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GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 



THE 



EYIDE/frCES 



v 

. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 



BY ANDREWS NORTON. 



(JHUttton. 



BOSTON: 
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. 

1889. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1867, by 

THE AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION, 

Tn the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District ol Massachusetts. 




EIGHTH EDITION. 



UNIVERSITY PRESS: JOHN WILSON & SON, 
CAMBRIDGE. 



EDITOEIAL NOTE. 



THE present edition of " The Evidences of the Genuineness 
of the Gospels " contains the whole of the original work, 
vfith the exception of such portions as might be omitted 
without essential injury to the force of its main argu 
ment. 

The omissions chiefly consist of passages addressed rather 
to the scholar than to the general reader ; and they have 
been the more readily made, from the belief that any stu 
dent who might be desirous of following the author in his 
investigation of the subject in its more obscure, collateral 
developments, might, without much difficulty, obtain a copy 
of the work in its original form. For the information of the 
reader, a list of the principal omissions is hereto appended. 

C. E. N 



LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL OMISSIONS IN THE 
PRESENT EDITION. 



ORIGINAL EDITION. VOL. I. 

NOTE. (pp. 110-126.)* On some opinions and arguments of 
Eichhorn, and other German theologians. 

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

NOTE A. (pp. iii.-xxxiv.) Sect. I. Introductory statement. 
Sect. II. On the systematic classification of the copies of the New 
Testament, adopted by Griesbach and others ; and the language con 
cerning the diversities among those copies with which it has been 
connected. 

NOTE B. (pp. xcviii.-ci.) Various readings of the copies of the 
Gospels extant in the time of Origen, which are particularly noticed 
by him. 

NOTE C. (pp. cii.-cv.) Undisputed interpolations in manuscripts 
of the Gospels. 

NOTE E. (pp. ccxiv.-ccxxxviii.) Justin Martyr s quotations. 

VOL. II. ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

NOTE A. (pp. iii.-xxiii.) On the statue which is said, by Justin 
Martyr and others, to have been erected at Rome to Simon Magus. 

NOTE B. (pp. xxiv.-xxxvi.) On the Clementine Homilies. 

NOTE C. (pp. xxxvii.-xlvii.) On the false charges brought 
against the heretics, particularly by the later fathers. 

NOTE D. (pp. xlvii.-cciv.) On the Jewish dispensation, the 
Pentateuch, and the other books of the Old Testament. 



The paging referred to is that of the second edition: Cambridge, 1848 



viii OMISSIONS IN THE PRESENT EDITION. 

VOL. III. 

CHAP. VII. (pp. 3-66.) On the system of the Gnostics, as 
intended for a solution of the existence of evil in the world. 

CHAP. VIII. (pp. 67-168.) On the peculiar speculations of the 
theosophic Gnostics. 

CHAP. IX. (pp. 169-181.) On the opinions of the Gnostics 
concerning the person of Christ. 

CHAP. X. (pp. 182-186.) On the opinions of the Gnostics re 
specting the design of Christianity. 

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

NOTE A. (pp. iii.-xxxv.) On the distinction made by tne 
ancients between things intelligible and things sensible; on the use of 
the terms spiritual and material as applied to their speculations ; and 
on the nature of matter. 

NOTE B. (pp. xxxvi.-xlv.) On Basilides and the Basilidians. 
NOTE C. (pp. xlvi.-lx.) On the Gospel of Marcion. 

NOTED, (pp. Ixi.-lxxvii.) On the use of the words Oedf and 
Dem. 



CONTENTS. 



EDITORIAL NOTE. 

PAGE 

NOTES iii 

LlST OF THE PRINCIPAL OMISSIONS IN TUB PRESENT EDITION iv 



INTRODUCTION. 

STATEMENT OF THE CASE 1 

What is meant by the genuineness of the Gospels, 1. Early 
testimony to their genuineness has been affirmed to be want 
ing, 1-5. Theory of Eichhorn respecting the formation of 
the first three Gospels, and of other gospels supposed to have 
been in use before those now received, by successive additions 
of transcribers to the text of an Original Gospel, 5-10. 
Remarks, 10, 11. 

PART I. 

PROOF THAT THE GOSPELS REMAIN ESSENTIALLY 
THE SAME AS THEY WERE ORIGINALLY COM 
POSED 18 

CHAPTER I. 

ARGUMENT FROM THE AGREEMENT OF THE RESPECTIVE COPIES 
OF THE FOUR GOSPELS 15 

The proposition that the Gospels remain essentially the same 
explained, 15-19. They have suffered, like all other ancient 
writings, from the accidents of transcription, 15, 16. Pas- 



X CONTENTS. 

PACIB 

sages in the Received Text that may be regarded as spurious 
or suspicious, 16-19. Proof that the Gospels remain essen 
tially the same as they were originally composed from the 
agreement among the present copies of them, 19-24. This 
agreement not to be accounted for by supposing any arche 
types for our present copies of the Gospels other than the 
original exemplars, 24-27. Argument from the agreement 
among the copies of the Gospels extant at the end of the 
second century, 27-34. 

CHAPTER II. 
ARGUMENTS DRAWN FROM OTHER CONSIDERATIONS .... 85 

From the high value ascribed to the Gospels by the Christiana 
of the first two centuries, 35-41. From their strong censure 
of the mutilations and changes which they charge some 
heretics, particularly Marcion, with having made in the text 
of the Gospels, 42. From the character of the various read 
ings in Origen s manuscripts of the Gospels, particularly 
mentioned or referred to by him, 42-47. From the notices 
of various readings in other ancient writers, 47. From the 
striking characteristics of the respective Gospels being pre 
served throughout in all of them, showing that each is 
essentially the work of an individual author, 48-50. Par 
ticularly from their being written throughout in Hebraistic 
Greek, 50-52. From their not betraying marks of a later 
age than that assigned for their composition, or incongruities 
with the character and circumstances of their supposed 
authors, 52, 53. From their consistency in their representa 
tions of the character of Christ, 53, 54. Summary of pre 
ceding arguments, 54, 55. Particular remarks on the Gospel 
of Matthew, 55-57. Conclusion, 57, 58. 

