John, 1882, p. 100.
The following words of Dr.
Mommsen will be seen to have
also a very important bearing
upon the subject : —
' The position of Asia Minor
as occupying the first rank in the
literary world of the imperial
period was based on the system
of the rhetors, or, according to
the expression later in use, the
sophists of this epoch— a system
which we moderns cannot easily
realise. The place of authorship,
which pretty nearly ceased to
have any significance, was taken
by the public discourse, somewhat
of the nature of our modern
university andacademicaddresses,
eternally producing itself anew
and preserved only by way of ex
ception, once heard and talked
of, and then for ever forgotten.'
Theodor Mommsen, History of
Rome : The Provinces from Ccesar
to Diocletian. Eng. Trans. 1886,
vol. i. p. 363.

426 lecture vin.
thought, from that with which we are familiar in
the Synoptic Gospels ; and that while the dis
courses differ from those of the Synoptics, they
agree with the style of the author of the Gospel,
as we find it in the narrative portions and in the
First Johannine Epistle, and even with that of John
Baptist and other persons who are introduced as
speakers. This difference where we might have expected
agreement, and agreement where we might have ex
pected difference, cannot be denied ; and its signific
ance cannot be too strongly asserted. But it would
seem to be in entire harmony with the origin and
purpose of the Gospel, and in the statement of these
I shall seek to find the lessons with which to con
clude tMs course of lectures.
The key The key to the Fourth Gospel lies in translation,
lies in J l '
transla- or, if this term has acquired too narrow a meaning,
transmutation, re-formation, growth ; nor need we
shrink from the true sense of the terms, develop
ment and evolution. I mean translation in language
from Aramaic into Greek ; translation in time ex
tending over more than half a century, the writer
passing from young manhood to mature old-age ;
translation in place from Palestme to Ephesus ; trans
lation in outward moulds of thought from the sim
plicity of Jewish fishermen and peasants, or the ritual
of Pharisees and priests, to the technicalities of a
people who had formed for a century the meeting-

lecture vm. 427
ground, and in part the union, of the philosophies of
East and West.
If we earnestly attempt to realize the life of the Reaiiza-
. , , . . . tion of the
Apostle and the circumstances under which the Apostle's
Gospel was composed, it will lead us to understand P°S1 10n
how this process of development must have taken
place in the inspired writer, and how absolutely
essential it was to the purpose of his writing.
S. John must upon any plan of his life which can Life in
be set forth with fair show of probability, have spent p 6
thirty years or more at Ephesus.9 Bilingual * from
boyhood, as Galiheans of his time and his position
usually were, in the earlier part of life perhaps pre
dominantly Hebrew, he would by necessity of cir
cumstance become in the latter part predominantly
Greek. His special work is to be Apostle and over
seer of a church which S. Paul had planted, which
9 ' Le nom moderne d'Ephese, l'e"poque chrdtienne. On y em-
AVa-Solouk, parait venir de 'Ayla ploya des sculptures paiennes,
BeoXoyov ou'Ayios BeoXoyos.' [Cf. qu'on interpr^ta dans un sens
Reference to coins, in Wood's chre'tien.' Renan, Saint Paul,
Ephesus, 1877, pp. 182-3, which 1869, p. 342, note 2.
were struck at Ayasalouk, and 1 Those who do not agree in
bear the name ' Theologos,' and his conclusions will nevertheless
go ' far to prove that St. John's thank Dr. Alexander Roberts for
church was erected at that place.'] his valuable contributions to the
'11 est vrai qu'on prononceet qu'on discussion of this subject. They
dcrit souvent A'iaslyk (Arundell, are given, with a fair statement of
ii. 252), ou. l'on est tent^ de voir the objections, in the author's
la terminaison turque lyk. Mais Greek the Language of Christ and
l'orthographe correcte est Solouk his Apostles, 1888. But cf. Dr.
(voir Ibn-Batoutah, ii. p. 308). Neubauer's learned essay On the
Comparez Dara-Soluk, pres de Dialects spoken in Palestine in the
Sardes. La porte qui donne time of Christ: Studia Biblica,
entree a la citadelle peut dater de 1885, pp. 39-74.

428 LECTURE VIII.
from its very seedtime had grown up in the midst of
such discussions as we know to have taken place, for
instance, in the school of Tyrannus.2 Apollos, the
eloquent Alexandrian, is an example at once of the
links which bound Ephesus to surrounding cities and
influences, and of the kind of teacher who was wel-
The corned by the growing Church. The Pauline Letters
to the Ephesians, the Colossians, Timothy, are evi
dence in thought and word of the deeper philoso
phical form in which the knowledge of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ had been imparted to them ; and of the
dangers which had already arisen, and threatened to
arise in more abundant measure, from the subtlety of
thought, the tendency to uncontrolled speculation,
the claim to Gnosis falsely so called, which charac
terized alike the later Greek and the Oriental culture,
and sprung into vigorous life nowhere so fully as in
Asia Minor and Alexandria, where these cultures
were united.
The con- And outside the fold of the Church, what a seeth-
course of
peoples, ing mass was there of contending systems, all claim
ing a hearing ; many claiming, each for itself, that it
was the one solution of the mystery of Being, of all
thing's in heaven and earth and sea ! What a Babel
of confused tongues, while the speakers thought to
raise their towers to the very heaven of heavens !
The sects Chrysostom tells us that ' All the sects of Grecian
so phy! ° philosophy cultivated their science in Ephesus,'3 and
2 Acts xix. 9. Lampe, Commentarius, 1724, vol.
s Homil. I. in Joannem. Cf. i. p. 51.

LECTURE VIII. 429
we know from the story of Justin Martyr's conver
sion,4 the kind of inquiries which men made there in
the generation after John, and which men doubtless
made in the second half of the first, as they certainly
did in the first half of the second century.5 Jews
were there in large numbers from the first planting of
the Church, and the numbers multiplied after the de
struction of Jerusalem.6 Judgeo-Christians, Ebionites,
Essenes left their traceable marks upon the currents
of the great stream of Asiatic thought. Syrians and The Bast,
other Easterns were there, and the special forms of
Oriental Gnosticism, the Naasenes and the Ophites,
which appear at the opening of the second cen
tury, must have had their roots deep in the first.7
Men were there from the further East, and voices
might have been heard telling how the mystery of
Being had found its solution in the life and doctrine
of Gautama whom they called the Buddha, and that
in Nirvana was the highest good of perfect life, a
half-true and therefore all-false pantheism which told
men then, as it tells some men now, that the highest
4 Cf. Lecture II. pp. 58 sq. la juiverie de Rome et celle
5 ' Ephese devenait pour un d'Ephese des communications per-
temps le centre de la chrdtiente', p^tuelles. Ce fut de ce cote que
Rome et Jerusalem 6tant, par sedirigerentlesfugitifs.' . . . Lbid.
suite de la violence des temps, des p. 206.
sdjours presque interdits au culte 7 ' L'Asie Mineure e^ait alors
nouveau.' Renan, L' Antichrist, le theatre d'un e'trange mouve-
1873, p. 209. ment de philosophie syncre'tique ;
6 ' Le point du monde romain tous les germes du gnosticisme y
ou la vie ^tait alors le plus sup- existaient deja.' Renan, Vie de
portable pour les juifs dtait la Jesus, 1879, p. lxxi. Cf. Lecture
province d'Asie. II y avait entre VII. pp. 372 sq.

430 LECTURE VIII.
bemg is the ceasing to be, and that the first
philosophy of human life is to deny the first postu
lates of individual existence, which Intellect, and
Will, and Conscience, and Feelmg, with distinct but
united voice demand. And there from time to time
were men who told of emanations and incarnations
of the Divine, of which they had learned by tradition
and from sacred books that had come down to them
hoary with antiquity ; for to those acutest thinkers
of Aryan stock, incarnation seemed to be an actual
necessity, though to some among ourselves it has
and West, seemed an impossibility, of thought. And there
were many from the West, from Egypt and Rome
and Greece. Some of them might have been heard
to speak of strange religious mysteries ; of animals
sacred in their nation from the earliest records,
because to them they represented God ; of colossal
forms transcending all experience and suggesting the
Infinite ; of apotheosis, that antithesis to incarnation,
the attempt to bridge from the human side the gulf
between man and God ; of idolatry, which is at
once the caricature of and the witness to incarna
tion ; of personification, by which every power of
nature and thought of man might become a god ;
of temples for the body, dead yet not dead ; of
transmigrations of the spirit, the same and not
the same. And more frequently and consistently
than any of these strange voices, might have been
Phiio. heard the teaching of the eclectic pMlosopher, Philo.
Somewhat older than the Apostle, but for many

LECTURE VIII. 4,31
years a contemporary, an Alexandrian Jew of high
position and exceptional culture, steeped in Rabbinic
lore, and yet so permeated by Plato, that men often
said ' Philo is platonising, or Plato is philonising ; '
dissatisfied with the literal explanation of the origin
of Being which he learnt in the synagogue, and
seeking in the mysticisms of the far East what he
could not find in the West, at once an effect and a
cause of the philosophy of Alexandria and Ephesus,
placing in the forefront of his teaching the method of
allegory which has ever characterized the Alexan
drian schools, using every possible term to express
the union of matter and spirit, grasping alike from
Rabbis and from Stoics the doctrine of the Logos as
the link between God and man, and yet holding it as
it were in solution, uncertain whether there is one
Logos or many, almost saying, and yet never fully
saying, that the Logos is a person.8
And all this was beneath the shadow of the great Thecuitof
temple of Diana of the Ephesians, with its hierarchy
and courses of trained theologiB and exegetes — of Diana
8 The literature of Philo and In immediate relation to our
the Logos is almost inexhaustible. present inquiry reference may be
It is a satisfaction to be able to made, in addition to the better
refer to two quite recent English known treatises, to Soulier, La
treatises which from different Doctrine du Logos chez Philon
points of view are equally d' Alexandrie, Turin, 1876; Klas-
thnughtful and learned : — the late sen, Die alttestamentl. Weisheit u.
Dr. Edershoim's article Philo in der Logos, u. s. w. 1879 ; and Jean
Smith and Wace's .Dictionary of Reville, La Doctrine du Logos
Christian Biography, vol. iv. pp. dans le quatrieme Evatigile et dans
357 sqq. ; and the invaluable les oeuvres de Philon, 1881.
induction of Dr. Drummond in 9 The theologi are named in an
his Philo Judxus, 2 vols. , 1888. inscription from the Great Theatre

432

LECTURE VIII.

who had come down from heaven and was worshipped
as the source of life on earth ; for this temple was to
last for yet two centuries, and images of the god
dess and her shrine represented the highest truth to
men, women, children, not alone in the great city of
Ephesus, but in all the region round about.
The city. The outline of daily life at Ephesus which is thus
suggested may be easily expanded and coloured, for
the literature 1 of the subject is no longer scanty.
It will of course be remembered that Ephesus was
on the one hand a great commercial centre and
port, and on the other a luxurious Eastern city, the
de facto capital of the province of five hundred towns.2

of Ephesus. Cf. Wood, Dis
coveries at Ephesus, 1877, p. 22
(fleoXo'yoir).
1 Cf. Guhl, Ephesiaca, 1843,
esp. cap. iii. pp. 78-140 ; Falkener,
Ephesus and the Temple of Diana,
1862 ; Wood, Discoveries in
Ephesus, 1877 ; Renan, S. Paul,
1869, pp. 329-349; Lewin, Life
and Epistles of S. Paul, ed. 3,
1875, vol. i. pp. 313-414 ; Farrar,
Life and Work of S. Paul, vol. ii.
pp. 1-44 ; De Pressens^, L'Ancien
Monde et le Christianisme, ed. 4,
1889 ; Mommsen, History of
Rome, ut supra, pp. 320-367 ;
Plumptre, S. Paul in Asia Minor,
pp. 89-138.
3 ' The proper metropolis of the
province was Pergamus, the
residence of the Attalids and the
seat of the diet. But Ephesus,
the de facto capital of the province,
where the governor was obliged

to enter on his office, and which
boasts of this ' right of reception
at landing ' on its coins ; Smyrna,
in constant rivalship with its
Ephesian neighbour, and, in
defiance of the legitimate right of
the Ephesians to primacy, naming
itself on coins ' the first in great
ness and beauty ; ' the very
ancient Sardis, Cyzicus, and
several others strove after the
same honorary right.' Mommsen,
History of Rome, ut supra, vol. i.
pp. 329 sq.
1 But, if the Roman merchants
were to be found here apparently
in every large and small town,
even at places like Ilium and
Assus in Mysia, Prymnessus and
Traianopolis in Phrygia, in such
numbers that their associations
were in the habit of taking part
along with the town's burgesses
in public acts ; if in Hierapolis, in

LECTURE VIII.

433

Business and pleasure,3 not philosophy or religion,
brought most who came there from afar ; but the
time and the people were marked by a great up
heaving of the spirit of religious inquiry, and there

the interior of Phrygia, a manu
facturer (epyao-rrjs) caused it to
be inscribed on his tomb that he
had in his lifetime sailed seventy-
two times round Cape Malea to
Italy, and a Roman poet de
scribes the merchant of the capital
who hastens to the port, in order
not to let his business-friend from
Cibyra, not far distant from
Hierapolis, fall into the hands of
rivals, there is thus opened up
a glimpse into a stirring manu
facturing and mercantile life not
merely at the seaports. Language
also testifies to the constant in
tercourse with Italy ; among the
Latin words which became cur
rent in Asia Minor not a few
proceed from such intercourse, as
indeed in Ephesus even the guild
of the wool- weavers gives itself a
Latin name. ( 2wepyao-ia rav
Xavaplav, Wood, Ephesus, city,
n. 4).' Mommsen, History of
Rome, ut supra, pp. 360 sq.
3 ' II y avait des sifecles qu'Ephese
n'etait plus une ville purement
hellemque. Autrefois, Ephese
avait brille' au premier rang, du
moins pour les arts, parmi les
cite's grecques ; mais a diverses
reprises, elle avait permis aux
mceurs de l'Asie de la s^duire.
Cette ville avait toujours eu chez
les Grecs une mau vaise reputation.
La corruption, l'introduction du
luxe eUaient, selon les Grecs, un

effet des mceurs effemindes de
l'lonie ; or, Ephese e"tait pour eux
le centre et l'abrege' de l'lonie. La
domination des Lydiens et celle
des Perses y avaient tird l'energie
et le patriotisme ; avec Sardes,
Ephese e'taitle point le plus avancd
de l'influence asiatique vers l'Eu-
rope. L'importance excessive
qu'y prit le culte d' Artemis dtei-
gnit l'esprit scientifique et favorisa
le detiordement de toutes les su
perstitions. C'etait presque une
ville theocratique : les fetes y
etaient nombreuses et splendides ;
le droit d'asile du temple peuplait
la ville de malfaiteurs. De hon-
teuses institutions sacerdotales
s'y maintenaient et devaient cha-
que jour paraitre plus denudes
de sens. Cette brillante patrie
d'Heraclite, de Parrhasius, peut-
etre d'Apelle, n'etait plus qu'une
ville de portiques, de stades, de
gymnases, de theatres, une ville
d'une somptuosit^ banale, malgre'
les chefs-d'oeuvre de peinture et
de sculptu re qu'elle gardait encore .
'Quoique le port eut 6t6 gatd
par la maladresse des ingenieurs
d'Attale Philadelphe, la ville
s'agrandissait rapidement et
devenait le principal emporium
de la region en decii, du Taurus.
C'etait le point de d^barquement
de ce qui arrivait d'ltalie et de
Grece, une sorte d'hotellerie ou
d' entrepot au seuil de l'Asie. Des
F F

434

LECTURE VIII.

TheApostle'swork,

is little danger of exaggerating the force of the
religious movements of which Ephesus was the
centre, and of which the history in the nineteenth
chapter of the Acts of the Apostles is an instructive
example. Among the influences of such a daily life as tMs,
John must have lived for more than a quarter of a
century. He was a shepherd of the flock of Christ.
We know something of the impression which his
ministry left from the familiar stories of the bow,4 of
the robber,5 of the encounter with Cerinthus,6 of the

populations de toute provenance
s'y entassaient, et en faisaient
une ville commune, ou les idees
socialistes gagnaient le terrain
qu'avaient perdu les iddes de
patrie. Le pays et.ait d'une
richesse extreme ; le commerce,
immense ; mais nulle part l'esprit
ne se montrait plus abaisse\ Les
inscriptions respirent la plus
honteuse servility, la soumission
la plus empressee aux Romains.
On eiit dit l'universel rendez-vous
des courtisanes et des viveurs. La
ville regorgeait de magiciens, de
devins, de mimes etde joueurs de
flute, d'eunuques, de bijoutiers,
de marchands d'amulettes et de
m^dailles, de romanciers. Le
mot de " nouvelles ephe'siennes "
designait, comme celui de "fables
milesiennes," un genre de littera-
ture, Ephese 6tant une des villes
ou Ton aimait le plus a placer la
scfene des romans d'amour. La
mollesse du climat, en effet, d6-
tournait des choses serieuses ; la
danse et la musique restaient

l'unique occupation ; la vie pu
blique degenerait en bacchanale ;
les bonnes e'tudes dtaient delais-
sdes. Les plus extravagants
miracles d'Apollonius sont cense's
se passer a Ephese. L'Ephesien
le plus eelebre du moment ou
nous sommes etait un astrologue
nomme' Balbillus, qui eut la con-
fiance de Neron et de Vespasien,
et qui parait avoir 6t6 un scelerat.
Un beau temple corinthien, dont
les ruines se voient encore au-
jourd'hui, s'elevait vers la meme
epoque. C'e'tait peut-etre un
temple d^die' au pauvre Claude,
que N6ron et Agrippine venaient
de "tirer au ciel avec un croc,"
selon le joli mot de Gallion.'
Renan, ut supra, pp. 335-9.
* Cassian, Collationes, xxiv. c.
21, ed. Hurter, 1887, pp. 781 sq.
5 Clem. Alex., Quis dives sal-
vetur ? § 42, ed. Klotz, torn. iii.
pp. 353 sqq.
6 Iren. Adv. Hxr. iii. 4, ed.
Harvey, torn. ii. pp. 12 sqq.
Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iii. 28; iv. 14.

LECTURE VIII. 435
message of love.7 How often must this disciple
whom Jesus loved have told them about His life, His
deeds, His words ! How often must he have realized
the promise that the Comforter would bring all
things to remembrance whatsoever the Master had
said to him ! What a number of things must have
been related in all those years, by the disciple who
had heard most from Jesus, and from personal en
dowment and imparted grace had been most recep
tive of what he had heard! How almost natural
becomes the exaggeration of some Ephesian church
men, who had listened to all this : —
And 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 would not contain the books that
should be written.
How often must Holy Baptism wMch lies at the root of
one discourse in the Gospel,8 and Holy Eucharist which
lies at the root of another 9 — though the institution
of neither sacrament is mentioned, since both were
of old-established usage long before the Gospel was
written — have revealed the power of sacramental grace
and the very presence of Christ in their midst ! How
often must the chief pastor of the Church have come
into personal contact with the doubts and difficulties
of inquirers and catechumens, just as an English
bishop in Calcutta or Ceylon would talk out the
difficulties of some Brahman or Buddhist, in his own
7 Jerome, in Epist. ad Galatas, Sacred and Legendary Art, ed. 3,
vi. 10, ed. Bened. Veronse, 1737, vol. i. pp. 166 sqq.
pp. 528 sq. Cf. Mrs. Jameson, 8 John iii. 1-22. 9 John vi. 43-59.
Ff2

436 LECTURE VIII.
technical language, and from his own point of view !
and teach- How often must he have given addresses which no
""' Luke lived long enough to record, based it may be
upon the Pauline model, for the Acts of the Apostles
was probably m his hands ; and have shown that He
whom they also ignorantly groped after, was declared
to them in the person of Jesus Christ ; that all this
seeking after God in human form that mind of man
may grasp Him, tMs Messianic hope, this apotheosis,
this theory of mcarnations, this personification, even
this idolatry, this doctrine of Logos, this system
of Gnosis, all this every day talk of Arche, and
Propator, and Zoe, and Monogenes, and Anthropos, of
Grace and Glory and Truth, and the rest, by wMch
men made successive links to reach from earth to
heaven, that it all meant the yearning of the soul
after God, yes, the yearning of humanity for a visible
conception of God, and that all this was fulfilled in
the Gospel which he declared unto them! How
often must he have told some student of Philo, or
some Gnostic disciple of Cerinthus in the course of
those years : —
In Arche was the Logos, and the Logos was face to face
with God, yea the Logos was God. The same was in Arche
face to face with God. All things were made by him, and
apart from him was not anything made. That which hath
been made was Zoe, in him ; and the Zoe was the Phos of the
Anthropoi ; and the Phos is ever shining in the darkness, and
the darkness overcame it not.1
1 EN APXHrjvbX6yos,Kal6X6yos OStos r/v ev dpxfj irpbs rbv Beov.
tjv irpbs rbv Beov, koX Bebs rjv 6 Xoyos. irdvra oY avrov eyevero, Kal ^oipls

LECTURE VIII. 437

Or again : —

And the Logos became flesh and tabernacled among us,
and we looked upon his Doxa, the Boxa of the Monogenes
from with a Father, full of Gharis and Aletheia?
Or again : —
Because of his Pleroma we all received, and Gharis
growing out of Gharis. For the Law was given through
Moses, Gharis and Aletheia came to be through Jesus Christ.
No man hath ever yet seen the nature of God. Monogenes
who is God, and who is ever in the bosom of the Father, he
hath been the Exegete.3
They wTere living in a world of shadows ; he had
the reality of realities to declare to them. They said
that the Word was now a creature, now an ideal
abstraction, now a mere appearance, now limited by
another principle in creation, now the creative idea
of God. He said that the Word was ' in the begin
ning,' ' was God,' ' became flesh,' that ' all things
were made by him,' and ' without him was not any
thing made that was made.' They spoke of philo
sophies of the origin of being, and of the knowledge
and glory of God. He spoke of one who had taber-
avrov eyevero ov8e ev. 6 yeyovev ev s "On ix tov wXrjpoiparos avrov
aura) Car/ qv, Kal rj fwq r/v ro abas rjpeis ndvres eXdfiopev, Kal xdpiv avrl
Tav dvBpairav ' Kal ro (pas ev rfj ^dpiros " on 6 vopos 8ia Mavaeas
o-KOTia (paivei, Kal ij o-Koria aiirb ov e'86Br), r) x^Pls Kai V dXijBeia 8ia
KareXaBev. . . . 'l^o"OV Xpwrov eyevero. Beov oi8e)s
2 Kal 6 Xoyos ab.p£ eyevero Kal eapaxev iratrore- povoyevrjs Bebs 6
icTKrjvairev ev r/piv, Kal eBeaadpeBa av els rbv koXttov tov irarpbs eKeixos
Trpi 86£av avTOV, 86£av o>s povoye- e^rjyrjcraTO, John i. 1-6, and 14,
vovs irapa narpos, irXriprjs x°-PlTOS 16-18,
Kal dXrjBelas' . . •

438 LECTURE VHL
nacled among men, upon whose glory he had gazed,
who was the Only-begotten of the Father, of whose
fulness of grace and truth he had received. They
spake of visions of God. He declared that no man
had seen God at any time ; that the Only-begotten,
who was in the bosom of the Father, He had been
the Exegete, the Interpreter who had declared Him
to man.
The close And now the years of his life, already lengthened
beyond the natural span, were drawmg to a close. He
had written nothing of all that he had taught of the
wondrous words and deeds of Christ. He had per
haps expected that the end of the dispensation would
Natural come before the end of life. The Gospel he had so
nP91TP TOT*
a record, often declared was well known in the Church ; but
his spiritual children could see that the time was at
hand when his voice would be heard no more, and
they therefore entreat him to give them the blessing
of a record which should remain with them, and tell
them in his own words something of all that Jesus
had done, and of all that Jesus had said.
The tradi- The very early tradition of the Muratorian Frag-
accountof ment,4 wMch there is no sufficient reason to question
of the"8™ and which is confirmed by the Alexandrian Clement,
Gospel. reiates how his fellow disciples and bishops exhorted
him ; how he bade them fast with him for three days,
and tell each to other what revelation he might re-
4 Tregelles, Canon Muratorianus, 1867, pp. 32 sqq. ; cf. Lecture I.
pp. 42 sqq.