CHAPTER III. 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED 69 



General remarks, 59, 60. The theory of the corruption of the 
Gospels as connected with that of an Original Gospel from 
which the first three, in common with many apocryphal gos 
pels, were derived, remarked upon, 60-62. Assertion of 
Eichhorn respecting arbitrary alterations in manuscripts be- 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAGE 



fore the invention of printing, 62, 63. Examination of a 
passage from Celsus, 63-65. Of a passage from Clement of 
Alexandria, 65-67. Conclusion, 67. 



PART II. 

DIRECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE THAT THE GOS 
PELS HAVE BEEN ASCRIBED TO THEIR TRUE 
AUTHORS 69 

CHAPTER I. 

EVIDENCE FROM THE GENERAL RECEPTION OF THE GOSPELS 
AS GENUINE AMONG CHRISTIANS DURING THE LAST QUARTER 
OF THE SECOND CENTURY 71 

The proposition that they were so received generally admitted, 
71. Evidence of it from IrenaBus, 71-74. From Theophi- 
lus, 74, 75. From Tertullian, 75-77. From Clement of 
Alexandria, 77, 78. From Celsus, 78-81. From Origen, 
81-83. Remarks on this evidence. The Christian writers 
adduced do not testify merely to their individual belief, but 
speak in the name of the whole community to which they 
belonged, 83, 84. The testimony to the genuineness of the 
Gospels is, therefore, of a peculiar character, 84, 85. Chris 
tians, at the period in question, were fully able to determine 
whether the Gospels were genuine or not, 85-87. They 
were deeply interested in the question, 87, 88. Character of 
the Christians of that age, 88, 89. Throughout this commu 
nity the Gospels were received as genuine, 89. Confirma 
tion of their testimony to the genuineness of the Gospels 
from the fact of the unquestionable genuineness of most of 
the other books of the New Testament universally received 
by them, and the probable genuineness of all, 89-91. The 
belief of Christians in their religion was a belief of the 
truths contained in the Gospels, and therefore identified with 
a belief of their authenticity, and consequently of their 
genuineness, 91-93. The fact of the general reception of 
the Gospels at the period in question, considered in itself, is 
to be accounted for only on the supposition of their genuine 
ness, 93. The truth of this proposition may be particularly 



Xll CONTENTS. 

PAUH 

shown, as regards the first three Gospels, by a consideration 
of the remarkable phenomena which they present in their 
correspondences with, and differences from, one another, 93, 
94. Supposing the first three Gospels not to be works of 
the apostolic age, those phenomena cannot be explained 
consistently with the fact of their common reception among 
Christians : either by the supposition that the evangelists 
copied one from another, 94-96 ; or that they made use of 
a common written document or documents, 96-98 ; or that 
they all founded their narratives on oral tradition, 98-100. 
The phenomena, therefore, admit of no solution, if we sup 
pose the first three Gospels to have been written after the 
apostolic age, 100. Observations upon this fact, 100. The 
four Gospels, if they were not the works of the authors to 
whom they are ascribed, could never have been acknowledged 
and received as such by the Christian community, 100, 101. 
Their reception not the result of any concert among leading 
Christians, 101, 102. Names of their authors not arbitrarily 
assigned, otherwise Matthew s Gospel would have been 
ascribed to a more distinguished apostle, and those of Mark 
and Luke to apostles, 102. The discrepances among the 
four Gospels would have prevented the reception of all as 
of equal authority, had they not been handed down together 
from the apostolic age, 102-105. The genuineness of any 
one of the Gospels creates a strong presumption in favor of 
the genuineness of the other three, 105-107. The Gospels 
were composed among the Jewish Christians, but descend to 
us through the Gentile Christians, who would not have re 
ceived from the former, after the apostolic age, four spurious 
histories of Christ, written by unlearned Jews in a style 
regarded by native Greeks as barbarous, 107-110. The 
reverence for the Gospels at the end of the second century 
implies their celebrity at a much earlier period, 110, 111. 
Summary, 111, 112. 



CHAPTER II. 

EVIDENCE TO BE DEBITED FROM THE WRITINGS OP JUSTIN 
MARTYR . 118 

Account of Justin and his writings, 113, 114. Three objec 
tions which have been made to the supposition that he quoted 



CONTENTS. 

PAOK 

the Gospels, 114, 115. Answer to the first objection, that 
he does not quote the Gospels by their present titles, 115-119. 
Answer to the second objection, that there is a want of 
verbal coincidence between his quotations and the correspond 
ing passages in the Gospels, 119-125. Answer to the third 
objection, that he quotes passages respecting Christ not found 
in the Gospels, 125-132. Proof that Justin used our present 
Gospels : From the agreement in thought and words between 
his quotations and passages in the Gospels, and the great im 
probability that those quotations should have been taken from 
any other book, 132-135. From the fact, that there is no 
intimation to the contrary in any subsequent writer, 135. 
From the manner in which he mentions and describes the 
books which he quotes, 135, 136. From the manner in which 
he speaks of the high authority and general reception among 
Christians of those books, answering to the manner in which 
his contemporary, Irenaeus, speaks of the Gospels ; and from 
the fact, that such books as Justin describes and quotes could 
not have disappeared and been forgotten immediately after he 
wrote, as must have been the case if they were not the Gos 
pels, 136, 137. 

CHAPTER IH. 