LECTURE VIIT. 439
ceive about writing the book ; how in the same night
it was revealed to Andrew, that John should describe
all the events in his own name, but they should all
assist him in revising his work.5 It is natural to The circle
of disci-
imagine that more than one of his fellow disciples pies and
friends.
had made notes of what he had often told them ;
it is natural to imagine that some younger hand6
actually held the pen with which the Gospel was
written ; it is not impossible that the style of a born
Ephesian scribe through whose mind and hand the
words passed, as the divine Paraclete brought all
things to the Apostle's remembrance, and the old
man spake the words which were re-kindled m his
thoughts, may have left its mark, on here and there
a word, on here and there a form of expression that
was thus fashioned after the exact idiom of the Ephe
sian speech. This is possible, perhaps probable ; but
it seems to be beyond question that the Ephesian life
of the Apostle had been so interpenetrated by the
atmosphere in which he lived, that he could not have
spoken the Fourth Gospel in the last decennium of
the first century and in Ephesus, in any other language
than that in which we find it ; and further that, if
he had done so, he would have spoken in a language
which could not be understood by the people, and
would have missed the very purpose for which he
spoke. It follows that the whole external form in The work,
5 Cf. Clem. Alex, apud Euseb. 1840, pp. 185 sqq.
Hist. Eccles. vi. 14 ; ibid. iii. 24 ; 6 Cf . the closing scene of Bede's
and Liicke, Commentar, ed. 3, life, Lecture III. pp. 162 sq.

440 LECTURE VIII.
ifjohan- which the Gospel is clothed was Ephesian, and
nine, ne- . _ . ,
cessariiy necessarily Ephesian, because it was Johannine, but
an' that the whole inner reality of the truth which was
expressed in this form was the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
brought home to the Apostle's mind, as he himself
claims in his record of the promise, by the special
guidance into all truth, and the vivifying of faculty
to recall the teaching of Christ Himself, which is the
Example : work of the Holy Ghost.7 The doctrine of the Logos,
trine of the divine Word, for example, does not seem to have
°g ' been, in the form at least in which it meets us in the
Prologue of the Gospel, any part of the direct teaching
of Jesus. It seems to have been suggested by the
various statements about the Logos which the Plato-
nists, the Philonists, the Ebionites, the Docetists, the
Dualists, of Ephesus were constantly making. It meets
these half- statements in a series of definite utterances,
which take almost the form of a creed, all of which
can be gathered from the teaching of Jesus as the
Apostle knew and remembered it, and under the
inspiring guidance of the Holy Spirit were thus
gathered. The very term Logos, which he alone of
the New Testament writers uses in this technical
sense, was doubtless used by him because it was
floating in the stream all around him. He had been
familiar with it from the days of Galilee and the
synagogue, for every Jewish boy who heard the
Targums read, heard of the Memra da-Yeyd,8 the
' John xiv. 26.
8 'H XID'D Cf. Levy, Wiirterbuch . . . Targumim, s.v.

LECTURE VIII. 441
Word of Jehovah, and it can perhaps be proved that
the distinctive characteristics of the Johannine doc
trine of the Logos are to be traced to the Targums
rather than to Philo, though, be it remembered, Philo' s
own conceptions had been moulded by Hebrew
rather than by Greek influences.9 It had been from
childhood stored up in his memory, and had grown with
his life ; and now in old age he heard men constantly
speaking, in strangely varying terms, of the Logos.
Meanwhile he had been a companion of the life of
Jesus,1 had felt His power, had seen the reality of the
heavenly glistering through the form of the earthly,
had witnessed the risen life, and the fulfilment of the
promise of Pentecostal gift, had for more than fifty
years known the power of that life in Church and
sacrament and individual soul, as he had known it in
himself, had seen the Logos in Apocalyptic vision ; 2
and these men who think themselves wise and claim
special Gnosis, and wear the garb of philosophers, are
for ever talking of the Logos, without understandmg
what they say. What they dimly conceived, that he
could plamly declare; what they yearned for, that
he had been commissioned to give : —
That which was from Arche, that which we have heard,
that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld,
and our hands handled, concerning the revelation of life — the
Logos which is Zoe — (and the life was manifested, and we
9 Cf. Westcott, Gospel accord- Commentary, 1879, vol. i. pp. 552
ing to S. John, 1882, pp. xv-xviii; sqq. (Watkins).
and Excursus, Doctrine of the 1 John i. 14.
Word in Ellicott's New Testament 2 Rev. xix. 13.

442

LECTURE VIH.

have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life,
the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was mani
fested unto us) ; that which we have seen and heard declare
we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with

us.

The revelation of eternal life in the Incarnation ; that
is the doctrine of the Logos.

Transla- If, by your kind attention, I have been in any
tion ex-
plains the degree able to convey what I mean by saying that
tone of the key to the Fourth Gospel is to be found in trans-
andlL- lation, it will not be necessary to offer any further ex
pression, pianation of the general and uniform tone of thought
and language which admittedly permeates the Gospel
from end to end ; nor will you fail to see what is the
truth which underlies the at first sight perplexmg
phenomena, that men of established critical eminence
have arrived at so many, and so apparently diverse
conclusions, with regard to its origin and scope : —

and the
opposing views of
critics.

It is Hebrew in matter and form, more so than any book
of the New Testament.
It is distinctly anti-Jewish, and the most widely universal
book of the New Testament.
It is obviously influenced by the thought and language
of Philo, and is written by a Jew of Alexandrian culture.
It contains Pauline elements, and is manifestly composed,
in part at least, of Pauline materials.
It is Gnostic, both in the main ideas and in the ex
pressions. It is Montanist, and this accounts for the doctrine of the
Paraclete. 3 1 John i. 1-3.

LECTURE VHI. 443
All these statements are true ; and no one of No human
them is true. The Gospel is not Jewish, not Hellenic, prersesXthe
not PMloman, not Alexandrian, not Pauline, not the divine,
Gnostic, not Montanist ; but it is all these, and more
than these. There is no one of these views which,
if properly expressed, is not true of the Gospel, and
is not even necessary to the conception of the Johan
nine authorship which I have sought to present to
you. A Hebrew of Hebrews, the fundamental pur
pose of the writer is that men might believe that
' Jesus is the Messiah ' ; but he is a Hebrew with
whom the forms of Judaism have passed away. The
temple has been overthrown ; Jerusalem has been
destroyed. He gazes not upon the Sea of Galilee, but
upon the Mediterranean, which washes the shores of
the civilized world, and upon the great avenues
to the East. He looks not upon fishermen's boats,
but upon the ships of commerce and traffic, which
link peoples whom the sea does but seem to divide.
The Church has gathered in of all nations, and his
Judaism has widened into universalism, because he
has seen that it was, in the providence of God, a pre
paration for a religion of humanity ; and the second
fundamental purpose of the Gospel is therefore that
men might believe that Jesus is ' the Son of God.' It
must have had elements of Philo, though they are
fewer than men have sometimes thought, for Ephesus
was as Philonian as Alexandria was. It must have
had elements of Paul, for John is the Apostle of the
completion, as Paul was the Apostle of the founda-

444 LECTURE VIII.
tion. It must have had forms parallel to those of
Gnostic and Docetic thought, for it was to meet these
strivings after truth. Its doctrine of the Paraclete
gave rise, it may be, to the later perversions of Mon
tanism, but was of especial necessity for a people who
talked of Paracletes 4 without knowing what meaning
really underlay the words, and for a church some of
whom had not, up to S. Paul's visit, even heard that
there was a Holy Ghost.5 The man who will think
out what S. John was, and what Ephesus was, and
what the Gospel according to S. John must have
been, will find that it must have contained all these
and many other elements ; and if he will analyze it,
he will find that it does contain them. Each critic
has been proud of his own prism, and by means of it
has seen his own human parti- coloured light ; while
all taken together prove that the Gospel is more than
human, and that in the harmony of all the varied
hues of finite knowledge is the clear light of in
finite and eternal truth.
Transla- And this process of translation is necessary not
problem only for the first century and for Ephesus ; but for
time. every time and for every place. The problem has
presented itself, and has been now more now less fully
met — more fully as Theology has exercised, less fully
as she has abdicated her sovereignty of the sciences
4 Cf. Excursus on The mean- mentary, 1879, pp. 561 sqq. (Wat-
ing of the word Paraclete in kins).
Ellicott's New Testament Com- 5 Acts xix. 2.

LECTURE VIII. 445
— in the whole history of the Church. Let me ask
you to inquire how far it is the problem of the nine
teenth century, the problem of the England of to-day,
the England which has formed ' so much of the world
in the past, and is making still more in the present ;
the problem of the Oxford of to-day, the Oxford
which has made so much of the England of the past,
and is, God blessing her, to make still more of the
England of the future.
We look not upon the Lake of Galilee, nor yet The
upon the land-locked Mediterranean, but upon mighty to-day.
oceans, whose waters are the highways of continents.
Our ports are filled, not with the boats of fishermen,
or the small vessels of an inland sea, but with huge
and swift merchant ships of peace, and armed ships of
war, whose circuit is the known world. Steam and
electricity have spanned the oceans, and we speak
across the great deeps. The printing-press has made
it possible, and education has made it actual, that the
progress of knowledge should be no longer the privi
lege of a caste, but the common heritage of the brother
hood of man. We are members of an empire upon
which the sun never sets. Queen Victoria has reigned
for more than fifty years over dominions compared with
which the empires of the East, of Greece, of Rome, of
Alexander, of Augustus, of Charlemagne, of Napoleon,
sink into insignificance. The Queen of England and
Empress of India reigns to-day over more Moham
medan subjects than the Sultan does. She has prob
ably more Buddhists among her peoples than she has

446 LECTURE VIII.
Christians, though the proportion is quickly changing.6
The English language has extended its sway more
rapidly even than the English rule ; it is taught now
in every country in the world ; and a careful autho
rity has estimated that at its present rate of progress
it will within a century become umversal. This
spread of empire, this binding into one great nation
ality of so many diverse peoples, with diverse his
tories, languages, customs, religions, gods ; this unity
of language, which is fast making it possible for
the English press to speak to all humanity ; 7 this
union for the first time in the history of the world, of
the rule of empire, and of the sway of speech, of first-
century Rome and first-century Greece, under one
sceptre ; this new world across the Atlantic, the West
which is 'daughter and friend of the East, happily her
rival only in the arts and blessings of peace, in no
sphere more happily or more successfully her rival
than in those studies which have for their immediate
aim the knowledge of the Word of God and the
history of His Church upon earth ; these vast terri
tories won for the sciences, the arts, the manufactures ;
6 Cf. Monier Williams, Budd- Dictionary of Statistics, 1886, p.
hism, 1889, pp. xiv to xviii. 275.
7 In 1801, out of every 1,000 ' That the future of civilisa-
persons on the globe, 129 are esti- tion is in the hands of the English-
mated to have been English- speaking race is as sure as any
speaking. In 1883 the proportion unaccomplished fact can be.' See
was 271 to the 1,000. Every interesting calculation by Mr.
other European language shows Arnold-Forster, from which this
a marked decrease in the ratio, result is deduced, in the Nine-
except German, which has been teenth Century, Sept. 1883, vol.
about stationary. Cf. Mulhall's xiv. pp. 386-401.

LECTURE vm. 447
this accumulation of immense wealth m the hands of
the few ; this spread of political power among the
many ; these social and political questions which are
everywhere pressing for solution at our hands ; above
all, this seething medley of all religions and no
religions — Platonists, and Philonians, and Gnostics,
and Docetists, teachers from the far East, teachers
from the far West, spiritualism — that credulity of the
incredulous — magical arts, luxury, voluptuousness,
sensuousness — what does it all mean ?
Are we living in a nineteenth-century Ephesus ? a nine-
Have we present with us every element of the Ephesus century
of the first century on a wider, grander scale ? But p ebUS"
where are the S. Paul and the S. John, the translators
of truth into truth? Are they with us in very deed in
the Church they helped to found, and in the Gospel
they preached ? Are their very writings read in the
Church to-day? We answer ' Yes ;' but the answer
is half-hearted, for we must confess that these writ
ings are not being fully translated and read in the
thought and language of the nineteenth century, and
that men often cannot understand them, and there
fore think that they belong to another sphere of being
and have nothing to do with their own real life.
And are not the Universities — Universitates, what Eeiation
a wide width of meamng in the very name! — the sitiesto^"
foundations of our spiritual ancestry to promote problem.
'true religion and sound learning,' the very eyes
of this our great empire — eyes of the intellect, eyes
of the spirit — to look forth on the vast world which

448 LECTURE VIII.
lies before them, and then to look within into the
treasury of God richly stored with all the fulness of
truth which has been gathered in all these centuries
of life ? And are they not to utter the voice, the word,
spoken, written, printed, which shall in our English
language, the chosen vessel of God, proclaim the
truth of heaven to meet the wants of man? Have
not men who live physically and mentally on the
circumference of this great circle of English and
English-speaking humanity, the right to look to its
centres for the illumination which they have re
ceived from God? Have we not the right to ask
that our spiritual guides, the Bishops and Fathers of
our Church, and our intellectual guides, the Patres
Conscripti of our commonwealth of thought, will lead
us, as they alone have the right to lead, as they alone
have the power to lead ?
Army There is a vast army ready to a man to follow,
for even to the death, if they could be but quite certain
that the voice which cries 'Forward' is a voice
which has the right to speak, and does speak, in the
name of eternal truth, in the name of the eternal
God ! Is it answered, ' That voice can only come
from the Truth, who is the very Word of God. He is
the Interpreter of the Father. Other foundation can
no man lay than that is laid ' ? Yes ! a thousand
times yes ! But the church at Ephesus was not
only a foundation, but a growth. Not more diverse
were the materials of metal, wood, stone, jewels ;
nor more varied the forms in each component part of

LECTURE VIII. 449
the great whole which grew together and made the
temple of Ephesus the glory of Asia. This infinite
variety serving to form unity in the master-builder's
hands, this growth to completeness, this sacred shrine
of the deity, is made, when every part is thought
of as endowed with life, to represent to us the Church
of the living God. The members of it are spoken
of as ' fellow- citizens with the saints, and of the
household of God, being built upon the foundation of
the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being
the chief corner stone ; m whom each several build
ing, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple
in the Lord.' 8 ' Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday,
to-day, yea, and for ever.' ' God is not the God of the
dead, but of the living.' The Gospel according to S.
John was not the less divine, because it was the Gospel
of the close of the first century, and not the Gospel
of the earlier decades. It was not the less divine
because it met the philosophical needs of men of its
own day, and did not speak in the tones of another
period. It was not the less divine, because it was the
Gospel of Ephesus, which Ephesians needed ; and not
the Gospel of Galilee, which they did not need, which
they could not have understood, and for which they
would not have cared. Is it answered : ' But S. John
was specially inspired for this special work, and
although we believe in the presence of Christ and of
the Holy Spirit in the Church, we cannot add to the
sum of Apostolic and divine truth ' ? Quite so ; but
8 Ephes. ii. 19-21.
G G

450 LECTURE VIII.
tMs very truth, which is God's fullest revelation to
the world, is in a language — I do not mean of word,
but of thought — which is to thousands, millions of
our brother men, either dead because they cannot un
derstand it, or rejected because it seems to be opposed
to other forms of thought which they believe to be
true. It is not addition, it is not diminution, it is
not substitution, it is not change of essence, it is
translation, for which the plea is made.
Difficulty And this translation of thought is one of the
of the . °
task. hardest tasks of life. It requires a full and intimate
knowledge of the system from which, and of the sys
tem into which, you would translate. And yet men
sometimes attempt the task with a knowledge of
only one, or it may be of neither, system. And so
we have gospels for England, gospels for the nme-
teenth century, which may have much of the Gospel
and very little of the nineteenth century, or may have
much of the nineteenth century and very little of the
Gospel ; or may, as is too often the case, have very
little of the Gospel or of the nineteenth century. And
yet these are taken to represent our teaching and our
faith. Men who might have special gifts for such a
task shrink from it, for they see more clearly than
others how full it is of danger and of difficulty. It
is not for them, they think : it is for their leaders.
And if here and there a rarely gifted soul has felt
called of God to make the attempt, his work has
had the stamp of no authority. Our own Church-
and universities have now no formal imprimatur for

LECTURE VIII. 451
the works of their individual sons ; but they often
have a very real Lndex prohibitorum, or at least
expurgandorum. A translation must necessarily differ
in form from the original ; how easy it is to think,
and how much easier to say without thinking, that
the substance differs too ! How easy to start the
suspicion of heresy, to let loose the not always
chained but always blind passions of party-feeling
and prejudice, to sully, by dragging it into the arena
of strife, even the pure robe of truth !
These are problems, the solution of which the only
Church and the age would alike accept without demur can lead.
from those who are their acknowledged representa
tives, but no one else can hope to solve them. These
are difficulties in which none but leaders can lead ; for
only leaders can build the present upon the great past,
only leaders can mould the present into a greater
future. The popular opinion which is born of the
present is to be formed, and not to be obeyed ; but
only leaders can form it. Never I believe were there
more apparent difficulties, never fewer real ones than
to-day. Never were there so many influences for
right and truth and God, runmng parallel to each
other, sometimes crossing and thwarting each other,
always and quite unnecessarily falling short of the
united force of a great army banded together for the
Service of the Lord of Hosts.
I do not speak without consciousness of, or with
out thankfulness for, much that has been, that is being
G G 2

452 LECTURE VIII.
done. I come from a diocese to which Oxford has
given a Butler and a Van Mildert, to which Cam
bridge has given a Lightfoot and a Westcott. These
are but examples. England, India, the Colonies,
America, the Mission field could tell of many like
instances, and of the responsive touch of humanity
to every gift of higher spirit, and thought, and life.
The English-speaking world is not unmindful, for ex
ample, of the boon of a translated Bible, nor of many
individual efforts to interpret it ; but the great
problem of translation, in all the width of its mean
ing, still lies before us at every step, and there are
to-day large numbers of earnest mquirers after truth
outside the building of the Catholic Church, which
should be the teacher of all truth, because they are
groaning beneath ' heavy burdens, and grievous to be
borne ' ; while they who ' sit in Moses' seat ' them
selves ' will not move them with one of their fingers.'
These difficulties are but spectres which haunt the
darkness of ignorance, and would vanish before the
light of knowledge. And is not God saying in
the presence of this intellectual darkness and moral
chaos, ' Let there be light ' ? Is not the Church, the
body of the Incarnate Logos, to be the Light shining
m darkness ? Dominus illuminatio mea. Yes ; and
the darkness shall overcome it not.
Leaders I have endeavoured to state a problem which
arises out of, though it is much wider than, my sub
ject, and constantly confronts Christian people in their
daily work. I have no qualification for solving it ;

LECTURE VIII. 453
but I have ventured to express it in the presence of
those who have every qualification. It must become
more and more acute. The enemy is loud in as
sertion. His forces are kept upon the stage, and
they therefore seem to be much more numerous and
powerful than they are. But many of our volunteers,
and some of our regulars, have been disheartened by
uncertainties, divisions, falterings in our own camp.
The enemy will not hurt us ; but we may hurt our
selves. Leaders must lead if the victory is to be
won. Yes : in our philosophy and our criticism,
our polity and our action, leaders must lead.
And as I have no qualification for solving this Hints for
° younger
problem, I shall make no attempt to do so ; but I hearers.
shall seek to suggest to my younger brethren for their
individual help, some lines on which each may for
himself work out a course of inquiry, wMch will lead
him to see that the Fourth Gospel is as truly a Gospel
for the nineteenth century as it was for the first, and
that in the translation of it into modern thought and
speech lies the answer to the problems of life.
Now what are the characteristics of the thought character-
of the nineteenth century which lead men to assert present-
that the doctrines of the past, and especially those of thought.
the Fourth Gospel, must give way before them ?
I am not a ' man of science,' and I can only judge
by what I read in books, or what men who know are
good enough to tell me. But I am told that among

454 LECTURE VIII.
the great intellectual products of this age are what is
called the law or principle of conservation of energy,
the law or principle of biogenesis, the law or principle
of the molecular constitution of matter, and, chiefest
of all, the law or principle of evolution ; 9 though
signs are not wanting, as the meetings of the
British Association at Manchester and Newcastle-
on-Tyne have reminded us, that even now we are
Law and far from finality.1 I have used the term 'prin
ciple ' as a synonym for ' law ' here, because I want
the youngest among us to be free from the fallacies
which are connected with this very ambiguous
word. There is of course nothing of the sense of
command or authority about it. We ought not to
be led to think and speak of it — though men do ;
they write it with a big initial letter, and then feel it
is something greater than themselves, a link between
them and a higher Force or Energy, like the aeons of
the Gnostics — but we ought not to flunk of it as
anything more than a convenient expression for a
generalization from a number of separate instances.
Such a generalization may or may not be valid; but,
with imperfect human knowledge, it can of necessity
have no claim to finality. It may hold for many
years or for centuries, as some such generalizations
9 Cf. Professor Huxley's in- Cathedral during the meeting of
teresting sketch of the progress of the British Association, in 1887.
Science in the Reign cf Queen Vic- x Cf. Reports, 1887 and 1889,
toria, edited by Mr. Humphry and Weismann, Essays on Here-
Ward, 1887, vol. ii. pp. 322-387 ; dity, Eng. Trans. 1889. And see
and The Advance of Science, three Dawson, Modern Ideas of Evolu-
sermons preached in Manchester tion, 1890.

LECTURE VIII. 455
have held in the course of history, and then resolve
itself into a higher generalization. While it lasts it
is a very convenient mode of expression ; it is neces
sary for the arrangement of, and for the progress of
science ; but it has no binding authority, and it has
no power to explain the admitted facts which it
tabulates. There are Ldols even of the museum, and
one of them is to suppose, or to speak as though it
were supposed, that to find for an observed pheno
menon its own place under an acknowledged law, is
to explain it. If the law has a long and difficult
name, many of us are half-frightened by it, and are
perhaps not honest enough to admit our seeming
ignorance, which may be much nearer to true know
ledge than the long name is, and we do not dare to ask
what it means, what is there behind it, how does it
explain the phenomena which it embraces. But if
we ask these questions, and keep asking them until
we get at the substance of the answers to them, we
shall find that to express a phenomenon in the terms
of a higher law, is not so much to explain it as to
group it with a large number of other phenomena all
waiting for their explanation.
Nor should even the youngest of us be left to Scientific
suppose that there is any such absolute agreement in ultimate,
the expression of these laws, as the assumed infalli
bility of some popes of modern science would have
us think. Here, as elsewhere, contradictions of suc
cessive popes, or even in the course of the reign
of the same pope, are difficult to reconcile with any

456 LECTURE VIII.
claim to infallibility. As general councils have
erred, so scientific councils have certainly erred, and
what the primer of the school-boy will soon scorn
to teach, has been held by the leaders of science, and
has been expressed even in our own day from presi
dential chairs. No one knows so well as the truly
scientific leader that his work is to collect, arrange,
tabulate, re-arrange, group in higher unities, the facts
of existence ; but that of the ultimate explanation of
them, he has not even a syllable to speak. The ad
mitted facts of modern science are infinitely greater
in number than those of the ancient world ; the
classes into which they are distributed are fewer and
more universal, but when you ask to go behind the
colossal cases of this museum of the world, and
inquire what it all means, you have got no answer
which takes you further than — I am not sure you
have any which takes you so far as — the voices which
came from Greece, from Alexandria, and the far East,
and which may have been heard in Ephesus eighteen
hundred years ago.
The These laws which are said to be the chiei scientific
Gospel products of our own time, may or may not be ulti-
pj^g0^ mately true. They are probably — let us remove every
'laws; qualification and suppose that they are absolutely —
the highest expression which the world has ever re
ceived of the facts of existence — and let us ungrudg
ingly thank the patient investigators of these and
other days. Admit that the museum of the universe

LECTURE VIH. 457
is rightly labelled, and then, sitting down before any
one of its vast cases, open the Fourth Gospel and
read it. Read it just as you would read any other
book. Read in the light of Philo and other forms
of first-century thought, and then in the light of
nineteenth-century thought, the first sentence ' In
the beginning was the Word.' Do you find it diffi
cult to translate ? Shall that greatest of modern
thinkers, Goethe, make Faust help you ?
'Tis written : ' In the Beginning was the Word,'
Here am I balked : who, now, can help afford ?
The Word ? — impossible so high to rate it ;
And otherwise must I translate it,
If by the Spirit I am truly taught.
Then thus : ' In the Beginning was the Thought.'
This first line let me weigh completely,
Lest my impatient pen proceed too fleetly.
Is it the Thought which works, creates, indeed ?
' In the Beginning was the Power,' I read.
Yet, as I write, a warning is suggested,
That I the sense may not have fairly tested.
The Spirit aids me : now I see the light !
' In the Beginning was the Act,' I write.2
Or read again, 'In him was life, and the life was
the light of men. And the light shineth in dark
ness, and the darkness overcame it not.' Or again,
' He was in the world, and the world was made by
him, and the world knew him not.' Read these and
other words such as these from the first-century
Gospel, as you stand before the museums of nine-
8 Goethe, Faust, i. scene 3, Bayard Taylor's translation.

458 LECTURE VHI.
teenth- century science. You need not remove the
labels from your cases. You may keep for the
present Biogenesis, Conservation of Energy, Molecular
Matter, Evolution ; but you can engrave the truths of
the one Eternal Law, Power, Life, Light, Force,
Energy, Act, Thought, Word, — God, — over the portals
and upon the foundations of the universe.
No plea You may find it difficult, impossible, to translate
for the . ¦,..,, .
temporary mto modern scientific expression some of your own
expression . , ~T . ,
of theo- ideas as to creation. You may have to see that
scfence. anthropomorphism is only a necessary form of a
childish state of thought, and that God is not a
colossal human giant, man made large and made
divine. You may have not only to translate S.
John, but to sacrifice your former self, unworthy of
your higher self and unworthy of your God.
I am not pleading that the puerilities of child
hood, or the temporary expressions — scientific or
theological — of any age, should be retained. I am
pleading for the thankful acceptance of every recog
nized fact of scientific truth. I am pleading that
truth revealed in the book of the universe, cannot
oppose truth revealed in the book of inspired human
ity. Collect your facts, establish your laws, write
Theim- your labels, study your museums. Nay; they are
nature. too small ; study nature in the great physical world ;
realize the awful immensity of that before which you
stand ; multiply immensity by immensity as tele
scope or microscope, or a developed sense, or higher

LECTURE VIII. 459
trained faculty, brings other worlds within your
grasp and ....
Are you hushed into silence and dare not speak, Scientific
and hardly dare to hear ? And if you still must dumb
hear, for there must be an origin of being, and
turn to the masters of science expecting an expla
nation, they too are dumb. Who are the modern
leaders of humanity whom science bids us hear in
this darkness of impenetrable mystery ?
Is Mr. Herbert Spencer one ? He can but re- Spencer,
assert it : —
The production of matter out of nothing is the real
mystery. . . . 3
Is Professor Tyndall ? Tyndaii,
It [Evolution] does not solves — it does not profess to solve
— the ultimate mystery of this universe. It leaves in fact
that mystery untouched. For granting the nebula and its
potential life, the question, whence came they ? would still
remain to baffle and bewilder us. At bottom, the hypothesis
does nothing more than ' transport the conception of life's
origin to an indefinitely distant past.' 4
Is Mr. Darwin ? Darwin,
The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble
by us.5 Is Professor Clifford ? Clifford,
My conclusion then is, that we do know, with great
probability, of the beginning of the habitability of the earth,
3 First Principles, ed. 4, 1880, tion, ed. 3, 1872, p. 37.
pg 34, 6 Cf. Aubrey Moore, Evolution
4 Scientific Use of the Imagina- and Christianity, 1889, p. 7.

460 LECTURE VIII.
about one hundred or two hundred millions of years back, but
that of a beginning of the universe we know nothing at all.6
Asa Gray. Or, lastly, shall we inquire of Dr. Asa Gray,
the American botanist, the friend and correspondent
of Darwin, who describes his own position as —
one who is scientifically, and in his own fashion, a Dar
winian, philosophically a convinced theist, and religiously an
accepter of the ' Creed commonly called the Nicene,' as the
expression of the Christian faith.
Can his philosophy cast any ray of light on this
abysmal gloom ?
' Origina- Thus the selection and preservation, and we may say the
tion 'the eduction, of the actual forms and adaptations, may be scien-
thing. tifically accounted for, but not their origination.
The origination is the essential thing.7
Yes : the origination is the essential thing. And
all our modern philosophers are without a word to
speak in the presence of the essential thing. But
while philosophy is dumb, you feel that there must
be, there is, a voice which speaks. The yearning
faculties of humanity cannot be for ever yearning,
and never satisfied . . . .8
6 Lectures and Essays, ed. 2, which evolution is wholly silent ;
1886, p. 156. so that, as Professor Huxley puts
7 Contemporary Review, April it, " Evolution does not even come
1882, p. 606. into contact with theism consider-
8 ' Those, then, who believe, as ed as a philosophical doctrine.'"
Christians do, that God is the Aubrey Moore, Evolution and
Creator of heaven and earth, hold Christianity, 1889, p. 7. I owe
a view which, whether it is true the greater part of these refe-
or not, touches a question on rences to Mr. Moore, and I

LECTURE VIII. 461
Science is dumb, but in its awful silence Faith
hears. Where man dare not speak, God does speak.
Tolle, lege. Tolle, lege. Open your Fourth Gospel. The
-r, , ' " Fourth
Read :  Gospel.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was G-od. The same was in the begin
ning with God. All things were made by him ; and without
him was not anything made that hath been made.
The only basis for the intellectual explanation The incar
nation the
of existence, is for the nineteenth century as it was oniyex-
^ r, . planation
for the first, the Xoyos ttJs £<w»?s, the Logos who is of exist-
Zbe, the revelation of life. ' No man hath ever yet
seen God : God only begotten in the bosom of the
Father, he hath declared him.'

l>

Or, again, is it characteristic of modern ethical Modem
' & ' . ethical
science to teach that the highest good, the summum science.
bonum of human life, is to be found in the develop
ment of every faculty of human nature ; that the
standard of right and wrong is not happiness or
utility, but the categorical moral imperative whose The cate-
every command must be implicitly obeyed ? 9 It gorica
thankfully embrace the oppor- 9 ' The good has come to be con-
tunity of expressing my deep ceived with increasing clearness,
sense of the services rendered by not as anything which one man or
that acute thinker — taken from us, set of men can gain or enjoy to
alas ! too soon — both to theology the exclusion of others, but as a
and science. Cf . Science and the spiritual activity in which all may
Faith, 1889, pp. 162 sqq. ; Evolu- partake, and in which all must
tion and Christianity, 1889 ; and partake, if it is to amount to a
Recent Advances in Natural Science full realisation of the faculties of
in their Relation to the Christian the human soul. And the pro-
Faith, a paper read at the Church gress of thought in individuals, by
Congress at Reading in 1883. which the conception of the good

462

LECTURE VIII.

imperative.

might be an interesting subject for. investigation to
trace how far modern impulses and standards of
morality are an unconscious reflection of the light of
revelation, or how far, on principles of development,
they are to be regarded as the outcome of truths
which have been received by the race or individuals.
But, confining our thoughts for the present to the
Fourth Gospel, to the morals of the divine life which
it portrays, or to the First Johannme Epistle, which is
an ethical addendum to the theological principles of
the earlier writing, I confess it does not seem to be
difficult to express the thoughts of the first century
in the terms of those of the nineteenth, or rather to
show that those of the nmeteenth century are in their
highest development based upon those of the first.
Men who live at a distance and try to watch the
movements of young Umversity life, are perhaps
struck with the practical outcome of devotion to duty,
Examples, more deeply than with anythmg else. Witness the
missions to Calcutta and Delhi, and Central Africa.
Witness Toynbee Hall and the Oxford House. Wit
ness School and College missions to the neglected

Devotion
to duty :

has thus been freed from material
limitations, has gone along with a
progress in social unification which
has made it possible for men prac
tically to conceive a claim of all
upon all for freedom and support
in the pursuit of a common end.
Thus the ideal of virtue which our
consciences acknowledge has come
to be the devotion of character
and life, in whatever channels the

idiosyncrasy and circumstances of
the individual may determine, to
a perfecting of man, which is itself
conceived not as an external end
to be attained by goodness, but as
consisting in such a life of self-
devoted activity on the part of all
persons.' T. H. Green, Prolego
mena to Ethics, edited by A.- C.
Bradley, 1883, p. 309.

principle.

LECTURE VIII. 463
masses of our population. Witness the evidences of
sympathy, communion, fellowship, with the brother
hood of man. What is their source? A modern
altruism ? * A nineteenth- century gospel of humanity ?
But these are trees whose chief roots are found in The true
Christian soil, and they have gladdened the earth
with the beauty of their blossom and the bounty of
their fruits, just as the soil has been watered by the
showers of blessing which God has given in these
later days to the revived Church in our midst.
Read the Gospel of the first century. Read the
writings of S. John : —
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but
have eternal life.
This is my commandment that ye love one another, even
as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends.
But whoso hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his
brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him,
how doth the love of God abide in him ?
Little children, let us not love in word, neither with the
tongue ; but in deed and truth.
We love, because he first loved us.
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a
liar : for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,
cannot love God whom he hath not seen.
And this commandment have we from him, that he who
loveth God love his brother also.
There are the principles of your highest life and
work. There are the principles which, whether
1 Cf. Altruism in Murray's New and Herbert Spencer, Data of
Dictionary of the English Language; Ethics, 1879, pp.' 185 sqq.

464 LECTURE VIII.
you know it or not, are the spring of all your
work, and which, whether men know it or not, the
best life and work of our day are translating from
the first century mto the nineteenth ; and there are
the principles which alone can make that work both
effective and permanent.
iiiustra- As I was thinking of the modern substitution of
ideas which have sprung from Christianity, and which
men who shrink from acknowledging Christ Himself
are putting forward in the place of Christianity, I
took up a book in a house where I chanced to stay, in
which I found these words : —
The Chaplain of a penitentiary records that among the
most degraded of its inmates was one miserable creature.
The Matron met her with firmness, but with a good will which
no hardness could break down, no insolence overcome. One
evening after prayers the Chaplain observed this poor out
cast stealthily kissing the shadow of the Matron thrown by
her candle upon the wall.2
The This was the involuntary homage of a fallen and
shadow of , -, -, n , o- i
Christ. wretched woman ; but, birs, are men and women
in the strength and vigour of intellectual and moral
culture to be stealthily kissing the shadow of the
humanity of Jesus Christ, cast as it is upon the uni
verse by the light of the effulgence of His Godhead, or
are we to be manfully confessing Him to whom we
owe our power to work and think ? Stealthily
kissing a shadow ? Nay, we are to be in loving
adoration kissing the feet of Him who was pierced
and nailed upon the Cross for us.
' Bishop of Deny, The Epistles of St. John, 1889, pp. 120-121.

LECTURE VHI. 465
Is Love written as ' charity ' or disguised as Altruism.
' altruism ' the newly discovered principle of a brother
hood of humanity? Listen to S. John: —
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he
loved us, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for
us : and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Or again, to take another example with which Agnosti-
. . . . cism-
these lectures must close, it is characteristic of
some educated thought of this century to assert
that whether there is a personal God or not, is
and must remain a mystery ; that there cannot be
logical proof that He exists, and that there cannot
be logical proof that He does not exist ; that the
assertions of theism and atheism are alike beyond
the province of the human intellect;3 and that all
we can do is to remain m the presence of an un
known and unknowable energy. Agnosticism, for itsattrac-
it is a system with a name and leaders and disciples,
like one of the hundreds of such theories of the past,
has many attractions. The Greek title has some- Reasons.
thing to say for its spread among ourselves ; for, as
was remarked long ago, many persons would proclaim
with an air of superiority in Greek ' I am an agnostic ,'
3 ' Of all the senseless babble I not surpassed by the still greater
have ever had occasion to read, absurdities of the philosophers
the demonstrations of these phi- who try to prove that there is no
losophers who undertake to tell God.' Huxley, Science and Cui
us all about the nature of God ture, 1881, p. 241.
would be the worst, if they were
H H

466 LECTURE VIII.
who would not be equally willing to proclaim in
Latin ' I am an ignoramus^ Then the fact that it
has been adopted by some who are supposed to be
leaders of science gives it an attractiveness, a fashion,
which has its hold upon weaker minds. It is the
correct shade for the season, and it would not quite do
for people who are in the circles of modern thought
to appear in any other. And above all it is a sort of
neutral ground. It asserts nothing positively, and
therefore it has nothing to defend. It is the refuge
of men of all kinds who have no opinions on the most
vital subject possible to thought, or do not quite know
what their opinions are, or have not the courage of
them, or would like to postpone thinking of them.
Modem TWz special use of the term belongs to our own
use of r °
term, day.4 What sort of connexion has the first century
with this product of the present ? If we study the
s. Paul's teachms: of S. Paul and S. John, we shall see that
and °
s. John's, both the name and reality are much older than we
sometimes think. S. Paul found men at Athens
dissatisfied with their own idea of the gods, ready
to embrace any others, and erecting an altar 5 to a
god they could not know, and Him to whose exist
ence their very agnosticism witnessed, he declared
unto them. Writing to their neighbours at Corinth,
he reminds them that 'in the wisdom of God the'
world through its wisdom knew not God,'6 and
* Cf . Agnostic in Murray's New xvii. 23.
Dictionary, ut supra. 6 ev rfj ao(pia ro€ Beov ovk eyva
5 evpov Kal @apbv ev a eireye- 6 Koo-pos 8ia rrjs o~o(bias rbv Beov, . . .
ypairro ArNGSTG 6EQ. Acts 1 Cor. i. 21.

LECTURE VIII. 467
this agnosticism of worldly wisdom was, it will
be remembered, a frequent subject of his teaching.
S. John, preaching a Gospel to gnostics and agnostics
alike, and meeting the congeries of religious and
philosophical seekings after God, of which Ephesus
was, as we saw, the centre, declares in most positive
terms this agnosticism of human intellectual powers:
' No man hath seen God at any time.' But the inteiiec-
agnosticism which in the negation of its own intel- nosticSm
lectual powers is strictly logical, is in the negation of "ariiy"
all outside its powers as strictly illogical. S. Paul true-
and S. John alike preach a Gospel not to the impo
tence of the human intellect, but to the strength and
the needs of the faculty of faith : —
For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through
its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through
the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe.7
No man hath seen God at any time ; God only begotten
in the bosom of the Father, he hath been the interpreter.8
The Fourth Gospel preaches to us, brethren, no conciu-
system of Gnosis. There is to human intellect no without
proof of axioms in any science, least of all in the Premises
science of the Infinite. If we could be anything more
than intellectual agnostics, the science could not be
of the Infinite, of the Eternal, of God. But men who Examples
profess to be logical make two tremendous leaps in
this discussion, for which there cannot be any valid
warrant. The first leap is from ' I cannot under
stand' to 'It cannot be understood.' Who will in
7 1 Cor. i. 21. 8 John i. 18.
h h 2

468 LECTURE VIII.
moments of calm thought claim or allow the only
major premise which supports this conclusion ? It is
the sort of logic which people learn very easily, but
men do not usually admit it when made by any per
sons other than themselves. You may hear it any
day:— ' I can't get the answer in the book/ said a little
fellow in an elementary school, as he was making
Ms first attempt at vulgar fractions. ' I am sure the
book is wrong.' But his certainty only amused.
' I do not see any not in my text,' said a well-
known Professor of Latin, as one of his pupils was
construing in class.
' No, sir, but it won't make sense without,'
replied his pupil ; but neither the Professor nor the
rest of the class were quite convinced.
And yet this illicit process from ' I cannot under
stand 'to 'It cannot be understood ' runs through
page after page of modern so-called religious, and
so-called philosophical writing. If men would but
write the i" of their finite powers as small as it really
is, and try to think of what the 7 of Infinite really
means, this false reasoning at least would disappear.
The other leap is more wonderful still, for it is
opposed to the whole experience and practice of
human life. It is that by wrhich a man passes from
' It cannot be understood,' to ' It cannot be believed.'
Who will claim or admit any major premise which
will warrant this conclusion ? What proportion of
human life depends upon our understanding all that

LECTURE Vin.