EVIDENCE OF PAPIAS. ST. LUKE S OWN TESTIMONY TO THE 
GENUINENESS OF HIS GOSPEL 138 

Scarcity of the remains of Christian writers during the first 
half of the second century, 138. Remarks on the evidence 
of Papias, 139. On St. Luke s testimony to his own Gospel, 
139, 140. This, likewise, tends to prove the genuineness of 
the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, 140. And of all the 
other three Gospels, 141. And particularly, in connection 
with the evidence of Papias, the genuineness of that of John, 
141, 142. 

CHAPTER IV. 

CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE DIRECT HISTORICAL EVI 
DENCE OF THE GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS 143 

No testimony of the same character, or of the same weight, 
can be produced for the genuineness of any other ancient 



Xiv CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

work, 143, 144. But, putting out of view the peculiar nature 
and value of the testimony to their genuineness, their univer 
sal reception by catholic Christians can be accounted for only 
by the fact, that they had been handed down from the begin 
ning with the character which they afterwards bore, 144, 145. 
Comparison of the evidence of the genuineness of the 
Gospels with that of the genuineness of ancient classical 
writings, 146. Objection to it on the ground that the con 
tents of one Gospel are irreconcilable with those of another, 
146. Objection on the ground of the miraculous char 
acter of the history contained in the Gospels, 146, 147. 
This objection destructive of all religion, 147, 148. But has 
no bearing to disprove the genuineness of the Gospels, 148, 
149. Remarks on the present state of belief in Christianity, 
149-151. 

PART III. 

ON THE EVIDENCE FOR THE GENUINENESS OF 
THE GOSPELS AFFORDED BY THE EARLY HERE 
TICS 153 

CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY REMARKS. THE EBIONITES. THEIR USE OP 
THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW ONLY. INFERENCES FROM THEIR 

NOT USING THE OTHER THREE GOSPELS 155 

CHAPTER H. 
GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE GNOSTICS. STATE OF OPINION 

AMONG THE GREAT BODY OF CHRISTIANS DURING THE SEC 
OND CENTURY 160 

Meaning of the word " Gnostic," 160. General notice of the 
Gnostics, and of the value of their evidence, 160-163. 
Acquaintance with their history and doctrines necessary in 
order to estimate its value, 163. Incidental bearings of the 
inquiry into their history and doctrines, 163-170. The 
Gnostics divided into the MARCIONITES and the THEO- 
SOPHIC GNOSTICS, 170. The Valentinians, the principal 
representatives of the theosophic Gnostics, 170. Doctrines 



CONTENTS. XV 

PAQB 

common to the Gnostics generally, 170-174. Notice of the 
doctrines peculiar to the theosophic Gnostics, 174, 175. 
These, from various causes, difficult to be ascertained and 
understood, 175-177, Imperfect and erroneous accounts of 
the Gnostics given by the fathers, 175-179. Method to be 
pursued in determining the facts concerning them, 179. 
Errors of modern writers, 179-184. Separation of the 
Gnostics and Ebionites from the catholic Christians, 184-186. 

State of opinion among the catholic Christians, 186, 187. 

Aversion to Judaism, the principal occasion of Gnosti 
cism, 188. 

CHAPTER HI. 

ON THE EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE GNOSTICS, AND THE 
SOURCES OF INFORMATION CONCERNING THEM 189 

Story of Irenseus, and other fathers, that Simon Magus was the 
author of the Gnostic heresy, 189. Account of Simon Ma 
gus, 189-195. Notice of other supposed heretics of the first 
century, 195, 196. . Of Cerinthus, 196-200. Gnostics not 
referred to in the undisputed books of the New Testament, 
200-203. Did not appear before the earlier part of the 
second century, 203, 204. Date assigned to the principal 
Gnostic sects by Clement of Alexandria, Irenseus, Justin 
Martyr, and Tertullian, 204, 205. Those sects all mentioned 
by Justin Martyr, 205, 206. The work of Irenasus Against 
Heretics, 206, 207. Other works affording information re 
specting the Valentinians, 207-209. Tertullian s work 
against Marcion, and other writings concerning the Marcion- 
ites, 209, 210. The earlier fathers to be chiefly relied on as 
respects the Gnostics, 210. Distinction between the earlier 
and the later fathers, 210, 211. The later fathers who have 
given accounts of them, 211-215. Epiphanius, 211. The 
author of the Dialogue De Recta Fide, 212. Philaster, 212. 

Augustin, 212, 213. Theodoret, 213, 214. Other wri 
ters, particularly Eusebius, 215. Notices of the Gnostics 
by Celsus, 215. Notices of the Gnostics, and of individuals 
holding Gnostic opinions, by Plotinus and Porphyry, 215-218. 

Plotinus refers primarily to heathens, 217, 218. Remarks 
on preceding statements, 218. Origin and decline of the 
Gnostics, 219, 220. Their number when most flourishing, 
220-223. 



XVI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

PA.GB 

ON THE MORALS OF THE GNOSTICS, AND THEIK IMPERFECT 
CONCEPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY 224 

Character of the catholic Christians in the second century, 224. 

Two classes of Gnostics ; one strict, and the other lien 
tious, in their morals, 224-232. Charges of licentiousness 
against a portion of the theosophic Gnostics not unfounded, 
225-232. Peculiar causes of the existence of immorality, 
and ignorance of the character and requirements of Chris 
tianity, among a portion of its early converts, 232-249 : 
the influence of the vices and idolatry of the heathen world, 
233-236 ; the misunderstanding and perversion of Chris 
tian truths, particularly as expressed by St. Paul, 236-239; 
the great change in men s religious belief effected by Chris 
tianity, 239-243; the imperfect means that many had of 
becoming acquainted with Christianity, 243-245 ; false 
teachers receiving money from their disciples, and in other 
respects of like character with the ancient sophists, 245-249. 