469

concerns it ? What proportion of the events of every Agnosti-
day depends upon faith ? What, for example, is our the asser-
understanding of any human being ? What our faith.
faith ? And in the complete absence of understand
ing, are we not necessarily driven to the assertion
of faith ? Is not the very intellectual paralysis of
agnosticism in the presence of the Infinite, the neces
sary assertion of a faculty 9 higher than intellect ?

9 ' If philosophy has to explain
what is, not what ought to be,
there will be and can be no rest
till we admit, what cannot be
denied, that there is in man a
third faculty, which I call simply
the faculty of apprehending the
Infinite, not only in religion, but
in all things ; a power independent
of sense and reason, a power in
a certain sense contradicted by
sense and reason, but yet a very
real power, which has held its
own from the beginning of the
world, neither sense nor reason
being able to overcome it, while
it alone is able to overcome both
reason and sense.

' It is difficult at present to speak
of the human mind in any techni
cal language whatsoever, without
being called to order by some
philosopher or other.
'According to some, the mind is
one and indivisible, and it is the
subject-matter only of our con
sciousness which gives to the
acts of the mind the different
appearances of feeling, remem
bering, imagining, knowing, will

ing, or believing. According to
others, mind, as a subject, has no
existence whatever, and nothing
ought to be spoken of except
states of consciousness, some pas
sive, some active, some mixed.
I myself have been sharply taken
to task for venturing to speak, in
this enlightened nineteenth cen
tury of ours, of different faculties
of the mind, — faculties being
merely imaginary creations, the
illegitimate offspring of mediaeval
scholasticism. Now I confess I
am amused rather than frightened
by such pedantry. Faculty,
facultas, seems to me so good a
word that, if it did not exist, it
ought to be invented in order to
express the different modes of
action of what we may still be
allowed to call our mind. It does
not commit us to more than if we
were to speak of the facilities or
agilities of the mind, and those
only who change the forces of
nature into gods or demons, would
be frightened by the faculties as
green-eyed monsters seated in the
dark recesses of our Self.' Max
Miiller, Introduction to the Science
of Religion, 1873, pp. 20, 21.

470 LECTURE VIII.
The It is to this faculty that the Fourth Gospel
Gospel appeals, and here it approves itself as the Gospel
to the8 °f the nineteenth century as truly as it was that
of °faith. °f tne nrst- A Gospel to the knowledge and under
standing of the first century could have no word
to speak to us to-day, for the partial knowledge of
that time has vanished away before the more perfect
knowledge of later days, as the partial knowledge of
the present shall vanish away before the fuller know
ledge of the future. But faith abideth, and to this
faith the Gospel speaks, then, now, always : —
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 — this is their purpose, not that
ye might know, not that ye might understand ; but — believe
that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing ye
might have — not knowledge, not understanding, nothing
partial, nothing temporary, but the pulsating fulness of being
which is necessarily eternal — life in his name.
Lessons This, my brethren, is the divine purpose which
indi- caused to be written and to be preserved unto this dav
the most sacred book in the world. Have you ever
read it ? I do not mean, Have you read or heard read
separate chapters, or have you read portions or the
whole, with notes and commentaries, as a subject
for intellectual pursuit or examination? But have
you ever read it as a whole, as a book written that
you might believe ? If not, you have missed its
whole purpose. It is very short. It was intended
for states of uncertainty and problems of doubt ; it

vidual

LECTURE VIII. 471
has met these and solved them in thousands of lives
of greatest intellectual strength and attainment, for
hundreds of years. Will you read it, that you too
may fulfil the divine purpose, and ' believe that Jesus
is the Messiah,' in Whom the whole past is fulfilled,
that Jesus is ' the Son of God,' in Whom the whole
present and future is contained ; the only Interpreter
of God to man, in Whom the problems of life are
answered and its mysteries solved ; declaring Him
in light which dispels all darkness, in truth which
drives away all error, in love wMch dies to overcome
hatred, in life which conquers even death ? Will
you read it that you in believing may have life in
his name ?
I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee
All questions in the earth and out of it,
And has so far advanced thee to be wise.
Wouldst thou unprove this to re-prove the proved ?
In life's mere minute, with power to use that proof,
Leave knowledge and revert to how it sprung ?
Thou hast it ; use it and forthwith, or die !

INDEX

INDEX.

ABBOT
Abbot, Ezra, 17 ; on Justin and
Fourth Gospel, 75 sq. ; on
Drummond, 76 sa. ; 268, 336,
375, 380 ; on the Diatessaron,
382
Abbott, E. A., views on Justin
and the Fourth Gospel, 270 sq. ;
quoted, 271 sq.
Abbott, J. K., 359
Abelard, 152
Aberdeen, University of, 275, 335
Aberklad, 385
Achaia, 116
Achromatism, mental, 8 sq.
Ad Autolycum (To Autolycus). See
Theophilus
Addai, Doctrine of, 380
Ad Nationes. See Tertullian
Adventurer, The, quoted, 11 sq.
Adversus Hxreses. See Irenxus
Adversus Marcion. See Tertullian
Adverstis Praxean. See Tertullian
Advocate or judge? See Bampton
Lecturer
ASlius Aristides, 388 sq.
iElius Publius Julius, 39
^Btians, 117
Africa, 24, 48, 462
< Age, Our,' 3, 166, 169, 173, 409
sq., 411 sq. ; period comprised
by, 5 ; positive additions to our
knowledge in, 357 sq.
Agnosticism, 12 ; its attractive
ness, 465 ; modern use of term,
S. Paul's, S. John's, 466 sg. ;
intellectual, necessarily true,
467 ; the assertion of faith, 469

AMPHILOCHIUS
Agrippa Castor, opponent of
Basilides, 100
Albertus Magnus, 152
Alcuin, 152
Aleppo, 378
Alexander, Bishop, 334 ; quoted,
464
Alexander, empire of, 445
Alexandria, 33, 38, 110, 114 sq.,
121, 149, 234, 249, 261, 428, 431,
443, 456 ; Catechetical school of,
20. See Church ; Clement
Alexis Aristenus, Canon of, 121
Alford, 142, 334
Alogi, the, one apparent exception
to reception of Fourth Gospel,
123, 161 ; Harnack and Zahn on,
123 sq. ; Hilgenfeld on, 124 ;
name appears first in Epipha
nius, perhaps borrowed from
Hippolytus, 124 ; ascribe Fourth
Gospel to Cerinthus, 125 ; doubt
as to real existence of, 125 ; evi
dence of, really tends to confirm
Apostolic authorship, 125 sq. ;
rejection of, by Zeller, 126 ; ne
gative witness of, 127 ; Strauss
on, 211
Alsace, 253
Altruism, 463, 465
Ambrose, 151
America, 160, 164, 194, 275, 382,
452
Ammon, 247
Ammonius, Harmony of, 381
Amphilochius of Iconium, his
date and connexion with

476

INDEX.

AMYCLA
Gregory, 116 ; his view of the
Apocalypse, and testimony to
Fourth Gospel, 116 sq. ; on the
Canon, 117
Amycla, Bishop of, on inspiration,
159
Anastatius of Sinai, quotes the
works of Melito, 35 ; his testi
mony to Melito, 39 ; Canon of,
121
Antioch, 117, 121, 186, 399. See
Church ; Serapion ; Theophilus
Antoninus Pius, 58
Aphrahat, Homilies of, 380, 384
Apocalypse, the, in Irenseus, 19 ;
not included in all versions,
108 ; rejected by Dionysius,
110; 113; by Cyril, 114; by
Gregory Nazianzen, 116 ; by
Theodore of Mopsuestia, 118 ;
included by Athanasius, 115 ;
testimony of Amphilochius to,
116 ; no reference to, in Chry-
sostom, 119 ; testimony of Phil
aster to, 122 ; not accepted by
Greek church, 122 ; Hippolytus
on, 124; and Caius, 361, 392
sq. ; Alogi ascribe it to Cerin
thus, 125 ; in Canon of second
century, 147 ; Bretschneider
on, 183 sq. ; Strauss on, 211
sq. ; Baur on, 233 ; Hase on,
252 ; Reuss on, 255 ; Sabatier
on, 256; Weizsacker on, 257
Thoma on, 262 ; Scholten on
266 ; Tayler on, 267 ; author of
Supernatural Religion on, 268
Abbott on, 272 ; Martineau on.
289 sq. ; 291 ; Schleiermacher
on, 302 ; Lechler on, 322 sq.
Weiss on, 325 ; 405
Apolinaris of Hierapolis, 34, 102
his date, 36 ; lists of his works
in Eusebius, Theodoret, Pho
tius, 36 ; other works, 37 ; ex
tracts in Baschal Chronicle not
undoubted, 37 ; reference to the
Fourth Gospel by, 37, signifi
cance of writings of, 37 ; their
reception by Serapion and other
bishops, by Jerome, and Socra-

ATHOS
tes, 39 sq. ; Strauss on, 210 ;
Martineau on, 288
ApoUos, 249, 411, 428
Apology, of Tertullian, 22 sq., 63 ;
of Theophilus, 29sq. ; of Athena
goras, 63 ; to Antoninus, 35,
408. See Justin Martyr
Apostles, the, named by Clement
of Alexandria, 21 ; by Tertul
lian, 24 sq. ; by Justin, 65 sq.,
67 sq. ; by Papias, 96
Apostolic Canons, list of, 121 ; 373
Apostolical Constitutions, the,
quoted, 111 ; reference to Gos
pels in, 111 ; Epiphanius on,
117
Aquileia. See Rufinus
Aquinas. See Thomas
Aristides. See JEUus
Arius, 127
Arnold, Matthew, 13 ; on Hippo
lytus and Basilides, 101, 371
sq., 373; on Gnosticism, 101;
quoted, 222
Arnold, Thomas. See Bunsen
Arnold-Forster, 446
Arsenius the monk, Canon of, 121
Arsenius Sukrean, 407
Arsinoe. See Egypt
Articles, 156
Asia Minor, 20, 37, 39, 41 sq.,
48, 102, 186, 200, 206, 234, 248
sq., 252, 256, 260, 265 sq., 295,
321, 358, 388 sq., 425, 428 sq.,
433, 449. See Church
Assemani, 381, 385
Astie\ 334
Athanasian, pseudo-, synopsis, 121
Athanasius, his date and repre
sentative position, 114 ; iden
tity of his Canon with our own,
114 sq. ; its inclusion of the
Apocalypse, 115 ; Didymus,
Gregory Nazianzen, and, 115 ;
Epiphanius and, 117 ; Rufinus
and, 122
Athenagoras, his position as an
Apologist, 63 ; Apology of, to
Marcus Aurelius, 63 ; use of
Justin, 69 ; Strauss on, 210
Athens, 108, 466. See Church
Athos, Mount, 359

INDEX.

477

AUBE
Aubd, quoted, 58 sq. ; on date of
Polycarp's martyrdom, 390
Aucher, and the Diatessaron, 382
Auckland, 163, 165
Augustine, his date and com
mentary on the Fourth Gospel,
122 sq., ; on authority of the
Church, 149 sq. ; on authority
of the Scriptures, 150 ; 151
Augustus, empire of, 445
Aurelius Cyrenius, 39. See
Marcus Aurelius
Ayasalouk, 427
Babbitts, 360
Bacchius, 53
Bacon, quoted, 16 ; 152, 351
Bampton, John, will of, 16
Bampton Lecturer, 14; if an advo
cate or judge, 15 sq. ; 42 sq., 73,
335
— Lectures, quoted, 42s2.,131, 177
Bar-Hebrseus, 121
Bar-Kochba, 261. See Justin
Martyr
Barnabas, Epistle of, 97 ; Johan
nine influence in, 143, 402 ;
Bretschneider on, 185 ; Holtz
mann on, 260 ; 358
Bar-Salibi, on the Diatessaron,
381 ; quotes Ephraim, Ammo
nius, and Elias, 381 ; his Syriac
Commentary, 392, 393
Basel, University of, 248
Basil, 149
Basilides, 102 ; and Hippolytus,
89, 100 sq., 364-373 ; and Pa
pias, 100 ; his date questioned,
100 ; De Groot and Scholten on
date of, 100 ; Arnold and Renan
on Hippolytus and, 101 ; Strauss
on, 209 ; Bunsen, Keim, Renan
and Arnold on Fourth Gospel
and, 370-373 ; which is the
true 1 365 sq. ; Hort and Renan
on, 366 sq. ; contains quota
tions from Fourth Gospel, 368-
373 ; and meaning of qbrjo-iv, 368
sq., 370 sq. ; 410
Bathgen, 379, 384
Bauer, Bruno, view of the MeB-
sianic idea, 216 ; 235

BERLIN
Baur, 5, 17, 75 ; and the Clemen
tines, 84 ; and Strauss, 192 sq.,
197 sq., 200, 203, 205, 212 sq.,
214 sq., 217 sq., 219 sq., 223 sq.,
225, 228, 230 sq., 232, 234;
quoted, 177, 194, 224-231, 364 ;
early years, 223 ; life at Blau
beuren and Tubingen, 223 sq. ;
evangelical sympathies, 223 sq. ;
influence of Schleiermacher and
Hegel on, 224 ; extent of literary
work, 225 ; list of books, and
shorter writings, 225 sq., 227
sq. ; his method of investigation,
228 sq. ; his view of the Pauline
Epistles, 229 sq. ; on the Canon,
230 ; his treatment of Johan
nine question, 230 sq., 234;
Fourth Gospel a ' tendency-
writing,' 230 sq., 422 sq. ; and
the Gospels, 231 sq., 423 sq. ;
application of theory of tendency
to theory of myth, 232 ; stages
of development and the docu
ments, 233 sq. ; his followers,
234 sq., 236 sq. ; and the Hege
lian Left, 237 sq. ; his theory an
arch, 238 sq. ; the arch tested,
its foundations doubted, 239
sq. ; the workmen, Volkmar,
Hilgenfeld, Ritschl, and Hols
ten, questioned, 240 sq., 242
sq. ; the arch a ruin, 244 ; 246,
250, 253, 257, 265, 281 sq.,
335 ; Neander on, 306 ; 308 sq.,
313 sq., 319, 322, 324, 330, 347,
349 ; on the Philosophumena,
363 sq. ; on Hippolytus, 366 ;
on the Clementines, 374 ; 409
Baumgarten-Crusius, 334
Baxter, on inspiration, 159 sq.
Bee, school of, 152
Bede, 152 ; his devotion to the
Fourth Gospel, 162 sq. ; his
last days, 162 sq. ; compared
with Lightfoot, 164 sq. ; 439
Belfast, 275
Belsheim, 359
Bengel, 193, 224
Berlin, 177, 192 sq., 236, 238,
240, 257, 300, 305, 307 sq., 310,
313s2., 318, 323, 361

478

INDEX.

BERNARD
Bernard, 357
Bert. See Aphrahat
Bertholdt, 184
Beyschlag, 325 ; views on the
Fourth Gospel, 329 sq.
Bible, the, use of term by Chry-
sostom, 120 ; 130, 132 sq., 135
sq., 147, 149, 151;verbal inspira
tion a new departure in history
of, 156 sq. ; external infallibility
of, attacked by modern criticism,
157 ; a weapon of Protestant
against Roman, 156 sq. ; neg
lect of, in last century, 176 sq ;
301 ; new translation of, 452
Blaubeuren, Strauss at, 191 sq. ;
Baur at, 123 sq., 236
Bleek, 300, 309 ; his position,
313 sq. ; on the Fourth Gospel,
314 sq. ; and De Wette, 314 ;
Mangold's ed. of, 314 sq., 342 ;
and Ebrard, 317 ; no reference
to Lightfoot and Westcott by,
342 ; quoted, 200, 262
Bodenstein of Caristadt, treat
ment of the Scriptures by, 153
Bodleian Library, 393
Boehme, 192
Bologna, University of, 152
Bonaventura, 152
Boniface, 383
Bonn, University of, 262, 310, 313
Boor, De, 394
Borghesi, on date of Polycarp's
martyrdom, 389 sq. ; on date of
martyrdom of Ignatius, 400
Boswell, 351
Boyle, 351
Bradley. See Green, T. H.
Bradwardine, 152
Brescia. See Philaster
Bretschneider, 5 ; his life and
earlier works, 179 ; his Proba
bilia, its purpose and scope, 180
sq. ; his conclusions : discourses
largely imaginary, 181 ; author
not the Apostle, nor Palestinian,
nor Jew, 182 ; Gospel sprung
from Jewish anti-Christian zeal,
183 ; cannot be supported from
Apocalypse, 183 sq. ; nor from
Epistles, 184 ; Epistles not

CANON
proved Johannine, and strength
en adverse views about Gospel,
184 sq. ; external evidences not
sufficient, 185 sq. ; weight of
opposing internal evidence,
place probably Egypt, 186 sq. ;
importance of his Dook, 187 ;
its reception, 187 sq. ; was con
vinced by replies, retractation,
' question is settled,' 188, 190 ;
his Handbook of Dogmatics,
188 ; Strauss and, 189, 212 ; his
character in Autobiography, 189
sq. ; his opposition to Schleier
macher and Schelling, 190, 194 ;
200, 246, 247, 299, 302, 308 sq.,
409; on "Fourth Gospel and
Synoptics, 421 sq. , 423 ; quoted,
179-190, 219
British Association, 454
British Museum, 392, 406 sq.
Bruston, 314
Bryennios, 359 ; ed. quoted, 145
Buddha, the, 429
Bunsen, 86 ; on mythic histories,
196 ; Arnold on, 315 sq. ; on the
Fourth Gospel, 316 ; on the
Philosophumena, 362 sq. ; on
Basilides, 370 sq.
Burgon, 358
Burscough, 357
Busse, on date of martyrdom of
Ignatius, 400
Butler, 452
Byzantium. See Leotitius
Cmsar, 58, 138
Caius, his testimony to the Fourth
Gospel, 111 ; Jacobi on, 361 sq. ;
Baur and Fessler on, 363 sq. ;
Gwynn on, 392 sq. ; Hippo
lytus and his Heads against
Caius, 392 sq.
Calcutta, 435, 462
Calovius, quoted, 136, 156
Calvin, views on the Scriptures,
quoted, 155 sq.
Cambridge, University of, 17, 43,
152, 176, 250, 338, 366, 452
Campbell, Principal, quoted, 52 ;
103
Canon, the, history of, 21 ; of New

INDEX.

479

CANTERBURY
Testament, 42 ; of Old Testa
ment, 38, 141 ; Origen on, 108
sq. ; Eusebius and, 112 sq. ;
Athanasius on, 114 sq. ; Gregory
Nazianzus, on, 116 ; Amphi
lochius on, 117 ; Epiphanius
on, 117 ; Theodore of Mop-
suestia on, 118 ; Chrysostom
and, 119 sq. ; of Greek church
in Syria in fifth century iden
tical with Peshito, 120 ;
close of, in East, 121, 151 ;
history of, in fourth and suc
ceeding centuries, survey un
necessary as all accept the
Fourth Gospel, 121 sq. ; Syrian,
121 ; of Hilary, Philaster, and
Rufinus, 122 ; close of, in
West, 123, 151; and the Church,
129 sq., 146 sq. ; a question of
history, and not of dogma, 147
sq. ; reasons of early Church
for not providing a Canon,
141 sq., 146 sq. ; Catholic, ne-
cesary, 147 ; materials of, in
second century, 147 ; tradition,
the first formative principle of,
158 ; accepted on Church autho
rity until Reformation, 151 ;
Luther and, 154 ; Baur and, 230
Canterbury, Monastic Library at.
See Papias
Capua. See Victor
Caricus. See Serapion
Carlisle, Bishop of. See Goodwin
Carlyle, 11
Carthage, 33, 38, 108 ; synods of,
123, 151, See Church; Tertullian
Caspari, 58, 91
Cassian, 434
Catena, 151. See Corderius ; Patti
son
Catholics, acceptance of Fourth
Gospel by, 20
Ceillier, on date of martyrdom of
Ignatius, 400
Celsus, 127, 185
Centuries. See Judgment of
Century, first century, 351 ;
second century, evidence of,
17, 53 ; deductions from it, 102
sq. ; third generation of, 18 sq. ,

CHURCH
102 ; second generation of, 53
sq., 102 ; first generation of, 95
sq. , 102 ; second century, 34, 35,
38 sq., 40 sq., 42 sq., 44 sq., 46
sq., 48 sq. ; position of an apo
logist in, 62 sq., 64 ; 97, 101,
120, 147, 351; third, 107 sq.,
120, 148 ; fourth, 112 sq., 120,
148; fifth, 120; sixth, 120;
seventh, see Anastatius ; ninth,
36 ; evidence of sixteen centu
ries, 107-166
Cerinthus,19; Alogi ascribeFourth
Gospel and Apocalypse to, 125 ;
Jacobi on, 361 ; Renan on, 411 ;
and S. John, 434, 436
Ceylon, 435
Charlemagne, empire of, 445
Charteris, 17, 336, 402
Cheshunt College, 336
Chillingworth, 135
Christiania. See Caspari
Chronicon. See Eusebius
Chronicon Paschale, 400
Chrysostom, John, his date and
writings, 119 sq. ; constant use
of Fourth Gospel, but no refer
ence to Apocalypse, 119 ; other
works printed with his, 119 sq. ;
Scriptures are to him Biblia,
120 ; 149 ; on Ephesus, 428
Church, 8 ; of Lyons, 18, 47 ; of
Alexandria, 20, 47 ; of Rome,
12, 22, 47, 82, 152, 156 sq.,
158 sq., 336, 363 ; of Carthage,
22, 47 ; corporate life of, 24
sq., 47 sq., 70, 97 ; of Antioch,
27, 47 ; of Asia Minor, 33, 38,
40 sq., 117, 402; of Rhossus,
40 ; of Athens, 47 ; of Corinth,
47 ; of Ephesus, 47, 144, 185,
402, 428 sq., 448 sq. ; of Hier
apolis, 47 ; of Sardis, 47 ; of
Edessa, 47, 380 ; life in early
years of second century, 97 ; of
Italy, 108 ; Syrian, 120, 379 ;
Armenian, 121 ; Eastern, 108
sq., 110 sq. ; Ethiopian, 121 ;
Russian, 121 ; Greek , did not
accept Apocalypse, 122 ; Latin,
did not accept Epistle to the
Hebrews, 122; Western, 111

480

INDEX.