Digression on the divinity of Christianity, 248. The 
immorality and irreligion resulting from these causes de 
scribed by St. Paul, 249, 250 ; also in the Second Epistle 
of Peter (so called), and the Epistle of Jude (so called), 250- 
252; and in the Apocalypse, 252, 253. Why these im 
moralities finally settled down among a portion of the 
Gnostics, 253-255. The licentious class of Gnostics escaped 
that persecution by which the catholic Christians were puri 
fied, 255-258. Principles and practice of the better class of 
Gnostics respecting martyrdom, 258, 259. Those of the 
catholic Christians, 259-263. General remarks on the moral 
and religious character of the Gnostics, 263-266. 



CHAPTER V. 
ON SOME PSEUDO-CHRISTIAN SECTS AND INDIVIDUALS WHO 

HAVE BEEN IMPROPERLY CONFOUNDED WITH THE GNOS- 

"cs 267 

The fact that the Gnostics have been confounded with sects not 
Christian is evident from their origin being referred to Simon 



CONTENTS. 

TAGU 

Magus, neither Simon nor his followers being Christians, 267. 
Other pseudo-Christian sects, with whom they have been 
Confounded, 267-291 : the Carpocratians, 267 -27 5 ; pseudo- 
Christians maintaining that the practice of scandalous immoralities 
was a religious duty, 275, 276 ; a subordinate set of Gnostics, 
the existence of whicli is pretended by Epiphanius, and to 
which he gives the name of " Gnostics," used, not as a generic, 
but a specific, name, 276-279 ; ( the Gospel of Eve ; ) pantheis 
tic pseudo- Christians, 279-283; the Ophians or Ophites, 283- 
291. Causes of the existence of such pseudo-Christians, 
291, 292. How the Gnostics came to be confounded with 
them, 292, 293. 



CHAPTER VI. 

UN GNOSTICISM, CONSIDERED AS A SEPARATION OP JUDAISM 
FROM CHRISTIANITY 294 

The opinions of the Gnostics concerning the Old Testament, 
294-298. Correspondence between their opinions and those 
of the early catholic Christians, 298. Views of the author 
of the Clementine Homilies, 298, 299. Modes by which the 
catholic Christians solved the difficulties which they felt in 
the Old Testament, 299-315 : they applied to the Logos 
those representations of God in the Old Testament which they 
thought unworthy of God, 299-303; Tertullian s notion, 
that it was characteristic of the dispensations of God to use 
means ignoble and foolish in the eyes of men, 303, 304 ; the 
fathers generally solved the difficulties of the Old Testament 
by the allegorical mode of interpretation, 305-315. This 
mode of interpretation rejected by the Marcionites, and not 
thus applied to the Old Testament by the theosophic Gnostics, 
816. The proper Christian Gnostics regarded it as impossi 
ble, that the God of the Old Testament and the God of 
Christians should be the same being, 316, 317. The extra 
ordinary character of the fact, that the catholic Christians 
adopted the notions of the Jews respecting the Old Testa 
ment, 317-319. The fundamental difference between them 
and the Gnostics consisted in their different opinions con 
cerning Judaism and the author of the Jewish dispensation, 
319. 

6 



XV111 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

PAOB 

ON THE MANNER IN WHICH THE GNOSTICS RECONCILED THEIR 
DOCTRINES WITH CHRISTIANITY 320 

Discrepance between the doctrines of the Gnostics and the 
teaching of Christ such as may lead one at first view to sus 
pect that they held the Gospels in no esteem, 320. But 
a similar discrepance has existed between the doctrines of a 
great majority of professed Christians and the teaching of 
Christ, 320-322. Prevalence of religious error, 322. 
Faith, in consequence, disconnected from reason, and founded 
on a pretended intuitive discernment of spiritual things, 323. 
Prevalent errors respecting the character and interpretation 
of the Scriptures, 323-325. Means by which the Gnostics, 
in particular, reconciled their doctrines with their Christian 
faith, 326-338 : allegorical and other false modes of inter 
pretation used by the theosophic Gnostics, 326, 327 ; their 
appeal to a secret oral tradition, by which they contended that 
the esoteric doctrines of Christianity had been preserved, 
327-332 ; (the notion of such a tradition equally maintained 
by Clement of Alexandria, 328-331 ; to be distinguished 
from the public traditionary knowledge of Christianity as 
serted by other fathers, 329-331 n. ; and also from the 
fundamental doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church con- 
corning the authority of tradition, 331 n.) ; the notion of 
the Gnostics concerning the apostles and Christ, that they 
accommodated their doctrine to the capacity of their hearers, 
not openly teaching the more mysterious truths of religion, 
331, 332 ; another opinion, that the apostles generally, 
through the influence of their Jewish prejudices, were led 
into errors, and did not discern all the truth ; St. Paul, how 
ever, being regarded as much the most enlightened of their 
number, 332, 333 ; opinion that the teachings of Christ 
were not all of equal authority, 334; (remarks on the no 
tions of the Gnostics respecting the apostles, 334, 335 ; 
on their pretence to infallible knowledge, 335-337) ; pecu 
liar case of the Marcionites in appealing only to their muti 
lated copies of the Gospel of Luke and of ten of the Epistles 
of St. Paul, 337. Apparent from what precedes, that the 
Gnostics could have appealed to no history of Christ at vari- 



CONTENTS. XIX 

PAQR 

ance with the four Gospels, 338. But the subject admits 
of further explanation, 338, 339. 

CHAPTER VHI. 