CIASCA
sq., 122, 379 ; and Bible, 147,
155 sq. ; Lutheran, 156, 253,
326 ; authority of, a reason for
accepting Fourth Gospel, 128
sq. ; and Scripture, 130 sq.,
132, 137 ; early, did not provide
a Canon, 141 sq. ; had no need
at first for a Canon 146 ; writing
not included in special gifts to,
140 ; each, its own teachers and
Gospel, 146 ; Catholic idea of,
not yet realized, 145 ; depends
upon the Scriptures, 149 ; Au
gustine on authority of, 149
sq. ; Jerome on authority of,
150 ; and the council of Trent,
155 ; has never accepted a
mechanical, verbal inspiration,
157 sq. ; Protestant churches
of Germany, France, Holland,
America, 160 ; and the Fourth
Gospel, 161 sq. ; English, 164,
446, 452 ; and the promised
Comforter, 418 ; fourfold form
of one Gospel received by, 421 ;
width of, 443 ; many still out
side, 452 ; and the Logos, 452
Ciasca, on the Diatessaron, 385
sq., 387 ; and the Ignatian
Epistles, 396 sq.
Cicero, quoted, 180
Clarendon Press, the, 360, 364
Clement of Alexandria, 97, 102,
438 ; his date, origin, teachers
and pupils, 20 sq. ; his Stro
mateis, quoted, 20 sq., 88, 100 ;
his Protreptikos, quoted, 22;
no doubt as to Fourth Gospel,
20, 22 ; his use of Apocryphal
writings and gospel of the Egyp
tians, 21; his Exhortation to the
heathen, 22 ; his Paschal Festi
val suggested by Melito, 38 ; his
teachers probably include Me
lito, 38 ; testimony of Socra
tes to, 40 ; his witness to S.
John, 48 ; Excerpta Theodoti
and Doctrina Orientalis, ascribed
to, 86 ; witness to Heracleon,
88 ; and Theodotus, 92 ; and
Basilides, 100, 365, 367; quoted,
434, 439

CREDNER
Clement of Rome, First Epistle of,
quoted, 31, 85, 137 ; Johannine
influence in, 143, 402 ; Second
Epistle of, 145 ; Bretschneider
on, 185 ; 254, 338
Clementines, the, quote the Fourth
Gospel, 83 sq., 374 sq. ; their
probable date, 84 sq. ; views of
De Lagarde, author of Super
natural Beligion, Strauss, Hil
genfeld on, 83 sq. ; the value of
their evidence, 84 sq. , 102 ; their
antagonism to S. Paul, and S.
John, 85 ; their origin, 84 sq. ;
Strauss on, 208, 210 ; Volkmar
on, 236; Hilgenfeld on, 242;
Martineau on, 288 ; 349, 358 ;
our knowledge of, 373 ; Dres
sel's discovery and, 374 ; Zeller
and, 375
Clericus, 373
Clermont. See Manuscripts
Clifford, quoted, 459 sq.
Clough, quoted, 106
Cludius, 184
Codex x, 358
Codex Borgianus, 387
Codex Claromontantis, 112
Codex Fuldensis. See Ranke
Codex Holmiensis, 358
Codex Sangallensis, 358
Codex Tischendorfianus iii., 358
Colbertine. See Manuscripts
Colonies, the, 452
Constantia, 117
Constantine, 112
Constantinople, 114 ; Trullan
council of, 121 ; council of
Greek church at, 121, 15L
See Photius
Conybeare. See Bampton Lectures
Cook, Commentary, 334
Corderius, Catena of, 118
Corinth, 466. See Church
Corpus Apologetarum. See Otto
Cosmas Indicopleustes, Canon of,
121
Cotelier, 373
Cowardly Agnosticism. See
Review, Fortnightly
Credner, 17 ; on Justin, 57 ; on
Eusebius, 113 ; on the Alogi,

INDEX.

481

CRITICISM
125 ; ed. of Bodenstein, 153 ;
quoted, 112 sq., 115, 118, 316
Criticism, Modern, 3, 4 ; admits
reception of Fourth Gospel at
close of second century, 46 ;
attacks infallibility of the Bible,
157 ; of ' our age,' 169 sq. ; con
sidered in Lectures IV., V.,
VI. ; said to have cancelled
'judgment of centuries,' 169,
409 ; assertion of, cannot be
accepted as proof, 169 ; nor yet
originality, 170 sq. ; destructive,
not sufficent, 172 ; constructive,
demanded, 173 ; Strauss and,
211 ; and the Fourth Gospel,
419 sq.
— Negative, position of leaders
of, 8, 299 ; present school of,
258 ; German, 258-263 ; Dutch,
263-266 ; English, 266-292 ;
is self-destructive, 409 ; and
question of author of Fourth
Gospel, 411 sq. ; no consistent
body of, 417
— Positive, 5, 299 sq. ; school of,
299-353 ; summary of, 353,
410 ; is to the negative as
J = CC,412
Cruice, on the Philosophumena,
363, 367
Cureton, 35, 380 ; and the
Syriac, 358, 384, 396 sq. , 406,
408
Cyprian, opinion of Tertullian,
22 ; use of the Gospels by, 63 ;
his date and position, 111 ; his
testimony to Fourth Gospel,
112; 149
Cyril of Alexandria, 149, 407
Cyril of Jerusalem, his date and
position, 113 ; his reception of
four Gospels, 113 ; rejection of
Apocalypse 114, 115 ; 121, 149
Cyril Lukar, Canon of, 121
Cyrrhus, 381
Darwin, quoted, 459 ; 460
Davidson, 8, 267 ; admits recep
tion of Fourth Gospel at close
of second century, 46 ; his
position, 272, 274 sq. ; his first

DIONYSIUS
Introduction, 272 sq. ; on the
newer criticism, 273 sq. ; views
on the Fourth Gospel, 275 sq.,
277, 278 sq., 280, 284 sq. ; his
second Introduction, 278 sq. ;
views on the Acts, 280 sq., 282;
criticism on his change of view,
282, 284 sq. ; by Schiirer, 283 ;
347, 409 ; quoted, 109, 272-282
Dawson, 454
Day, 188
Debeltum. See AElius Publius
De Cultu Feminarum. See Tertid-
lian
D'Eichthal. See Eichthal
Delff, his position and views on
the Fourth Gospel, 292 sq. ;
compared with Martineau, 293
sq. ; quoted, 292-295
Delhi, 462
Demetrian, 63
Demurrer against Heretics. See
Tertullian
De Prsescriptione Hxreticorum.
See Tertullian
Derry, Bishop of. See Alexander
Descartes, 8
De Viris illustribus. See Jerome
De Wette. See Wette
Dialogue with Trypho. See Jus
tin Martyr
Dialectica. See Galen
Diana of the Ephesians, 429 sq.
Diatessaron, The. See Tatian
Dickson, 246
Dictionary of Christian Biography,
19, 28, 41, 86, 90, 119, 362,
367, 375, 377 sq., 379, 431
Didache, the, Johannine influence
in, 143 ; its title, 145 ; 358 ;
supports Johannine authorship,
402
Didymus of Alexandria, his date
and position, 115 ; rejects
Second Epistle of S. Peter,
115
Dilke, Lady, quoted, 13
Dilthey, 300
Dindorf, and Eusebius, 406
Diocletian persecution, 149
Dionysius of Alexandria, his
date, 109 ; his position, and
I I>

482

INDEX.

DISCUSSION
opposition to Nepos, 110 ; his
acceptance of Fourth Gospel
and rejection of Apocalypse,
110 ; his view opposed to later
criticism, 110 sq.
Discussion, tone of, 6
Doctrina Orientalis. See Valen
tinus
Dodwell, 58
DoUinger, Von, letter from, on
date of Muratorian Fragment,
45 ; on the Philosophumena,
363
Domitian, 394
Donaldson, 28, 37
Dressel, his discovery of part of
the Clementines, 374 sq.
Drummond, James, on Justin
and Fourth Gospel, 76 sq., 78 ;
Abbot's opinion of, 76 sq. ;
quoted, 431
Dublin, 17, 340, 392
Duncker, on Hippolytus, 362 ;
and Schneidewin, 89, 101, 362,
367, 369
Duns Scotus, 152
Durham, Bishop of. See Light
foot ; Westcott
Easier, 41
Ebrard, quoted, 200, 334 ; Strauss
on, 205 ; Bleek and, 314 ; views
on the Fourth Gospel, 317 ; on
negative criticism, 318
Ecclesiastical History. See Euse
bius ; Socrates
Eckermann, 247
Edersheim, 431
Edessa, 200, 378, 381. See
Church
Edinburgh, University of, 17, 336.
See Review
Egli, on date of Polycarp's mar
tyrdom, 390
Egypt, 20, 48, 86, 108, 114, 186
sq., 386, 430 ; Arsinoe in, 110
Egyptians, gospel of, 21
Eichhorn, 178, 184
Eichthal, D', views on Fourth
Gospel, 245'
Einsiedel, Von, 188
Eleutherus, 19

EUSEBIUS
Elias of Salamia, 381
Elkesaites, 85
EUicott, Bishop, New Testament
Commentary (Watkins), 90,
425, 441, 444
Engelhardt, Von, 76
England, 162, 164, 175, 194, 238,
337 sq. ; Queen of, 445 ; spread
of English language and rule,
445 sq. , 448, 452 ; gospels for,
450. See Church
Ephesus, 19, 21, 33, 37 sq., 69,
108, 111, 200, 206, 248, 250,
252, 257, 261, 313, 319, 327,
358, 389, 395, 426 ; life in, 427
sq., 429 sq., 431, 439 sq.; city
of, 432, 443 sq. ; 434 sq., de
scription of, in Acts, 428, 434 ;
philosophy and meeting of East
and West in, 428 sq., 430 sq.,
456, 467 ; a nineteenth-cen
tury, 447. See Church ; John ;
Polycrates
Ephraim, and the Diatessaroti,
377, 381 sq. , 383 sq.
Epiphanius, 57 ; quoted, 85, 87,
1 25 ; evidence to Ptolemaeus,
87 sq. ; his date and position,
117 ; his list of the Scriptures,
117 ; his use of term Alogi, 124 ;
and Hippolytus, 362 ; and the
Diatessaron, 378 sq.
Erlangen, 247, 317, 331
Europe, 162, 315
Eusebius, 69; Hist. Eccles. , quoted,
20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 35, 36,
38-42, 85, 91, 94, 96, 99, 100,
109 sq., 145, 206, 403, 408, 434,
439 ; Chronicon, quoted, 28, 29,
388 ; his testimony to Tertul
lian, 23 ; testimony to Theo
philus, 27 sq. ; his list of Melito's
works, 34 sq. ; list of Apolinaris'
works, 36 ; on letter of Sera
pion, 39 sq. ; on letter to Victor
of Rome, 4i ; and Papias, 96,
145 ; silence of, a witness to
use of Fourth Gospel, 97 ; his
analysis of writings foresha
dowed by Origen, 109, 112 ;
and Dionysius, 110 ; his date
and position, 112 ; his testimo-

INDEX.

483

EVANGELICAL
ny to Fourth Gospel and the
Canon, 112 sq. ; his copies made
for Constantine, 112 sq. ; and
Athanasius, 114 sq. ; Strauss
on, 206 sq., 210 sq. ; and Hip
polytus, 362 ; and the Diates
saron, 377 sq. ; and date of
Polycarp's martyrdom, 388 sq.,
390 sq. ; and Epistle of Poly
carp, 403 ; and Lightfoot, 404
sq. ; Syriac version of, 406 ;
Armenian version of, 407 sq. ;
and Syriac Apology to Antoni
nus, 408
'Evangelical Instrument.' See
Tertullian
Evanson, 5, 8 ; his career, 174 ;
the Dissonance examined, 174
sq. ; his preference for S. Luke,
174 sq. ; his work unworthy of
its subject, 176 ; replies to, by
Priestley, Simpson, and Falco
ner, 176 sq. ; 246, 299, 308, 409
Everett, 11
Ewald, 205, 217, 227 ; his posi
tion and view of Fourth Gospel,
250 sq. ; Liddon and Westcott
on, 251
Excerpta Theodoti. SeeValentinus
Exegesis, Oxford Professor of.
See Sanday
Eye, achromatic, 8 sq., 12, 17 ;
impossible, 10
Fables. See Babrius
Fabricius, 86
Falconer. See Bampton Lecttires
Falkener, 482
Farrar, 432
Faust, quoted, 457
Faustina, 389
Fessler, on the Philosophumena,
364
Fichte, 177, 240
Field, 407 sq.
Fillion, Abbe, 336
Fisher, 335
Flatt, 193
Flavia Neapolis, 53
Flavius Justinus. See Justin
Martyr
Flavius Vespasian, 53

FOURTH GOSPEL
Florence, 407
Florinus, 392 ; Letter to, 98 sq.
Formula Consensus Helvetica, 156
Forster. See Amold-Forster
Fortnightly Retiiew. See Review
Four Gospels, in lrenseus, 19, 69 ;
in Clement, 21 ; identity of
Justin's Memoirs with, 70 ; in
Origen, 109 ; in Cyprian, 111
sq. ; in Cyril, 113 ; in the Dia
tessaron, 376 sq., 379, 387. See
Tatian
Fourth Gospel, the, Keim and, 3 ;
modern criticism in relation to,
4, 419 sq. ; a problem of present-
day thought, 4 ; position of, in
second century, 4 ; evidence to
reception of, in second century,
17 ; accepted as the work of S.
John, 40 sq. ; reception of, in
dependent of date of Versions,
46 ; use of, by Irenaeus, 19 sq. ,
69 sq. ; by Clement, 20 sq., 22 ;
by Tertullian, 24; by Theo
philus, 29 sq., 31 sq. ; included
by himamong 'Holy Scriptures,'
and author among ' spirit-bear
ing men,' 32 ; referred to by
him in connexion with Old
Testament, 32 sq. ; witness to,
and reception by churches of
Asia Minor, 33 sq., 38, 41;
references in Apolinaris to, 37 ;
probably quoted by Polycrates,
42 ; reception of, at close of
second century quite certain,
46 sq. ; strength of testimony
to use of, its extent and unani
mity, 47 ; evidence of Justin to
use of, 61, 64 ; traces of, found
in Justin, 65 ; read in Church
services between a.d. 130-140,
70, 81 ; certainly included in
Memoirs of Justin, 72 sq. ;
Thoma on Justin and, 73 sq. ;
Hilgenfeld on, 75 ; Abbot on,
75 sq. ; Drummond on, 77 sq. ;
Sanday on, 78 sq. ; Westcott
on, 80 sq. ; quoted by the
Clementines, 83 sq. ; quoted in
Excerpta Theodoti and Doctrhia
Orientalis, 86 ; accepted by the
i i 2

484

INDEX.

FOURTH GOSPEL
Valentinians and their school,
87 sq., 89 sq., 91 sq. ; systems
of Valentinus and Ptolemaeus
imply, 90 ; accepted by Catholics
and their school, 90 sq. ; unity of
testimony to use of, by Catholics
and heretics, 91 sq. ; Marcion
and, 93 sq. ; Tertullian and
Irenaeus on Marcion's rejection
of, 93 sq. ; cannot be separated
from First Epistle, 96, 403 sq. ;
Ignatius and, 102 ; accepted
throughout the second century
as work of S. John, 103 ; facts
of the reception of, 107 sq. ;
fulness of evidence to use of,
in third and succeeding centu
ries, 107 ; testimony to use of,
by Muratorian Fragment, 108 ;
by Versions, 108 ; by Origen,
109 ; by Dionysius, 110 ; by
Apostolical Constitutions, 111 ;
by Hippolytus and Caius, 111,
392 sq. ; by Cyprian, 111 sq. ;
by Eusebius, 112 ; included in
copies prepared for Constantine,
113 ; use of, by Cyril, 113 sq. ; by
Athanasius, 114 sq. ; by Didy
mus, 115 ; by Gregory of Nazi
anzus, 115 sq. ; by Amphilochius,
116 sq. ; by Epiphanius, 117 ;
by Theodore of Mopsuestia, 117
sq., 119; by Chrysostom, 119
sq. ; undisputed acceptance of,
throughout fourth, fifth, sixth,
and succeeding centuries, 120
sq., 122 ; Alogi, the one appa
rent exception to acceptance
of, 123 sq. ; commentaries of
Jerome and Augustine on, 122
sq. ; work of Hippolytus on,
124 ; Alogi ascribe it to Cerin
thus, 125 ; no real men who at
tempt to doubt the authenticity
of, only whispers of Alogi, 127 ;
principles of the reception of,
127 sq. ; received as Apostolic
throughout Christendom from
end of second to end of eigh
teenth century, 128; reasons for
acceptance of, now, 128 ; in
history of the Church, 140 ;

FOURTH GOSPEL
views held by Christians about,
128 sq. ; accepted on the au
thority of the Church, 128 sq. ,
130 sq., 132 ; accepted on the
inner witness, 132 sq., 134
sq. ; accepted on verbal inspira
tion, 135 sq. ; accepted on
canons of historical and literary
criticism, 137 sq. , 139 ; evidence
for genuineness of, superior to
that of other early histories,
138 sq. ; a question of history, not
of dogma, 139 ; how received in
Apostolic age, 140 sq. ; no quo
tation of other portions of New
Testament as ' Scripture ' in,
142 ; how received in post-
Apostolic age, 142 sq. ; per
fected tradition of Ephesian
Church, 144 ; acceptance of, in
the Dark Ages, 151 sq. ; received
above all, 152 ; induction as to
reception of, from the facts and
principles, 161 sq. ; and the
Church, 161 sq. ; comprehension
exemplified in width of induc
tion, 161 sq. ; Apostolic, and in
fullest sense inspired, 162 ; ex
amples of intensity of devotion
to, 162 ; results of the ' judg
ment of centuries' on, 161, 166,
409, 411 sq. ; and ' our age,'
173, 357 sq., 409 sq., 411 sq. ;
commencement of destructive
criticism on, 174; question of, in
Germany in early years of nine
teenth century, 178 sq. ; Bret
schneider on, 181-190, 421 sq.,
423 ; Strauss on, 191, 197, 203
sq., 206-216, 423; result, 212
sq. , 219 ; Liitzelberger on, 200 ;
Renan on, 219, 421 sq., 423 sq. ;
Baur on, 228 sq., 234, 239, 422
sq., 424 ; Hilgenfeld on, 242 ;
Ritschl on, 243 ; Stap on,
244 sq. ; d'Eichthal on, 245 ;
and the Partition Theories, 246
sq. ; views of Eckermann, Am
mon, and Paulus on, 247 ;
Schenkel on, 248 ; Schweizer
on, 249 ; Tobler on, 249 sq. ;
Ewald on, 250 sq. ; Hase on,

INDEX.

485

FOURTH GOSPEL
252 ; Reuss on, 253 sq., 255 ;
Renan on, 255 sq. ; Sabatier on,
256; Weizsacker on, 257 ; Wendt
on, 258 ; Keim on, 259 sq. ;
Holtzmann, H. J., on, 260 ;
Honig on, 261 ; Thoma on, 261
sq. ; Mangold on, 262 ; Holtz
mann on, 262 ; Scholten on,
264 sq. ; Tayler on, 266 sq. ;
author of Supernatural Religion
on, 267 sq. ; Abbott on, 270 sq. ;
Davidson on, 275 sq., 277, 278
sq. , 280, 284 sq. ; Schiirer and,
283, 424; Martineau on, 286 sq.,
288 sq., 293 sq. ; Delff on, 292-
295 ; and the positive school of
criticism, 299 ; Schleiermacher
on, 302 sq., 304 ; Neander on,
305 sq., 307 ; De Wette on, 309
sq. ; Liicke on, 310 sq., 312 sq. ;
Bleek on, 314 sq. ; Bunsen on,
316 ; Ebrard on, 317 ; Tholuck
and Hengstenberg on, 318 sq. ;
Meyer on, 319 sq., 321 ; Lech
ler on, 322 sq. ; Weiss on, 324
sq. ; Luthardt on, 326 sq. ;
Godet on, 328 sq. ; Beyschlag
on, 329 sq. ; Zahn on, 331 ;
Franke on, 332 sq. ; other posi
tive writers on, 334 sq., 336 ;
value of their testimony, 336 ;
four special witnesses to, 337 ;
Lightfoot on, 343 sq., 345 ;
Westcott on, 345 sq. ; Salmon
on, 346 sq., 348 ; Sanday on,
348 sq., 350; quoted in Basil
ides, 368-373; quoted in the
Clementines, though denied by
Zeller, 374 sq. ; if included in
the Diatessaron, 376, 387 ; Har
nack on, 385 ; importance of
date of Polycarp's martyrdom
in connexion with, 391 sq. ; no
discoveries oppose Johannine
authorship of, 393 sq., 395;
fragments of Papias and Hege
sippus support it, 394 ; recent
discoveries in connexion with,
357-395 ; re-investigation of
materials in connexion with,
395-409 ; quoted by Ignatian
Epistles, 400 sq. ; received by

FRANKE
Ignatius, 402 ; and Epistle of
Polycarp, 403 sq. ; and the
silence of Eusebius, 404 sq. ;
no body of negative criticism
of, which is not self -destructive,
409 sq. ; suggestions of author
of, other than S. John, value
less, 411 sq. ; attributed to
Judas Iscariot by Noack, 412 ;
interpretation of, 417-470 ; is
' according to S. John,' 417 sq.,
419 sq. , 444, 449 ; its inspira
tion of essence, not of form,
418 sq. ; contents, not vessel,
divine, 419 sq. ; the treasure of
humanity, 420 ; claims to be a
tendency-writing, 423 sq ; dif
ference in form of, admitted,
423 sq. ; difference in discourses
of, 424 sq. , 426 ; key to, lies in
translation, 426 sq. , 450 ; it ex
plains tone and thought of,
442 ; and opposing views of
critics, 444 ; traditional account
of origin of, 438 sq. ; if Johan
nine, necessarily Ephesian, 439
sq. ; and doctrine of the Logos,
440 sq. ; what it had not, and
what it must have had, 443 sq. ;
more than human, 443 sq. ;
fundamental purpose of, 443 ;
divine purpose of, 449 sq. ;
hints to younger hearers on
translation of, 453 sq. ; and
science, 454-461 ; and our pre
sent 'laws,' 456 sq., 458; re
veals the origin of being in the
Logos, 461 ; connexion of, with
modern ethical science, 462 sq. ;
true principles of life found in,
463 sq, ; and altruism, 465 ;
and agnosticism, 465 sq. ;
preaches no system of gnosis,
467 ; appeals to the faculty of
faith, 469 ; its lessons for the
individual, 469 sq. ; belongs . to
the nineteenth century as to
the first, 469 ; its divine pur
pose, 469 sq.
France, 160, 177, 194, 338
Franke, views on the Fourth Gos
pel, 332 sq.

486

INDEX.

FRANKFORT
Frankfort, 201
Friedlander, on date of Poly
carp's martyrdom, 390
Fritzsche, 118
Fuller, 375, 379
Funk, on date of Polycarp's mar
tyrdom, 390, 396
Gaisford, 361
Galen, 360
Galilee, 249, 395, 440, 443, 445,
449
Gallandi, on date of martyrdom
of Ignatius, 400
Gaul, 48, 86, 186
Gautama. See Buddha
Gebhardt, Von, 359 ; quoted, 28
sq., 34, 41, 69, 143, 331, 380,
390, 394 sq., 402
Generation, third, of the second
century, 18 ; second, 53 sq. ;
first, 95 sq. ; its meaning often
missed, 97
Geneva, 155
Germany, 84, 160 ; opening years
of nineteenth century in, 177
sq.; 175, 194, 238, 241, 275, 304,
328, 338, 359
Gervinus, 177
Gieseler, on date of martyrdom of
Ignatius, 400
Gladstone, quoted, 168 ; 425
Gloucester and Bristol, Bishop
of, 13
Gnosticism, work against, by
Irenaeus, 18 ; and Valentinus,
85 ; view of Arnold on, 101 ;
187, 229, 233 sq., 245, 264, 305,
367, 410 ; in Ephesus, 428,
429 ; and the Fourth Gospel,
442 sq., UA
Gnostics, 92, 102 ; acceptance of
Fourth Gospel by, 29 ; 348, 371
sq., 447, 454, 467
Godet, views on the Fourth Gos
pel, 328 sq. ; Meyer and, 343
Goethe, quoted, 17, 457
Golgotha, 412
Goodwin, Bishop, on the Bible,
158
Gospels, written and traditional,
143 ; question of, in Germany in

HALLE
early years of nineteenth cen
tury, 178 sq. See Fourth Gos
pel ; Four Gospels ; Matthew's,
S., Gospel; Mark's, S., Gospel;
Luke's, S., Gospel; John's, S.,
Gospel ; Egyptians, gospel of ;
Peter, gospel of; Justin and the
Gospels ; Tertullian and the
Gospels ; Cyprian and the Gos
pels ; Strauss and the Gospels ;
Baur and the Gospels ; Schleier
macher and the Gospels
Gotha, 179
Gottingen, 217, 240, 250, 310, 331,
374 sq.
Grabe, 88 ; on date of martyr
dom of Ignatius, 400
Gratry, 251
Gray, Asa, quoted, 460
Great Missionary Success. See
Dilke
Greece, 20, 48, 430, 445 sq., 456
Green, J. R., quoted, 163
— T. H., quoted, 462
Gregory, 358
Gregory, ed. quoted, 326 sq., 424
Gregory the Great, 151
Gregory of Nazianzus, his date
and position, 115 sq. ; his list
of Old and New Testament
Scriptures, 116 ; excludes
Apocalypse though quoted, 116 ;
his description of S. John,
116 ; and Amphilochius, 116 ;
149
Gregory of Nyssa, 149
Groningen, 100
Groot, De, on Basilides, 100, 368
Guardian, The. See Review
Guhl, 432
Gundert, on Hippolytus, 366
Gwynn, 359 ; on Hippolytus and
Caius, 392 sq.
Gymnastica. See Philostratus
Haarlem, 322
Hadrian, 100, 371
Hagenbach, 177
Hales, Alexander de, 152
Hall, 359
Halle, University of, 177, 240,
318, 329, 332

INDEX.

487

HAMARTOLOS
Hamartolos, 394
Hamburg, 304 sq.
Hardenberg. See Novalis
Hare, 315, 363
Harnack, 17 ; opinion on Theo
philus' Commentary, 28 sq. ;
quoted, 28 sq., 34, 41, 69, 143,
283, 331, 375, 380, 385, 394 sq.,
397, 399 sq., 402 sq. ; on date of
Justin's First Apology, 58 ; on
the Alogi, 123 sq. ; 287, 289,
359, 382; on date of Poly
carp's martyrdom, 390 sq. ; on
the Diatessaron, 384 sq., 387 ;
on Lightfoot, 399 ; on Igna
tian Epistles and Polycarp,
399 sq. ; on Epistle of Poly
carp, 403
Harvard, 17, 76
Harvey, Wigan, 17 ; ed. of Adv.
Hter., quoted, 19, 20, 69, 85,
87 sq., 91 sq., 94, 97, 124, 148,
391, 403, 434. See Irenseus
Hase, Von, 5, 179, 204, 227 ;
views on the Fourth Gospel,
251 sq. ; quoted, 198, 247
Hatch, 287
Hausrath, 259
Hawkesworth, quoted, 11
Hawkins, quoted, 131
Hebrews, gospel to the, 186
Hegel, and Strauss, 192 sq ., 196 ;
and Baur, 224, 237 sq. ; and
Oxford, 238 ; and development
of philosophy, 238 ; 240, 247,
281
Hegesippus, Fragment of, 394
Heidelberg, University of, 236,
248, 257
Heinrici, 86, 90
Heliand, The, 383
Hemphill, 375, 378, 380
Hengstenberg, 193 sq. ; views on
the Fourth Gospel, 318 sq.
Henoch, book of, 185
Heracleon, and Valentinus, 85 ;
his date and position, 87 sq. ;
testimony of Irenseus, Clement,
and Origen to, 88 ; his writings,
88 ; and Tertullian, 92 ; Bret
schneider on, 186 ; Strauss on,
210 ; Martineau on, 288

HIPPOLYTUS
Herbart, 240
Herder, 177, 204 ; quoted, 178
Hermas, the Shepherd of, 143,
185, 345, 402
Hermathena, the, 392
Herodotus, 138 sq.
Hess, 204
Heyne, 195, 216, 315
Hierapolis, 433. See Apolinaris ;
Church; Papias; Philip
Hilary of Poitiers, his date and
Canon, 122 ; and Origen, 122 ;
151
Hilgenfeld, 17, 227, 245, 283, 398,
409 ; admits reception of
Fourth Gospel at close of
second century, 46 ; on Justin
and Fourth Gospel, 75 ; on the
Clementines, 84, 374 sq. ; on
Ptolemssus and the Valen
tinians, 88 ; on Heracleon, 88 ;
on the Alogi, 124 ; his works,
235; and Baur's theory, 241 sq. ;
and Volkmar, 242 ; on the
Diatessaron, 379 ; on date of
Polycarp's martyrdom, 390 ;
quoted, 125, 219, 242\ 266, 381,
394
Hill. See Johnson
Hippo, synod of, 123, 151
Hippolytus, pupil of Clement, 20 ;
mentions Irenaeus and Melito,
38 ; his testimony to use of
Fourth Gospel by Valentinians,
89 ; quotes S. John, 89 ; and
Irenseus, 91 ; and Basilides, 100
sq., 364 sq., 366 sq. ; opinions
of Arnold and Renan on
Basilides and, 101 ; his testi
mony to the Fourth Gospel,
111 ; and Philaster, 122 ; and
the Alogi, 124 ; his Syntagma
of Thirty-two Heresies, and work
on Gospel and Apocalypse,
124 ; may have derived informa
tion from Irenseus, 124 ; Jacobi
on, 361 sq. ; Duncker on, 362 ;
Bunsen, Lommatzsch, Von
DoUinger, and others on, 363
sq. ; Gwynn on, 392 sq. ; his
Heads against Caius, 392 sq. ;
quoted, 368 sq.

488

INDEX.

HOLLAND
'Otyyos, ed.Gretser, quoted, 35, 39
HoUand, 160, 359
Holsten, his works, 236 ; on
Baur's theory, 243
Holtzmann, H. J., views on the
Fourth Gospel, 260 ; 287, 315 ;
on Hippolytus, 366 ; quoted,
131, 234, 258, 264
Holtzmann, O., his views on the
Fourth Gospel, 262 sq.
Holy Scripture. See Scriptures
Homer, 195
Homilies. See Aphrahat ; Cle
mentines
Honig, his views on the Fourth
Gospel, 261 ; quoted, 372
Horace, quoted, 172
Home, 285
Hort, 17, 32, 358 ; on Justin, 57
sq. ; on Hippolytus and Basi
lides, 366 sq.
Hosmer, 11
Hossbach, 310
Hug, 178
Bugo of S. Victor, 152
Hulsean Lectures. See Good
win
Hume, David, quoted, 11 ; 284
Hurst, 177
Hutton, 314, 335
Huxley, quoted, 454, 460, 465
1CONIUM, 116
Ignatian Epistles, the ; and Vos
sian recension, 101 sq. ; if by
Ignatius, connect Fourth Gos
pel with S. John, 102 ; Strauss
on, 208 ; Lightfoot on, 395-402 ;
Zahn on, 397 ; De Pressense'
and Harnack on, 399 sq. ; quote
the Fourth Gospel, 400 sq. ;
and Epistle of Polycarp, 402 sq.
Ignatius, 97, 102 ; recent investi
gations of, 101 sq. ; Johannine
influence in, 143 ; Bretschnei
der on, 185 ; 338, 392 ; date
of martyrdom, 400, 404 ; seven
Letters written by, 400 ; Fourth
Gospel received by, 402
India, 445, 452
Innocent the First, 123
Inquiry, width of, 5

ITALY
Inspiration, Luther on, 153 sq. ;
Calvin on, 154 sq. ; Zwingli on,
155 ; extended to letter of Bible,
156 ; mechanical verbal, 156
sq. ; Westcott on, 158 ; Bishop
of Carlisle on, 158 ; Newman
on, 158 sq. ; Bishop of Amycla
on, 159 ; Baxter on, 159 sq. ;
Neander on, 160 ; in relation to
Fourth Gospel, 418 sq.
Instrumentum. See Tertullian
Introduction to course of Lec-
, tures, 3
Ionian. See Melito
Irenseus, his date, 18 ; bishop of
Lyons, 18 ; work against Gnosti
cism, Adversus Hozreses, 18, 61 ;
quotes Apology and Dialogue of
Justin, 69 ; his use of the Fourth
Gospel, 19 sq. , 69 ; pupil of Cle
ment, 20 ; mentioned by Hip
polytus, 38 ; his witness to the
Fourth Gospel, 48 ; compared
with Justin, 53 ; unity with
Justin, 59, 81 ; his intimate
connexion with and knowledge
of Justin, 69 sq., 91 ; connected
with Ephesus, Rome, and Lyons,
69 ; and identity of term Gospels
with Memoirs of Justin, 72 sq. ;
his testimony to Valentinus, 85,
90 sq. ; and Ptolemseus and
Heracleon, 87 sq., 92 ; named
by TertuUian, 90 sq. ; and
Marcion, 94 ; and Papias, 96 ;
testimony to Papias and Poly
carp by, 97 sq., 99 ; his Letter to
Florinus, 98 sq. ; testimony of
Socrates to, 40 ; 43, 102, 365 ;
and the Alogi, 124 ; and the four
fold Gospel, 147 ; Strauss on,
209, 211 sq. ; Bretschneider on,
185 sq. ; Lightfoot on, 344 sq. ;
and Polycarp, 391 sq. ; and
Epistle of Polycarp, 403 ; Adv.
Hser., quoted, 19, 20, 69, 85, 87
sq., 91 sq., 94, 97 sq., 124, 148,
391, 403, 434
— Editor of. See Harvey
Isidore, 371
1 ssus 40
Italy,' 20, 48, 86, 116, 338

INDEX.

489

JACOBI
Jacobi, 177, 300 ; on the Philo
sophumena, 361 sq. ; on Hippo
lytus, 365
Jameson, Mrs., 435
Jarrow, school at, 152, 162
Jebb, 388
Jena, University of, 177, 235, 334,
376
Jerome, on Tertullian, 22 ; De
Viris illustribus, quoted, 22, 23,
24, 28, 34, 38, 403 ; reference
to Theophilus by, 28 ; his list of
works by Melito and Apolinaris,
34 ; quotes TertuUian on Melito,
38 ; his testimony to Apolinaris
and Melito, 40 ; his date, and
commentary on the Fourth Gos
pel, 122 sq. ; on church authority
in matter of the Scriptures, 149
sq., 151 ; 362, 435 ; on Epistle
of Polycarp, 403
Jerusalem, 53 ; council at, 121 ;
149, 347, 412, 429, 443
Jesuits, 10
John, S., Irenseus on, 19 ; and
the ' spiritual Gospel,' 21 ; and
the robber, 21 ; named by Ter
tullian, 25 sq., 27 ; influence of,
in Apology of Melito, 35 ; Fourth
Gospel accepted as work of, 41,
43, 46 sq. ; description of, by
Polycrates, 42 ; life and work
of, familiar to many, 95 sq. ;
Polycarp's personal link with,
48, 95 sq., 391 ; named by Dio
nysius, 110 ; described by Gre
gory Nazianzen, 116 ; his know
ledge of other portions of New
Testament writings, but he
never quotes them, i42 ; Bret
schneider on 182-85, 421 sq.,
423 sq. ; Lightfoot on school of,
343 sq. ; Renan on, 421 sq., 423
sq. ; in fragments of Papias and
Hegesippus, 394; 361, 392;
and the Gospel, 419, 443 sq.,
449 ; realization of his position,
427 sq. ; of his work, 434 sq. ;
and teaching, 436 sq. ; close of
his life, 438 sq. ; and Philo, 431,
436, 441 ; and Cerinthus, 434,
436 ; his declaration of the

JUSTIN
Logos, 440 sq. ; and agnosticism,
466 sq. See also Fourth Gospel
— Gospel of, quoted, 30, 31, 32,
42, 87 sq., 89, 107, 207 sq., 249
sq., 259, 261, 265, 369, 393, 400
sq., 417 sq., 435 sq., 437, 440 sq.,
467
— Epistles of, 109, 118, 119 sq.,
462 ; quoted,442 ; Bretschneider
on, 184 sq. ; Strauss on, 206 sq. ;
Martineau on, 291 ; witness of
Epistle of Polycarp to, 403 sq.
— Revelation of. See Apocalypse
John Damascene, list of, 121
John of Salisbury, 152
Johnson, on testimony, 350 sq.
Jonas. See Dilthey
Judsea, 249. See Justin Martyr
Judas Iscariot, 412
Judge, advocate or. See Bampton
Lecturer
' Judgment of Centuries,' 3, 4 sq.
value of, 6 ; result of, 161 sq.,
166, 169, 417 ; contrasted with
'our age,' 172 sq., 409 sq., 411
sq. ; considered in Lectures I.,
II. , III.
Julian, 127
Julianus, 389
Jiilicher, 394
Junilius, list of, 121
Justin Martyr, 102 ; Dialogus cum
Tryphone, quoted, 34, 53 sq., 55,
59 sq., 65 sq., 67, 71 ; his date
and early life, 53 ; training and
conversion, 54 sq., 429 ; his con
nexion with a Stoic, Peripatetic,
Pythagorean, and Platonist, 54
sq. ; his ethics of opinion, 55
sq. ; his writings, 56 sq. ; two
Apologies and Dialogue cer
tainly genuine, 56 ; his First
Apology, its dedication, 58 ;
a defence of Christians ad
dressed to heathen, 61 sq. ;
written at Rome, 69 ; quoted,
53, 54, 56, 59, 65 sq., 67, 71 sq.,
77, 91 ; his own account of the
Dialogue, 59 sq. ; its scene at
Ephesus, 69 ; written at Rome,
69 ; addressed to Marcus Pom-
peius, 60 ; an apology for Chris-

490

INDEX.

JUSTIN
tianity addressed to Jews, 62 ;
his First Apology and Dialogue
only considered, 56 ; quoted
by Irenseus, 69 sq. ; chronology
and dates not accurately known,
56 sq., 58 sq. ; opinions of
Credner, Volkmar, andHort on,
57 sq. ; discussion of his date
of literary interest, 58 ; does
not affect result, 59 ; internal
evidence of First Apology and
Dialogue as to date, 59 sq. ; their
evidence as to use of Fourth
Gospel, 61 sq. ; Trypho and the
war in Judssa, 59 sq. ; if Trypho
is creally Rabbi Tarphon, 60 ;
and the Gospels, 61 ; unity of,
with Irenaeus, 59 ; nature of an
apology, 61 sq. ; and position
of an apologist in second cen
tury, 62 sq. ; verbal quotation
not to be sought in, 63 sq.,
72 sq. ; compared with Tatian,
Athenagoras, Tertullian, Cy
prian, 63 ; traces of Fourth
Gospel in, 65 sq. ; recurrence of
term Memoirs in Apology and
Dialogue, 65 sq. ,&7sq., 145 ; The
Memoirs, 65 ; Memoirs of the
Apostles, 65 sq., 70 ; Memoirs of
His Apostles ,66,70 ; hisMemoirs,
66 ; Memoirs relate to our Lord
Jesus Christ, 67, 70 ; Memoirs com
posed by His Apostles, which are
called Gospels, 67, 70 ; Memoirs
which are read on the day called
Sunday, 65 sq., 70 ; considered
as, a written record of the
Lord, 67 ; sacred books, 67 sq. ;
of Apostolic authority, 68 ;
coming from the Lord, 68 ; his
description of the Sunday ser
vice, 65, 67 sq. ; use of his
writings by contemporaries and
followers, 68 sq. ; by TertuUian,
68 sq. ; by Irenseus, 69 sq. ; his
intimate connexion with Ire
nseus, 69 sq., 91; link with his
pupil Tatian, 70 ; the Diatessa
ron a key to the Memoirs, 71,
375 sq., 387 ; his identification
of the Memoirs with the Gos-

KOENER
pels, 71 ; the Dialogue and the
term ' Gospel,' 71 sq. ; one term
used for outsiders, another for
Christians, 72 ; this understood
by Irenaeus, TertuUian, and
others, 72 ; Fourth Gospel cer
tainly included in Memoirs of,
72 sq. ; recent investigations on,
by Thoma, 73 sq. ; Hilgenfeld,
75 ; Abbot, 75 sq. ; Drummond,
76 sq. ; Sanday, 78 sq. ; West
cott, 80 sq. ; consensus of
opinion on, 81 ; his use of Fourth
Gospel and belief in Apostolic
origin, 81 sq. ; why Fourth
Gospel not more fully quoted
in, 81 sq. ; reasons suggested,
82 sq. ; existing works of, frag
ments, 83 ; named by Tertullian,
90 sq. ; his Syntagma against
all Heresies, 91 ; and Valen
tinus, 92 ; and Marcion, 93 ;
Bretschneider on, 182 sq., 185 ;
Strauss on, 208 sq. ; Abbott
on, 270 ; Martineau on, 288
sq. ; 236, 260 sq. ; 334, 348,
392
Justin the Gnostic, 364
Justinus Priscus, 53
Kaiser, 224
Keim, 5 ; quoted, 259 sq., 279 ;
on ' our age,' 3 ; on Justin
and Fourth Gospel, 82 ; and
Strauss,205; views on the Fourth
Gospel, 259 sq. ; on Basilides,
371 ; on date of Polycarp's
martyrdom, 390 ; 263, 320 sq.,
409
Kern, 192
Kerner, 192
Khayyath, 119
Kiel, 331 sq.
Kihn, 118
Klassen, 431
Kling, 282
Klopstock, 211
Klotz, ed. of Stromateis, quoted,
20, 21, 88, 100; ProtrepUkos,
22; 434
Kliipfel, 224
Korner, 178

INDEX.