ON THE QUESTION, WHETHER THE GNOSTICS OPPOSED TO THE 
FOUR GOSPELS ANY OTHER WRITTEN HISTORIES OR HISTORY 
OF CHRIST S MINISTRY 340 

This question leads to a general review of those books which 
have been called apocryphal gospels, 340, 341. Considera 
tions to be attended to in this examination, 342-345. Had 
the Gnostics opposed any other history of Christ to the four 
Gospels, we should have had full information of the fact, 

342, 343. But no evidence of such a fact appears in Irenaeus 
or Tertullian, the two principal writers against the Gnostics, 

343. It is not probable that the ancient books which may 
be properly called apocryphal gospels were histories of Christ s 
ministry, but books giving the views of the writer concerning 
the doctrines of Christianity, 343-345. No apocryphal gos 
pel mentioned by Tertullian, 345, 346. Irenaeus once speaks 
of a book called The True Gospel as in use among the Valen- 
tinians, 346, 347. If there were such a book, it was not an 
historical gospel, 347. Its existence doubtful; and, if such 
a book existed, it was a work of no notoriety, and one to 
which the Valentinians, in general, attached no importance, 
347, 348. Irenaeus mentions one other supposed book, The 
Gospel of Judas, of which he ascribes the use to a sect called 
Cainites ; but the existence of the sect or of the book is 
altogether improbable, 348-350. This is all the information 
concerning apocryphal gospels to be derived from the two 
principal writers against the Gnostics, 350, 351. Excepting 
the story of Irenaeus about The True Gospel, there is no 
charge by any writer against the Valentinians, or the Mar- 
cionites, of using apocryphal gospels, unless Marcion s 
mutilated copy of Luke be so called, 351. Nor against the 
Basilidians, before the author of the Homilies on Luke, 851. 

He, and others subsequently, speak of a Gospel of Basili- 
des, 351, 352. No probability that such a book existed, 352. 

The notion of its existence probably had its origin in the 
feet, that Basilides wrote a Commentary on the four Gospels, 
862, 353. Remarks on the preceding facts, 353. Clement 



XX CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

of Alexandria mentions The Gospel according to the Egyptians, 
353, 354. Account of this book, 354-358. No other apocry 
phal gospel mentioned by Clement, unless the Gospel of the 
Hebrews be so named, 358, 359. But he speaks of a book 
called The Traditions, which has been imagined to be the same 
with The Gospel according to Matthias, 360. Account of this 
book, 360. Of the title of The Gospel according to Matthias, 
361, 362. The Gospel of Peter, 362. Account of this book, 
362-365. Origen, in his undisputed works, mentions no 
other apocryphal book entitled a gospel, besides this, 365, 
366. Notices of supposed apocryphal gospels by the author 
of the Homilies on Luke, and by Eusebius, 366. General 
remarks on the apocryphal gospels, 366-370. Not commonly 
written with a fraudulent design, 367, 368. Very little 
notice taken of them in ancient times, 368-370. Late 
apocryphal gospels, 370. The Protevangelion of James, and 
other gospels of the Nativity, so called, 370-374. Fables re 
specting Joseph and Mary, 371-374. The gospels of the 
Infancy, so called, 374-379. Fables respecting the infancy 
and childhood of our Lord, 374-378. Account of The Gos 
pel of Nicodemus, so called, 379-383 n. Remarks on the 
fables concerning our Lord and concerning Mary, 380-384. 
Conclusion from the preceding statements, 385. Subject 
resumed, 385. Certain gospels, imagined to have been used 
by Tatian in forming his Diatessaron, 385-387. Pretended 
Gospel of Cerinthus, 387-389. Concluding remarks. Mis 
takes that have been committed concerning apocryphal gos 
pels, 389-391. 

CHAPTER IX. 

CONCLUDING STATEMENT OP THE EVIDENCE FOR THE GENU 
INENESS OF THE GOSPELS AFFORDED BY THE GNOSTICS . . 392 

General view, 392. Evidence particularly afforded by the Mar- 
cionites, 392, 393. Evidence particularly afforded by the 
theosophic Gnostics, 393-396. Striking proof from Tertul- 
lian of the abundant use of the Gospels made by the Gnostics, 
397-400. No history of Christ s ministry at variance with 
the four Gospels known by the early Christians, 401. Re 
marks on the supposition, that the Gnostics appealed to the 
Gospels only by way of reasoning ad hominem with the catho 
lic Christians, 401-404. Concluding remarks, 405-413. 



CONTENTS. 

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

NOTE A. 

PAGE 

FURTHER REMARKS ON THE PRESENT STATE OP THE TEXT 
OF THE GOSPELS 417 

f 

SECTION I. 

On the Character and Importance of the Various Readings of 
the New Testament 417 

SECTION II. 

On the Original Language of Matthew s Gospel, and its Use by 
the Hebrew Christians 425 

SECTION III. 

On some Passages in the Received Text of the Gospels, of 
which the Genuineness is doubtful 431 

I. 

The first Two Chapters of the present Greek Gospel of Mat 
thew 431 

II. 

Matthew, chap, xxvii. 3-10. (Account of the repentance and 
death of Judas) 437 

in. 
Matthew, chap, xxvii. part of ver. 52 and 53. (Account of 

the rising of the bodies of many saints at our Saviour s death) 441 
Marginal note on Matthew, chap. xii. 40. (The sign of Jonah) 442 

IV. 
The Conclusion of Mark s Gospel. (Chap. xvi. 9-20) . . .448 

v. 

Luke, chap. ix. 55, 56. (Our Lord s reproof of James and 
John, when they proposed calling down fire from heaven on 
a village of Samaritans) 449 



XX11 CONTENTS. 

YI. PAGB 

Luke, chap. xxii. 43, 44. (The account of the agony and 
bloody sweat of Jesus) 454 

VII. 

John, chap. v. 3, 4. (The descent of the angel into the Sheep 
Pool at Jerusalem) 458 

VIII. 

John, chap. vii. 53-viii. 11. (The story of the woman taken 
in adultery) 460 

IX. 

John, chap. xxi. 24, 25. (The concluding words of our present 
copies of John s Gospel) 461 



NOTE B. 