491

KOSTLIN
Kostlin, his works, 235 sq. ; and
Baur's theory, 241
Krabbe, 305
Krehl, 406
Kriiger-Velthusen, 249
Kurtz, on date of martyrdom of
Ignatius, 400
Labb£-Mansi, 118
Lachmann, 315, 358
Lacordaire, 14
Lactantius, 63
Ladd, quoted, 152, 156
Lagarde, De, on the Clementines,
83 sq. ; 315, 379 ; on the Dia
tessaron, 377, 386
La Motte Fouqu<§, 177
Lampe, 122, 428
Lancashire Independent College,
275, 284 sq.
Lang, 264
Lange, 184, 335
Laodicea, council of, 121, 151.
See Sagaris
Lardner, 37
Lausanne, 335
Lazaro. See Monastery
Leathes, 335
Le Bas, 389
Lechler, his works, and views on
the Fourth Gospel, 321, 322 sq. ;
331 ; quoted, 359
Lectures : I., 3-50 ; II. , 51-104
III., 105-166; IV., 167-220
V., '221-296; VI., 297-354
VII., 355-413; VIII., 415^171
— Division of, 4, 5 ; subject of, 3
Leipzig, 179 sq., 247, 322, 326, 331
Leontius of Byzantium, and Theo
dore of Mopsuestia, 118
Lessing, 211
Letronne, on date of Polycarp's
martyrdom, 389 sq.
Levy, 440
Lewin, 432
Lewis, Sir G. Cornewall, opinion
of, 7 ; quoted, 298, 352
Leyden, University of, 100
Lias, 335
Lichtenberger, 256, 301, 312
Liddon, on the Old Latin, 42 ;
on the Peshito and Muratorian

LOOFS
Fragment, 43 ; on Ewald, 251 :
335
Lightfoot, Bishop, 14 sq., 17, 45,
272, 283 ; quoted, 19, 29, 31,
34, 37, 41 sq., 365, 375 sq.,
377 sq., 381, 388, 391, 394 sq.,
396 sq. , 398 sq. , 400 sq., 402, 404
sq. ; on the Muratorian Frag
ment, 45 ; on the first gene
ration of the second century,
97 ; and Irenseus, 98 sq. ; and
author of Supernatural Religion,
48 sq., 267 sq., 269 sq., 350;
his intense devotion to S. John
and the Fourth Gospel, 163
sq. ; his last days, 164 sq. ; un
noticed by Bleek and Weiss,
342 ; his character as a witness,
337 sq . ; views on the Fourth Gos
pel, 343 sq., 344 sq., 345 ; value
of his testimony, 351 sq. ; on the
Diatessaron, 376 sq., 379 ; on
the date of Polycarp's martyr
dom, 391 ; on Papias, 394 ;
on the Ignatian Epistles, 395-
402 ; convinced of their authen
ticity, 396 sq. ; Zahn on, 396
sq. ; Edinburgh Review on, 398 ;
on Zahn, 398 ; Harnack on,
399 ; on the silence of Eusebius,
404 sq. ; 408, 452
Lipsius, 17, 19 ; quoted, 86, 90,
125 ; on Hippolytus, 364, 366 ;
on Tatian, 376 sq. ; on the
Diatessaron, 380 ; on date of
Polycarp's martyrdom, 390 ;
Lightfoot on, 396
Livy, 138
Lloyd, on date of martyrdom of
Ignatius, 400
Dogos, the, doctrine of, 68, 80,
124, 183, 259 sq., 261 sq., 265,
431, 436 sq., 440 sq., U2, 452,
461
Loman, 5 ; admits reception of
Fourth Gospel at close of second
century, 46
Lombard, Peter, 152
Lommatzsch, on the Philosophu
mena, 363
London, 270
Loofs, 257

492

INDEX.

LOTZE
Lotze, 240
Lucius Verus, 58
Liicke, quoted, 115, 247, 310;
235, 300, 439 ; on the Fourth
Gospel, 311 sq., 313 ; on the
newer theories, 312
Ludwigsburg, 191, 201
Luke, S., Gospel of, quoted by Cle
ment, 22 ; by Justin, 65, 71 ;
Marcion and, 93 ; Gregory Na-
zianzen on, 116 ; 421
Luthardt, 263 ; views on the
Fourth Gospel, 326 sq.; quoted,
424
Luther, views on the Scriptures,
quoted, 153 sq. ; he is to be
the judge of what is and is not
Scripture, 154; and the Re
formation, 178 ; quoted by
Meyer, 321
Liitzelberger, and Strauss, 200
Lycaonia, 116
Lydia. See Melito
Lyons, 33, 69, 345. See Cliurch
McClltsttock; and Strong, Cyclo
paedia, 196
Mackay, 217
Mackintosh, Sir James, 10, 284 ;
quoted, 11
McLellan, 335
Mallock, W. H., quoted, 12
Manchester, 266, 275, 454
Manchot, 100, 264
Mangold, views on the Fourth
Gospel, 262; and Bleek, 314
sq., 342
Mansel, 365 ; on Hippolytus, 366
Manuscripts, 5 ; Clermont, 35 ;
Syriac, 35, 406 sq. ; Chaldee,
118; Uncial, 120 sq., 138;
Colbertine, 373 ; Arabic, 385 sq.
Marburg, 326
Marcion, TertuUian and, 26 sq.,
91 sq. ; Theophilus against,
27 ; a witness to Fourth Gospel,
83, 102 ; his date and position,
93; his gospel a mutilated S.
Luke, 93 ; why he did not
choose S. John, 93 ; Tertullian's
testimony to, 93 sq. ; Irenreus
and, 94 ; estimate of his testi-

MELITO
mony, 95 ; Strauss on, 124,
209, 236, 264 ; Martineau on,
288
Marcus, and Valentinus, 85
Marcus Aurelius, 58, 389. See
Apolinaris ; Athenagoras ; Eu
sebius
Marcus Pompeius. See Justin
Martyr
Marheineke, 179
Mark, S., Gospel of, if quoted by
Justin, 66 ; Gregory Nazian-
zen on, 116 ; 223, 421
Marklin, and Strauss, 191 sq.
Marquardt, on date of Polycarp's
martyrdom, 390
Marsh, 172
Martin, 359
Martineau, James, 76 ; views on
the Fourth Gospel, 286 sq., 288
sq., 411; quoted, 267, 286-291;
on Justin, Clementines, Valen
tinus, Ptolemaeus and Hera-
kleon, Marcion, Apolinaris,
Theophilus, 288 ; on Apoea-
lypse, 289 sq. ; on Paschal con
troversy and time, 290 sq. ; on
First Epistle, 291 ; summary of
his views, 29l sq. ; compared
with Delff, 293 sq.
Martyrdom. See Ignatius ; Poly
carp
Masson, on date of Polycarp's
martyrdom, 388
Massuet, 58
Matthew, S., Gospel oi, quoted by
Clement, 22 ; by Justin, 65 sq. ,
71, 82 ; 12. 64 ; Gregory Na-
zianzenon, 116 ; 260,357, 421 sq.
Matthew, the monk, Canon of, 121
Maulbronn, 192
Maurice, 315, 334
Maussul, 119
Max Muller, on faculty, 469 sq.
Mechitarist Fathers, 377, 381 sq.
Melito of Sardis, his date, 34 ;
literary activity, 34 ; list of
his works, in Eusebius, Ana
statius of Sinai, Syriac frag
ments, 34 sq. ; some genuine,
others doubtful, 35 ; Westcott's
opinion on the Apology of, 35 ;

INDEX.

49;

MEMOIRS
contemporary of Apolinaris,
36 ; significance of his writings,
37 ; testimony to, by Poly
crates, 38, 41 ; by Hippolytus,
Tertullian, Clement of Alex
andria, Anastatius, 38 sq. ; re
cognized as an authority in
Carthage, Ephesus, Rome,
Alexandria, Monasteries of
Sinai, 38 sq. ; probably the
Ionian named by Clement, 38 ;
his connexion with the East,
38 sq. ; his use of Justin, 69 ;
102 ; and Apology of Anto
ninus, 408
Memoirs. See Justin Martyr
Memrd da-YZya, 440 sq.
Mendel. See Neander
Mental achromatism. See Achro
matism
Merx, and Armenian version of
Eusebius, 407 sq.
Metrophanes Critopulus, Canon
of, 121
Meyer, on the Tubingen school,
246 ; quoted, 324, 343 ; views
on the Fourth Gospel, 319 ;
on negative criticism, 320 sq. ;
makes no use of Westcott and
Godet, 342 sq.
Michaelis, quoted, 171 sq.
Mildert, Van, 131, 452
MU1, J. S., 14
Miller, 367 ; his edition of the
Philosophumena, 360 sq., 362
Milligan, 335
Miltiades, 91
Milton, 272
Minucius FeUx, use of Justin,
69
Modern criticism. See Criticism
Mohler, 225 ; on date of martyr
dom of Ignatius, 400
Moller, on Hippolytus, 366 ;
quoted, 375
Mommsen, quoted, 425, 432 sq.
Monastery, of S. George, 1 18 ; of
S. Lazaro, 382
Monoimus, 364
Monophysites, work of Anastatius
against, 35
Montanism, and the Paraclete,

NEUCHATEL
33, 444 ; Apolinaris and, 36 ;
Strauss on, 210 ; 186, 264. See
Tertullian
Montfaucon, 119 sq.
Moore, Aubrey, quoted, 459 sq.,
461
Mopsuestia. See Theodore
Morcos, and the Diatessaron, 386
More, Hannah, on the Bible, 177
Mosinger, and history of the
Diatessaron, 382 sq., 387
Moulton, 335
Muller, 300. See Max Muller
MuUiaU, 446
Munich, 177
Muratorian Fragment, 42, 116 ;
Liddon and Westcott on, 43 sq. ;
its date, 43 sq. ; not settled, 44
sq. ; Lightfoot and Von DoUin
ger on, 45 ; question of date
wUl not affect evidence of, 46 ;
its testimony to use of Fourth
Gospel in third century, 108 ;
and traditional origin of Fourth
Gospel, 438 sq.
Murphy, 335
Murray, Dictionary of English
Language, 463, 466
Mynas, his discoveries, 359 sq.,
364 ; quoted, 360
Myth, Strauss on, 196 sq., 214
sq., 216, 423; Bunsen on, 196 ;
earlier and later theories of, 216
sq. ; theory of, cannot live with
Design, 218
Naaseni, the, 372 sq., 429
Nablous, 53
Napoleon, 178, 445
Nathaniel, 411
Nazianzus. See Gregory
Neander, on inspiration, 160 sq. ;
178, 197, 205, 229, 248, 300,
304 ; his change of name from
Mendel, 305 ; special qualifica
tions, 305 ; on the Fourth
Gospel, 305 sq., 307 ; and
Liicke, 310 ; 315, 328
Negative criticism. See Criticism
Nepos, 110
Neubauer, 427
Neuchatel, 328

494

INDEX.

NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE
Newcastle-on-Tyne, 454
Newman, Cardinal, on Tertullian,
22 sq. ; on inspiration, 158 sq. ;
on discourses in S. John, 425
New Testament. See Testament
 Commentary. See Ellicott
Nicene council, 121
Nicephorus Callistus, Canon of,
121
Nicephorus, Stichometry of, 121,
362
Nicodemus, gospel of, 186
Nicolaitans, 19
Niebuhr, 195, 315
Nisibis, Persian school of, 121
Nitzsch, 300
Noack, attributes Fourth Gospel
to Judas Iscariot, 412
Noris, Cardinal, on date of Poly
carp's martyrdom, 388
Norton, 63, 334
NovaUs, 177
Nyssa. See Gregory
Ockham, WUliam of, 152
Oehler, 17 ; ed. quoted, 23-28,
57, 63, 85, 87 sq., 91 sq., 94,
117, 122, 124 sq., 378 sq. See
Tertullian
Old Latin. See Versions
Old Testament. See Testament
Olshausen, 334
Oosterzee, Van, 335
Ophites, the. See Naaseni
Oratio ad Grsecos. See Tatian
Orelli, and Strauss, 199
Origen, pupil of Clement, 20 ;
69, 149, 331, 407 ; his witness
to Heracleon, 88 ; his date,
108 ; his division of the sacred
writings, and full testimony
to S. John and the Fourth
Gospel, 109 ; commentaries on
Fourth Gospel, 109 ; and Euse
bius, 112 ; and HUary, 122 ;
and the Philosophumena, 360
sq., 363 sq.
Otto, Von, 17 ; Corpus, quoted,
28, 29 sq., 31 sq., 33 sq., 41,
53 sq., 55 sq., 59 sq., 63, 65
sq., 67, 69, 71 sq., 77, 376 ;
notes, 31, 32 ; on name Apolin-

PEARSON
aris, 34 ; on work by Apolinaris,
36 ; on Justin, 66, 71
Overbeck, 364
Oxford, University of, 12, 43,
152, 238, 250, 359, 445, 452
— House, 462
Pagi, on date of martyrdom of
Ignatius, 400
Palestine, 20, 114, 187, 348, 426
— Exploration Fund, 358
Pantsenus, 20
Papias, 97, 102, 343 ; ApoUnaris,
his successor, 36 ; his date, and
testimony to the disciples of
the Lord, 96 ; probably known
to Irenaeus, 96 ; his Exposition,
96 ; its title, 145 ; his use of
the First Epistle of S. John,
96 ; witness to use of Fourth
Gospel, 97 ; testimony of
Irenseus to, 97 ; and Basilides,
100 ; in Eusebius, ' the living
and abiding voice,' 145 ; Bret
schneider on, 185 ; Strauss on,
206 sq. ; MSS. of, at Canter
bury and Worcester, 357 ; newly
discovered fragments of, sup
port Johannine authorship, 394
Papirius, 41
Paraclete, the, 33, 124, 265, 439,
442, 444
Paris, 359, 361, 373
— University, 152, 256
Parsons, quoted, 176
Pascal, quoted, 2
Paschal Chronicle. See Apolinaris
Paschal controversy, 33 ; Strauss
on, 212 ; Martineau on, 290
Paschal Cycle, 379
Pastor of Hermas, Von DoUinger
on, 45
Patmos, 21, 394
Patriarchs, the Twelve, 185
Pattison, M., Catena Aurea, and
Essays, 12 sq.
Paulus, 178, 204, 318 ; view of
Fourth Gospel, 247
Pearson, 58 ; on date of Poly
carp's martyrdom, 388 ; on
date of martyrdom of Ignatius,
400

INDEX.

495

PERATICI
Peratici, the, 364 ; Peratse, 373
Peripatetic. See Justin Martyr
Peshito. See Versions
Peter, gospel of, 40, 66
Petermann, 396
Petersburg, S., 406
Pfleiderer, 287
(prjo-iv, meaning of, 368 sq., 370
sq., 372
Philaster of Brescia, his date,
122 ; a historian of heresies,
122 ; probably borrowed from
Hippolytus, 122 ; quoted, 125
Philip of Hierapolis, 41
Philip of Side, 394
Philippi, 402 '
Phillips, 380
PhUo, 68, 410 ; and Plato, 430 sq.,
441 ; and the Logos, 431 ; and
S. John, 436, 457
Philosophumena, the, Strauss on,
209 ; Miller's edition of, 360
sq., 362 ; importance of the
discovery of, 364 ; views on, 365
sq. ; independent of views on
Fourth Gospel, 367
Philostratus, 360
Photius of Constantinople, 39 ;
reference to Apolinaris by, 36 ;
quoted, 36 sq. ; Canon of, 121
Phrygia, 395. See Apolinaris
Pilate, Acts of, 185
Pitra, Cardinal, 35, 359, 385 sq.
Pius, Antoninus, 85
Plato, 60, 300, 338, 356; and
Philo, 431, 441
Platonist. See Justin Martyr
Plummer, 335, 363, 402, 425
Plumptre, Dean, 135, 432
Poitiers. See Hilary
Polybius, 139
Polycarp of Smyrna, 41, 48, 97,
102 ; his martyrdom and pro
bable date, 95 ; modern dis
coveries in relation to, 387-
392 ; older view, 388 ; modern
view, 389 sq. ; his personal link
with S.John, 95 sq. ; his use of
First Epistle of S. John, 96 ;
his writings, 96 ; testimony of
Irenaeus to, 98 sq., 391 ; Bret
schneider on, 185 ; Strauss on,

READING
211 ; 143, 269, 338, 343 ; his
Epistle, if genuine, 402 sq. ; his
Epistle, and Ignatian Epistles,
402 sq., 404
Polycrates of Ephesus, testimony
to Melito by, 38 ; his date, 41 ;
letter to Victor of Rome, 41 ;
his position and influence, 41
sq. ; accepts the Fourth Gospel
as work of S. John, 42 ; de
scribes S. John, 42 ; 102, 343
Ponticus. See Serapion
Pope, quoted, 13
Porphyry, 127
Portus, 263
Positive criticism. See Criticism
Postillx, 151
Pothinus, 18
Potter, 86
Praxeas, Tertullian's reply to, 27
Prejudice, 6 ; anti-theological,
7 sq.
Pressens^, De, 335 ; on Ignatian
Epistles, 399 ; 432
Prevorst, clairvoyante of, 192
Priestley, on Evanson, 176
Probabilia, the. See Bretschneider
Proculus, 91
Protreptikos. See Clement of
Alexandria
Psalms, the, quoted by Justin,
66 ; by Polycarp, 143
Ptolemseus, and Valentinus, 85 ;
his date and position, 87 sq. ;
testimony to, by Irenaeus,
Epiphanius 87 sq. ; by Clement
and Origen, 88 sq. ; by Hippo
lytus, 89 ; his Epistle to Flora,
preserved by Epiphanius, 87 sq. ;
edited by Hilgenfeld, 88 ; his
system implies Fourth Gospel,
90 ; and Irenaeus, 92 ; Strauss
on, 210 ; Martineau on, 288
Punjer, 303
Pythagorean. See Justin Martyr
Quadratus, 388 sq.
Ramsay, 358
Randell, 389
Ranke, ed. of Codex Fuldensis, 379
Reading Church Congress, 80

496

INDEX.

RECOGNITIONS
Recognitions, the doubtful, 185
Reformation, the, 151 ; altered
view of Scriptures at, 153 sq. ;
Luther and, 178
Renan, 5, 14 ; admits reception of
Fourth Gospel at close of se
cond century, 46 ; on Hippo
lytus and Basilides, 101 ; and
Strauss, 195, 204 sq., 212, 219 ;
251 ; quoted, 8, 9, 10, 29 ;
views on the Fourth Gospel,
255 sq. , 411 sq. ; on Basilides,
367, 371 sq. ; on date of Poly
carp's martyrdom, 390 ; 398,
409 ; on Fourth Gospel and
Synoptics, 421 sq., 4S& sq. ; on
Ephesus, 427, 429, 432, 433 sq.
Resch, 143
Rettig, 247
Reuss, quoted, 109, 140, 254, 255;
views on the Fourth Gospel,
253
Review, North American, 11 ;
Fortnightly, 12, 13 ; in Guar
dian, 12 ; The Academy, 45 ;
Athenaeum, 285 ; Nineteenth
Centtwy, 76, 285, 446; Church
Quarterly, 339 ; Quarterly, 340 ;
Contemporary, 97, 330, 344 sq. ,
377, 391, 404, 460 ; Edinburgh,
398
Reville, 264, 431
Reynolds, 335
Rhossus. See Church
Rich, the, collection. See British
Museum
Richardson, 391, 400
Riehm, 333
Riggenbach, 335
Ritschl, 5 ; his works, 235 ;
and Baur's theory, 242 sq. ; on
the Philosophumena, 364
Roberts. See More
Roberts, Alexander, on date of
martyrdom of Ignatius, 400 ;
427
Romanticists, the, 177
Rome, 19, 33, 38, 43, 48, 61, 86,
108 ; and TertuUian, 23, 69 sq. ;
and Irenaeus, 69 ; and Justin,
83 ; and Valentinus, 85 ; and
Marcion, 93; and Hippolytus,

SCHENKEL
111 ; 186 sq., 358 sq., 374, 386
sq., 395, 404, 430, 445 sq. See
Church ; Victor
Ronsch, 17
Roscelin, 152
Rosenmiiller, 385
Rossi, De, 359
Routh, 41, 363 ; on date of mar
tyrdom of Ignatius, 400
Rowan, quoted, 300 sq.
Riickert, 383
Rufinus of Aquileia, his date and
relation to the Canon, 122 ; and
Athanasius, 122
Ruinart, on date of martyrdom of
Ignatius, 400
Sabatier, views on the Fourth
Gospel, 256
Sagaris of Laodicea, 41
Salamia. See Elias
Salamis, 117
Salmon, 17 ; quoted, 37, 44, 131,
362; on the Alogi, 127; on
Supernatural Religion, 269 sq. ;
character as a witness, 339 sq. ;
views on the Fourth Gospel,
346 sq., 348; 392
Salzburg, University of, 382
Samaria, 395, 412
Sand, Ludwig, 307
Sanday, 17 ; quoted, 29, 41,
338 ; on Justin and Fourth
Gospel, 78 sq., 80 ; his opinion
of Abbot and Drummond, 79 ;
and Abbott, 80 ; on Lightfoot,
337 sq. ; character as a witness,
341 ; views on the Fourth Gos
pel, 348 sq., 349 sq., 350 ; 268,
358
Sardis. See Church ; Melito
Saxony, 179
Schaff, on Neander, 304, 335 ;
365, 402
Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopedia, 275,
285
Schanz, 336
Schebest. See Strauss
Schelling, 177; and Bretschneider,
190 ; and Strauss, 192 sq. ; and
Baur, 240
Schenkel, views on Fourth Gos-

INDEX.