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE CORRESPONDENCES AMONG THE 
FIRST THREE GOSPELS 463 

SECTION I. 
Preliminary Statement 463 

SECTION II. 

On the Supposition that Two of the Evangelists copied, One 
from his Predecessor ; and the Other, from Both his Prede 
cessors 475 

SECTION III. 

On the Supposition that the First Three Evangelists made use 
of Common Written Documents 488 

SECTION IV. 

Proposed Explanation of the Correspondences among the First 
Three Gospels < g^Q 

SECTION V. 

Inferences from the Explanation which has been given of the 
Correspondences among the First Three Gospels 524 



CONTENTS. XX111 

FAOB 
SECTION VI. 

Illustration of the First Three Gospels to be derived from the 
Circumstances connected with their Composition 528 

SECTION VII. 
Concluding Remarks 542 

NOTE C. 
ON THE WRITINGS ASCRIBED TO APOSTOLICAL FATHERS . . 645 

SECTION I. 
Purpose of this Note 545 

SECTION II. 

The Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians. Another 
Epistle ascribed to Clement 546 

SECTION III. 
The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians 549 

SECTION IV. 
The Shepherd of Hermas 550 

SECTION V. 
The Epistle of Barnabas, so called 553 

SECTION VI. 
Epistles ascribed to Ignatius 560 

SECTION VII. 

Concluding Remarks respecting the Evidence for or against the 
Genuineness of the Gospels to be derived from the Writings 
before mentioned 566 



INTRODUCTION. 



STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 

THE object of the following work is to prove the genuine 
ness of the Gospels. In asserting their genuineness, I mean 
to be understood as affirming, that they remain essentially the 
same as they were originally written ; and that they have 
been ascribed to their true authors. The ground which has 
been taken by those who have denied their genuineness, as 
thus explained, may appear from the following statements. 

The Gospels are quoted, as the undoubted works of the 
authors to whom they are ascribed, by an unbroken series 
of Christian writers, reaching back to the latter part of the 
second century ; or, in other words, to the time of Irenseus, 
who wrote in the last quarter of that century. But it is 
affirmed, that beyond his time the testimony to their genuine 
ness fails. As we ascend to a remoter period, we come to the 
writings of Justin Martyr, who flourished about the middle 
of the second century; and to those ascribed to Apostolic 
Fathers, or supposed contemporaries of the Apostles. It has 
been affirmed, that these writings, though they are commonly 
quoted for the purpose, afford no evidence that our present 
Gospels were known to their authors. In regard to the 
writings attributed to Apostolic Fathers, the remark is not 
new. It was made, for instance, by Bolingbroke, who, in 



2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 

his u Letters on the Study of History," has the following 
passage : 

"Writers copy one another; and the mistake that was com 
mitted, or the falsehood that was invented by one, is adopted 
by hundreds. 

" Abbadie says, in his famous book, that the gospel of St. 
Ma* ,hew is cited by Clemens, Bishop of Rome, a disciple of the 
apostles; that Barnabas cites it in his epistle; that Ignatius and 
1 olycarp receive it ; and that the same fathers that give testimony 
for Matthew, give it likewise for Mark. Nay, your Lordship will 
find, I believe, that the present bishop of London [Gibson] , in his 
third pastoral letter, speaks to the same effect. I will not trouble 
you nor myself with any more instances of the same kind. Let 
this, which occurred to me as I was writing, suffice. It may well 
suffice ; for I presume the fact advanced by the minister and the 
bishop is a mistake. If the fathers of the first century do mention 
some passages that are agreeable to what we read in our evangel 
ists, will it follow that these fathers had the same gospels before 
them ? To say so is a manifest abuse of history, and quite inex 
cusable in writers that knew, or should have known, that these 
fathers made use of other gospels, wherein such passages might be 
contained ; or they might be preserved in unwritten tradition. 
Besides which, I could almost venture to affirm, that these fathers 
of the first century do not expressly name the gospels we have of 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John." * 

The supposition of Bolingbroke in the last sentence is 
true ; or rather, to state the fact precisely, the Gospels are 
not named in the writings ascribed to fathers of the first 
century. In agreement with what has been quoted, the 
learned German theologian, Eichhorn, in his "Introduction 
to the New Testament," endeavors to prove at length, that 
the authors of those writings did not make use of our present 
Gospels, but of others different from them, t 

* Letter V. 4. 

t Einleitung in d. N. T., i.e. Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i 
p. 113, seqq. I give the pages of the first edition, which are numbered like 
wise in the margin of the second. 



STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 3 

Another German theologian, Less, who died about the 
close of the last century, wrote in defence of the genuineness 
of the books of the New Testament. In treating this subject, 
the results at which he arrives, from an examination of the 
writings just mentioned, are thus stated by Bishop Marsh : 

"From the epistle of Barnabas, no inference can be deduced 
that he had read any part of the New Testament. From the gen 
uine epistle, as it is called, of Clement of Rome, it may be inferred 
that Clement had read the first epistle to the Corinthians. From 
the Shepherd of Hernias, no inference whatsoever can be drawn. 
From the epistles of Ignatius, it may be concluded that he had 
read St. Paul s epistle to the Ephesians, and that there existed iu 
his time evangelical writings, though it cannot be shown that he 
has quoted from them. From Poly carp s epistle to the Philip- 
plans, it appears that he had heard of St. Paul s epistle to that 
community, and that he quotes a passage which is in the first 
epistle to the Corinthians, and another which is in the epistle to 
the Ephesians; but no positive conclusion can be drawn with 
respect to any other epistle, or any of the four Gospels." * 

According to this statement, it would appear that no evi 
dence can be derived from the works ascribed to Apostolic 
Fathers in proof of the genuineness of the Gospels. 