497

SCHILLER
pel, 248 sq. ; and De Wette,
308 ; 258, 260
Schiller, on date of Polycarp's
martyrdom, 390
Schlegel, 177
Schleiermacher, 178, 179 ; Strauss
and, 189, 192 sq., 205, 211 sq. ;
Bretschneider and, 190, 194 ;
influence of Schelling and, 193 ;
Baur and, 224, 252 ; his posi
tion and character, 299, 300 sq. ;
his writings, 301 sq. ; treatment
of New Testament, 302 ; and of
the Apocalypse, 302 ; special
views on the Fourth Gospel, 302
sq., 304 ; and the Gospels, 302,
304 ; and De Wette, 307 ; and
Liicke, 310 sq. ; and Bleek, 313
Schmid, on date of martyrdom of
Ignatius, 400
Schmidt, 178
Schmieden, 223
Schneidewin. See Duncker
Scholten, 5 ; on Apolinaris, 37 ;
admits reception of Fourth
Gospel at close of second cen
tury, 46 ; on date of Basilides,
100 ; his position, 263 ; his
views on the Fourth Gospel,
264 sq., 266 ; and Martineau,
287, 291 ; on Hippolytus, 366 ;
335, 349, 409
Schulze, 184
Schiirer, 17 ; on Davidson, 283 ;
and the Fourth Gospel, 283 ;
quoted, 263, 278, 382, 394, 399
Schwarz, 177, 193
Schwegler, 17 ; his works, 235 ;
236, 243, 373 sq.
Schweizer, Strauss on, 212 ;
views on Fourth Gospel, 249
Science, ' laws or principles' of,
454 sq. ; not ultimate, 455 sq. ;
and Fourth Gospel, 456 sq. ;
no plea for its temporary ex
pression, 458 sq. ; leaders of,
dumb before origin of being,
459 sq. ; ' origination ' and, 460
sq. ; modern ethical, 461 sq.
Scriptures, 24, 41, 113, 116 sq.,
118, 120, 123, 143 sq. ; tradition
and interpretation of, 131 ; and

SPENCER
the Church, 129 sq., 131 sq.
134 sq., 137, 141, 157 ; me
chanical verbal inspiration of,
136, 157 ; not always accepted
by Anglican communion, 157
sq. ; or Roman communion, 158
sq. ; or English Protestants, 159
sq. ; or foreign Protestants,
160 sq. ; New Testament not
regarded as, 142 ; Moses and
the Prophets regarded as, 141 ;
first quoted by heretics, 146sg. ;
tradition one with, 148 sq. ; de
pend upon the Church, 149 ;
Augustine on authority of, 150 ;
Jerome on authority of, 150 ;
how received in Dark Ages and
until Reformation, 151 sq. ;
altered view of, at Reformation,
152 sq. ; Bodenstein's views on,
153 ; Luther's views on, 153 sq. ;
Calvin's views on, 154 sq. ;
Zwingli's views on, 155 ; and
CouncU of Trent, 155 ; infal
libility of, substituted for infal
libility of the Church, 155 sq. ;
this infallibility attacked by
modern criticism, 157
Scrivener, 358
Serapion of Antioch, his date, 39 ;
his letter to Carious and Ponti-
cus, and testimony to Apoli
naris, 39 ; his position and
attention to the Canon, 40 ;
testimony of Socrates to, 40
Sermon, on the Mount, 64, 422.
See Lecture
Shaftesbury, 14
Sibylline Oracles, 185
Side. See Philip
Simon Magus, 364
Simpson, on Evanson, 176
Smith, Payne, Dean, 376 sq.
Smith, R. T., on date of martyr
dom of Ignatius, 400 \
Smyrna, 432. See Polycarp
Socrates, Hist. Eccles. quoted,
40 ; testimony to Apolinaris,
Irenaeus, Clement, Serapion, 40
Somerset, 176
Soulier, 431
Spencer, Herbert, quoted, 459, 463
K K

498

INDEX.

SPIEGEL
Spiegel, 264
Stanley, Dean, quoted, 13 sq. ;
196, 315
Stap, his works, and view of the
. Fourth Gospel, 244 sq.
Steitz, 35, 227
Steudel, and Strauss, 193 sq.
Stoic. See Justin Martyr
Storr, 193, 224
Strack and Zockler, 326
Strasburg, 253, 260, 262
Strauss, 5, 8 ; on Apolinaris,
37 ; quoted, 179, 198, 200-
219, 231, 247 sq., 252, 304;
admits reception of Fourth
Gospel at close of second
century, 46 ; on the Clemen
tines, 84 ; and Bretschneider,
189 ; and Schleiermacher, 189,
192 sq., 211 ; home life, 191 ; at
Blaubeuren and Tiibingen, 191
sq., 193 ; at Maulbronn and
Berlin and return to Tubingen,
193 ; his contemporaries and
surroundings, 192 sq. ; calm
of 1834, succeeded by storm
of 1835, 194 ; the Leben
Jesu, 194-200 ; the replies,
194 sq. ; 'nothing new' in
it, 195 ; critical methods, 195
sq. ; and the 'mythical theory,'
195 sq., 2Usq., 216 sq., 218 sq.,
423 sq.; and Steudel, 193 sq. ; and
the Gospels, 195 sq., 196, 213
sq., 215 sq. ; bound by Hegelian
Left, 196 ; and UUmann, 197 ;
and Baur, 192 sq., 197 sq., 200,
203, 205, 212 sq., 214 sq., 217
sq., 219 sq., 223 sq., 225, 228,
230 sq., 232, 234; his uncer
tainty, 197 sq. ; life between
third and fourth editions, 198
sq. ; nomination to Zurich, and
rejection, 199 ; fourth edition
of Leben Jesu, and Christliche
Glaubenslehre, 200 ; and Agnes
Schebest, 201 ; describes his
own fate, 201 ; in parliament,
and political views, 201 sq. ; no
theological work, 1840-64, other
literary work of, 201 sq. ; the
new Leben Jesu, 202-219 ; for

SYRIAC
whom written, 203 sq. ; and
Renan, 204, 219 ; reviews
eariier Lives of Jesus, 204
sq. ; on Papias and Eusebius,
206 sq., 210 ; on the Ignatian
Epistles, 208 ; on Justin Martyr,
208 sq. ; on the Clementines,
208, 210 ; on the Philosophu
mena, 209 ; on BasUides, Valen
tinus, Marcion, Tertullian, 209 ;
on Irenseus, 209 sq., 211 ; on
Theophilus, Tatian, and Athena
goras, 210 ; on the Alogi, 211 ;
on the Apocalypse, 211 sq. ;
summary of views on Fourth
Gospel, 212 sq. ; his critique
that of Tubingen school, 213 ;
conscious and unconscious fic
tion, 214 ; the Messianic idea,
215 sq. ; his disappointment,
217 ; on Ewald, 217 ; 236, 246
sq., 267, 284, 300, 308 sq., 318
sq., 371, 409 ; on the Clemen
tines, 375 ; on criticism, 411
Stromateis. See Clement of Alex
andria
Stuttgart, 223
Sukrean. See Arsenius
Supernatural Religion, author of,
14 sq. ; review in The Academy
by, 45 ; admits reception of
Fourth Gospel at close of
second century, 46 ; on the
Gospels, 48 sq. ; his answer no
answer, 49 ; on the Clemen
tines, 84 ; his views on the
Fourth Gospel, 267 sq. ; criti
cism of Zahn and Salmon on,
269 sq. ; on anonymity, 350 ;
and the Diatessaron, 376 ; 375,
404
Supplicatio pro Christiatiis. See
Athenagoras
Swabia, 191, 193
Sweden, 359
Swete, 119
Switzerland, 84
Sychem, 53
Sylburg, 86
Syria, 86
Syriac, fragments contain writ
ings of Melito, 35 ; version of

INDEX.

499

TACITUS
Eusebius, 35 ; 108, 408. See
Cureton
Tacitus, 138 sq.
Tanner, 131, 148
Tarphon, Rabbi. See Justin
Martyr
Tatian, 57, 82, 102 ; as an apolo
gist, 63 ; his Discourse to Greeks,
63 ; a compUer of four Gospels
• — the Diatessaron — 63, 70 sq. ;
use of Justin, 69 ; the Diates
saron a key to Memoirs of
Justin, 71 , 387 ; Bretschneider
on, 185 ; Strauss on, 210 ; San
day on, 348 ; modern discovery
of Diatessaron, 375-387 ; Arme
nian version of, 376 sq. ; refer
ence to, by Eusebius, 377, 379 ;
and Epiphanius, 378 sq. ; not
known in Greek and Latin
churches, but in Syrian, 379 ;
probably written in Syriac, 379
sq. ; older than the Curetonian,
384 ; Theodoret on, 380 sq. ;
commentary on, in Ephraim's
works, 382 sq. ; and Victor of
Capua, 379, 383 ; 392
Tayler, views on the Fourth
Gospel, 266 sq. ; Martineau and,
285 sq., 291
Taylor, Bayard, quoted, 457
Teller, 318
Tendency, Baur on, 197, 422 sq.
TertulUan, 68, 102 ; his date,
position, and influence, 22 ;
Cyprian on, 22 ; Jerome on, 22,
23 ; Cardinal Newman on, 22
sq. ; Eusebius on, 23 ; his train
ing, 23 ; native of Carthage,
23 ; connexion with Rome,
23, 69 sq. ; his Montanism,
23 sq. ; Tertullianists, 24 ; he
quotes from the Fourth Gospel,
24 ; passages from his works,
24 sq. ; De Cultu Feminarum,
quoted, 23 ; De Prsescriptione
Hsereticorum, quoted, 25 sq.,
85, 92 ; Adversus Marcion,
quoted, 26 sq., 92, 94; Adver
sus Praxean, quoted, 27 ; Adver
sus Valentinianos, quoted, 91 ;

THEODORE
De Resurrectiotie Carnis, quoted,
92 ; De Came Christi, quoted,
94 ; use of instrumentum = tes
tamentum, 26, 92 ; Strauss on,
209 ; 'Evangelical Instrument,'
26 ; his testimony to S. John,
25 sq., 48 ; his testimony to
Melito, 38 ; his use of the Old
Latin, 42 sq. ; use of the Gos
pels, 63, 68 sq. ; his Apology,
and To the Gentiles, 63 ; his
references to the Gospels and
Justin, 68 sq., 70; identity of
term Gospels with Memoirs of,
Justin, 72 sq. ; his unity with
Justin, Irenaeus, and others, 90
sq.; his treatment of, and posi
tion with regard to, the Valenti
nians, 91 ; contrasts Valentinus
and Marcion, 91 sq. ; and Hera
cleon, 92 ; and Marcion, 93 sq. ;
probably follows Irenseus in
his treatment of Marcion and
the Valentinians, 94 ; 139 ;
Strauss on, 209
Testament, New, 4, 42, 44, 62, 63
sq. ; demand for quotations in
second century from, unreason
able, 64 sq. ; 107 sq., 109, 112
sq., 114 sq., 116 sq., 119 sq.,
128, 133 sq., 135, 138 ; no idea
of writings for whole Church
in, 140 sq. ; terms used do not
include idea of writing, 140 ;
oral traditions and, 141 ; term
' Scripture ' in, 142 ; not re
garded as ' Scripture,' 142 sq. ;
little formal quotation from, in
post-Apostolic age, 142 sq. ;
its Canonicity could not be
until Catholicity of Church
was, 146 ; the chUd of the
Church, 148 ; 195, 206, 209,
211, 231, 245 sq., 279, 282 sq.,
285, 301 sq., 307, 319, 323, 333,
339, 342, ! 418, 422, 440, 442
— Old, 38, 62, 116, 119, 136, 138,
142, 143 sq., 195 sq., 215, 261,
265, 307, 319, 332 sq., 380, 441
Testamentum. See Tertullian
Thenius, 335
Theodore of Mopsuestia, his date

500

INDEX.

THEODORET
and position, 117 sq. ; opinion
of his opponent Leontius, 118 ;
his treatment of the Canon, and
reception of Fourth Gospel,
118 sq.
Theodoret, his reference to Apoli
naris, 36, 39 ; on the Diates
saron, 380 sq.
Theodorus Balsamon of Antioch,
list of, 121
Theodotus, 85, 92
Theologi, the, 427, 431 sq.
Theophilus of Antioch, 102 ; his
date, 27 ; three books To Autoly
cus, 27sg. ; its date, 29 ; quoted,
29 sq., 32 sq., 416 ; compared
with quotations from S. John,
30 sq. ; A gainst the Heresy of
Hermogenes, 27 ; other works,
27 sq. ; use of Rev. of S. John,
27 ; testimony of Eusebius to,
28 ; testimony of Jerome to,
28 ; his Commentary on the Gos
pels doubtful, 28 ; opinions of
Zahn and Harnack on, 28 sq. ;
his view of testimony, 29 ; his
undoubted reference to Fourth
Gospel, 29 sq., 31 sq., 405 ; and
to S. John by name, 32 ; his
use of Justin, 69 ; Strauss on,
210 sq. ; Bretschneider on, 185
sq. ; Martineau on, 288
Thiersch, 334
Thirlwall, Bishop, 301
Tholuck, Strauss on, 207 ; reply
to De Wette, 308 ; views on the
Fourth Gospel, 318 sq. ; 332
homa, on Justin and S. John,
73 sq. ; views on the Fourth
Gospel, 261 sq., 263
Thomas, S., 30
— Aquinas, 12, 152
Thrace. See HUlius Publius
Thucydides, 138 sq., 338, 425
Tigris, 118
Tillemont, on date of martyrdom
of Ignatius, 400
Tischendorf, 335, 358
Titus Flavius Clemens. SeeClement
Tobler, his position and view of
the Fourth Gospel, 249 sq. ;
Martineau on, 287

VALENTINUS
Toynbee Hall, 462
Trajan, 100, 259, 279, 327
Translation, key to the Fourth
Gospel, 426, 442 sq., 447, 453 ;
a problem for all time, 444 sq. ;
relation of Universities to pro
blem of, 447 sq. ; its difficulties,
450 sq. ; only leaders can face
it, 448, 450 sq., 452 sq.
Tregelles, 358, 363, 438
Trendelenburg, 240
Trent, council of, 121 ; its date,
and action regarding the Scrip
tures, 155, 158
Truth, 15 ; qualifications required
to judge of, 7, 8 ; everything
sacrificed to, 16. Of Truth.
See Bacon
Trypho. See Justin Martyr
Tubingen, 126, 236, 322
— School, New, 211, 213, 219,
223, 234 sq., 238, 245 sq., 248,
250, 257 sq., 327, 364, 371, 374
sq., 398
— University, 192 sq., 194, 224,
234, 336
Turrianus, 373
Tyndall, quoted, 459
Tyne, 162
Tyrannus, school of, 428
Ueberweg, on date of martyrdom
of Ignatius, 400
Uhlhorn, 335 ; on Hippolytus,
366 ; on date of Polycarp's
martyrdom, 390
Ullmann, 197
Ulrici, 240
Ulster, 275
Uncial manuscripts. See Manu
scripts
Usher, on date of Polycarp's mar
tyrdom, 388 ; 398 ; on date of
martyrdom of Ignatius, 400
Valentinus, 245 ; school of, 19
witness of, to Fourth Gospel
83, 102 ; his date, training, posi
tion, and disciples, 85 sq., 87
his separation from the Church
and value as a witness, 85 sq.
followers form two schools, 86

INDEX.

501

VALESIUS
in East, Excerpta Theodoti and
Doctrina Orientalis, 86; in
West, Ptolemaeus and Hera
cleon, 87 sq. ; their use of
Fourth Gospel, 88 sq. ; and
Hippolytus, 89 ; his system im
plies Fourth Gospel, and so
does the school, 90 ; testimony
of Irenseus, Justin and Tertul
lian to, 90 sq. , 92 ; conclusion
as to his use of Fourth Gospel,
92 sq. ; Bretschneider on, 185
sq. ; Strauss on, 209 sq. ;
Martineau on, 288
Valesius, 388
Vane, Sir Henry, 10 sq.
Vater, 195, 307
Vatican, 158, 374, 385 sq., 386
Venables, 28
Venice, 377, 382, 407
Versions, Old Latin and Peshito
Syriac, 42 ; Liddon and West
cott on, 42 sq. ; their dates, 42
sq. , 108, 138 ; force of evidence
if early date established, 44 ;
verdict to be awaited, 45 ; ques
tion of date will not affect evi
dence, 46 ; their testimony to
use of Fourth Gospel, 108 ; not
all New Testament included,
but certainly Fourth Gospel,
108 ; of the Syrian Church, 120
sq. ; LXX, 143 ; Syriac, of
Eusebius, 406 sq. ; Armenian, of
Eusebius, 407 sq.
Victor of Capua, 379, 383
Victor of Rome, 41
Victoria, Queen, 445
Vienne, 345
Villemain, his search expedition,
359 sq.
Vischer, 289
Volkmar, admits reception of
Fourth Gospel at close of
second century, 46 ; rejects
evidence of Epiphanius about
Tatian, 57 ; considers date of
Justin does not affect result,
57, 59 ; on Messianic idea,
216 ; his works, 236 ; on Baur's
theory, 240 sq. ; Hilgenfeld on,
242; 210, 316, 320 sq., 335,

WESTCOTT
349 ; on Hippolytus, 364, 366 ;
on date of Polycarp's martyr
dom, 390 ; on date of martyr
dom of Ignatius, 400 ; on Cle
mentines, 374 ; 409
Vossian Letters. See Ignatian
Epistles
Wace, 235 ; on the Diatessaron,
382 sq.
Waddington, on date of Justin's
First Apology, 58 ; on date of
Polycarp's martyrdom, 389 sq.,
391
Ward, Humphry, 454
— Mrs. Humphry, Bobert Els-
mere, quoted, 6, 170 ; New
Reformation, quoted, 76
Warfield, 359
Warihgton, quoted, 144
Wear, 164
Weimar, 30a
Weinsberg, 192
Weismann, 454
Weiss, 319 ; his works, 323 sq. ;
views on the Fourth Gospel,
324 sq. , 326 ; notices no English
writer, 342 sq.
Weisse, 5, 205, 212, 227, 258 ;
his position, 247 ; views on the
Fourth Gospel, 248
Weizsacker, 17, 227, 287, 294 ;
views on the Fourth Gospel,
257
Welcker, 216 sq.
Wendover, Mr. See Ward, Mrs.
Wendt, views on Fourth Gospel,
257 sq.
Westcott, Dr.,1 17 ; quoted, 32,
34, 109, 143, 441 ; on Melito,
35 ; on the Old Latin, 42 ; on
the Peshito and Muratorian
Fragment, 43 sq. ; on Justin
and Fourth Gospel, 80 sq. ; on
inspiration, 158
— Bishop, on Ewald, 251 ; 268,
337 ; on the Fourth Gospel, 345
sq. , character as a witness, 338
1 Consecrated Bishop of Durham,
May 1, 1890, and after that date re
ferred to as Bishop Westcott.

502

INDEX.

WESTMINSTER
sq. ; unnoticed by Bleek, Weiss,
and Meyer, 342 sq. ; 358, 452
Westminster, 159
Westphalia, 139
Wette, De, 178, 194, 195, 197 sq.,
300 ; on Tubingen school, 245
sq. ; his life and liberal views,
307 sq. ; on the Fourth Gospel,
308 sq., 310 ; Schenkel on, 308 ;
on Liicke, 310 sq. ; on Bleek,
314
Whately, 14
White, 358
Wieseler, on date of Polycarp's
martyrdom, 390 ; on date of
martyrdom of Ignatius, 400
Wiesinger, 334
Wilberforce, 177
WilUams, Monier, 446
Winer, 178
Witness, friendly and adverse, 13
sq. ; value of a, 350 sq. ; re
quisites in a, 351 sq.
Wolf, Bibliothecaz Hebrseas, quoted,
60 ; 195
Wood, 358, 389, 432 sq.
Worcester, Cathedral Library at.
See Papias
Word of the Lord, 143 sq., 145,
154
Wordsworth, Bishop, 334, 358 ;
quoted, 143, 362, 380 ; on date
of Polycarp's martyrdom, 390
Wright, on the Diatessaron, 380,

ZWINGLI
407 ; on Syriac version of
Eusebius, 406 sq., 408
Wiirtemberg, 193, 201, 223
Xenophon, 138 sq.
Yale CoUege, 335
York, school of, 152
Yorkshire, 176
Zahn, 17, 359 ; on TheophUus'
Commentary, 28 sq. ; quoted,
31, 60, 72, 87, 93, 145, 395,
402 ; on the Alogi, 123 sq. ;
on Supernatural Religion, 269 ;
his position, 330 sq. ; views on
the Fourth Gospel, 331 sq. ; on
the Diatessaron, 379, 380, 383
sq., 385 sq. ; on date of Poly
carp's martyrdom, 390 ; on
Lightfoot, 396 sq. ; Lightfoot
on, 398 ; on date of martyrdom
of Ignatius, 400
Zeller, 75 ; on the Alogi, 126 ;
and Strauss, 193, 202, 207, 219 ;
his works, 236 sq. ; 227 sq., 243,
318 ; on the Clementines, 374 sq.
Zimmermann, 190
Zockler. See Strack
Zonaras, Canon of, 121
Zurich, 199, 218, 236, 249, 287,
317
Zwingli, views on the Scriptures,
quoted, 155,

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