The writings of Justin Martyr have, till of late, been ap 
pealed to confidently, as affording very early and very impor 
tant evidence of this fact. Lardner states, that "he has 
numerous quotations of our Gospels except that of St. Mark, 
which he has seldom quoted ; " that " it must be plain to all, 
that he owned and had the highest respect for the four Gos 
pels ; " and that he affords proof, that " these Gospels were 
publicly read in the assemblies of the Christians every Lord s 
day." f " It seems extremely material to be observed," says 
Paley, "that in all Justin s works, from which might be 
extracted almost a complete life of Christ, there are but two 

* Marsh s Michaelis, vol. i. p. 354. 

1 Lardner s Credibility of the Gospel History, p. ii. c. 10. 



4 STATEMENT OP THE CASE. 

instances in which he refers to any thing as said or done 
by Christ which is not related concerning him in our present 
Gospels ; which shows that these Gospels, and these, we may 
say, alone, were the authorities from which the Christians of 
that day drew the information upon which they depended." * 

It is, however, at present contended, that Justin Martyr 
did not quote from our four Gospels, and therefore cannot 
afford evidence of their genuineness. He does not mention 
them by name. His quotations which agree in sense with 
passages found in the Gospels, he professes to take from what 
he calls " Memoirs by the Apostles ; " and, in these quota 
tions, there is generally a want of verbal coincidence with 
the passages in the Gospels to which they otherwise corre 
spond. 

"Mr. Stroth," says Bishop Marsh, "has shown by very satis 
factory arguments, that these Memoirs were not our four Gospels, 
but a single gospel, which had much matter in common with the 
Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke ; but which was 
not the same with any of them. Since Mr. Stroth s time, the sub 
ject has been again investigated by several eminent critics ; and 
the uniform result of their inquiries is, that Justin s Kiro^vrj^ovevfiara 
[the Memoirs in question] were not our four Gospels, but some 
single gospel." f " If," says Bishop Marsh, in another work, 
"the force of Mr. Stroth s arguments be admitted (and they seem 
really convincing), we cannot produce Justin as an evidence for 
the four Gospels ; but, on the other hand, no inference can be 
deduced to their disadvantage." J 

The concluding remark, that no inference can be deduced 
to the disadvantage of the Gospels, Bishop Marsh endeavors 
to illustrate : but its truth will not be admitted by those who 
deny the genuineness of the Gospels; and the proposition 
does not, in itself, appear tenable. 

* Paley s Evidences of Christianity, p. i. c. ix. s. 1. 
t Letters to the Anonymous Author of Remarks on Michaelis and his 
Commentator, p. 29. 

$ Marsh s Michaelis, i. 361. 



STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 5 

* Justin Martyr," says Eichhorn, "who was born A.D. 89, 
and died A.D. 163, a Samaritan, a native of Flavia Neapolis, 
early became converted from a heathen philosopher to a zealous 
Christian, and was one of the earliest Christian writers. He no 
where quotes the life and sayings of Jesus according to our pres 
ent four Gospels, which he was not acquainted with. This is a 
very important circumstance in regard to the history of the Gos 
pels ; as he had devoted many years to travel, and resided a long 
time in Italy and Asia Minor." * 

On the whole, it is concluded by Eichhorn and others, that 
our four Gospels, in their present form, were not in common 
use before the end of the second century. Previously to that 
time, it is supposed that other gospels were in circulation. 
" If we will not," says Eichhorn, " be influenced by idle tales 
and unsupported tradition, but by the only sure evidence of 
history, we must conclude, that, before our present Gospels, 
other decidedly different gospels were in circulation, and were 
used during the first two centuries in the instruction of Chris 
tians." f He supposes these earlier gospels and our first three 
Gospels, namely, those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, to have 
all had a common origin ; and he gives the following ac 
count of the manner in which he conceives them to have been 
formed. 

There was, he supposes, very early in existence a short 
historical sketch of the life of Christ, which may be called the 
Original Gospel. This was, probably, provided for the use 
of those assistants of the apostles in the work of teaching 
Christianity, who had not themselves seen the actions and 
heard the discourses of Christ. It was, however, but "a 
rough sketch," "a brief and imperfect account," "without 
historical plan or methodical arrangement." In this respect 
it was, according to Eichhorn, very different from our four 
Gospels. " These present no rough sketch, such as we must 
suppose the first essay upon the life of Jesus to have been ; 

* Einleitung iu d. N. T., i. 78. f Ibid., p. 140. 



b STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 

but, on the contrary, are works written with art and labor, 
and contain portions of his life of which no mention was 
made in the first preaching of Christianity."* This Original 
Gospel was the basis both of the earlier gospels used during 
the first two centuries, and of the first three of our present 
Gospels, by which, together with the Gospel of John, those 
earlier gospels were finally superseded. The earlier gospels 
retained more or less of the rudeness and incompleteness of 
l .he Original Gospel. 

* But they very soon fell into the hands of those who undertook 
to supply their defects and incompleteness, both in the general 
compass of the history, and in the narration of particular events. 
Not content with a life of Jesus, which, like the gospel of the He 
brews, and those of Marcion and Tatian, commenced with his pub 
lic appearance, there were those who early prefixed to the Memoirs 
used by Justin Martyr, and to the gospel of Cerinthus, an account 
of his genealogy, his birth, and the period of his youth. In like 
manner, we find, upon comparing together, in parallel passages, 
the remaining fragments of these gospels, that they were receiving 
continual accessions. The voice from heaven at the baptism of 
Jesus was originally stated to have been, Thou art my Son ; this 
day have I begotten thee ; as it is quoted by Justin Martyr in two 
places. Clement of Alexandria found the same, in the gospel of 
which we have no particular description, with the addition of the 
word beloved : Thou art my beloved Son ; this day have I be 
gotten thee. Other gospels represented the voice as having been, 
Thou art my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; as it is 
given in the catholic Gospels, namely, in Mark i. 11. In the gos 
pel of the Ebionites, according to Epiphanius, both accounts of 
the voice from heaven were united : Thou art my beloved Son, with 
thee 1 am well pleased ; and again, This day have I begotten thee. 
By these continual accessions, the original text of the life of Jesus 
was lost in a mass of additions, so that its words appeared among 
them but as insulated fragments. Of this any one may satisfy him 
self from the account of the baptism of Jesus, which was compiled 
out of various gospels. The necessary consequence was, that at 

* Einleitung in d. N. T., i. 5, 242. 



STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 7 

last truth and falsehood, authentic arid fabulous narratives, or 
such, at least, as through long tradition had become disfigured 
and falsified, were brought together promiscuously. The longer 
these narratives passed from mouth to mouth, the more uncertain 
and disfigured they would become. At last, at the end of the sec 
ond and the beginning of the third century, in order, as far as 
might be, to preserve the true accounts concerning the life of Je 
sus, and to deliver them to posterity as free from error as possible, 
the Church, out of the many gospels which were extant, selected 
four, which had the greatest marks of credibility, and the neces 
sary completeness for common use. There are no traces of our 
present Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, before the end of 
the second and the beginning of the third century. Irenaeus, about 
the year 202, first speaks decisively of four gospels, and imagines 
all sorts of reasons for this particular number ; and Clement of 
Alexandria, about the year 216,* labored to collect divers ac 
counts concerning the origin of these four gospels, in order to 
prove that these alone should be acknowledged as authentic. 
From these facts, it is evident, that it was about the end of the 
second and the beginning of the third century that the Church first 
labored to establish the universal authority of these four gospels, 
which were in existence before, if not altogether in their present 
form, yet in most respects such as we now have them, and to pro 
cure their general reception in the Church, with the suppression 
of all other gospels then extant. 

" Posterity would indeed have been under much greater obli 
gations, if, together with the Gospel of John, the Church had es 
tablished, by public authority, only the first rough sketch of the 
life of Jesus, which was given to the earliest missionaries to au 
thenticate their preaching ; after separating it from all its additions 
and augmentations. But this was no longer possible ; for there 
was no copy extant free from all additions, and the critical opera 
tion of separating this accessory matter was too difficult for those 
times. 1 f 

* The dates here assigned by Eichhorn, it may be observed, are, as has 
been supposed, the dates of the death of Irenaeus and of Clement, not of the 
periods about which they wrote and flourished. These he elsewhere gives 
correctly. 

t Einleit. in d. X. T., i. 142-145. 



g STATEMENT OF THE CA>E. 

" Many ancient writers of the Church," Eichhorn subjoin* 
in a note, u doubted the genuineness of many parts of oui 
Gospels ; but were prevented from coming to a decision by 
want of critical skill."* It is to be observed, however, that 
the only ancient writer of the CJturch, whom he quotes in 
proof of this assertion, is Faustus, the well-known Manichaean 
of the fourth century. 

In treating of the continual alterations and additions, to 
wliich he supposes the text of the Original Gospel to have 
been subjected, before it assumed that form in which it was 
used by the first three Evangelists, Eichhorn observes, that 

" Such an arbitrary mode of dealing with the composition of an 
other, so that it shall pass thus altered into circulation, is in our 
times a thing unheard of and impossible ; because it is prevented 
by the multiplication of printed copies. But it was different," he 
proceeds, "before the invention of printing. In transcribing a 
manuscript, the most arbitrary alterations were considered as al 
lowable, since they affected only an article of private property, 
written for the use of an individual. But these altered manuscripts 
being again transcribed, without inquiry whether the manuscript 
transcribed contained the pure text of the author, altered copies 
of works thus passed unobserved into circulation. How often do 
the manuscripts of any one of the chronicles of the Middle Ages, 
of which several manuscripts are extant, agree with each other in 
exhibiting the same text, equally copious, or equally brief? What 
numerous complaints do we read in the fathers of the first centu 
ries concerning the arbitrary alterations made in their writings, 
published but a short time before, by the possessors or transcrib 
ers of manuscripts. Scarcely had copies of the letters of Diony- 
sius of Corinth begun to circulate, before, as he expresses himself, 
* the apostles of Satan filled them with tares ; omitting some things 
and adding others ; and the same fate, according to his testimony, 
the Holy Scriptures themselves could not escape. If transcribers 
had not permitted themselves to make the most arbitrary altera 
tions in the writings of others, would it have been as customary as 

* Einleit. in d. X. T., i. U5. 



STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 9 

we find it was for authors of those times to adjure their readers, at 
the end of their writings, to make no alterations in them, and to 
denounce the most fearful curses against those who should under 
take to do so ? 

" The histories of Jesus must also have been subjected to the 
same mode of treatment. Does not Celsus object to the Chris 
tians, that they had changed the gospels three times, four times, 
and oftener? From what other cause can it proceed, that we still 
find fragments of the apocryphal gospels, in which all the accounts, 
respecting some particular passage of the life of Jesus, which aic, 
elsewhere found scattered in different gospels, are brought to 
gether and combined into one whole ? Thus the apocryphal gos 
pel of the Ebionites, quoted by Epiphanius, has brought together 
all relating to the baptism of Jesus which is found concerning it 
in our first three Gospels, and in the Memoirs by the Apostles, 
used by Justin Martyr." * 

" As soon," he remarks in another place, * as the history of our 
catholic Gospels commences, we find men without any critical 
knowledge busy in altering their text, in shortening and lengthen 
ing it, and in making changes of synonymous words. And is this 
to be wondered at ? Ever since the existence of written histories 
of Jesus, it had been customary for the possessors of manuscripts 
to make alterations in their text, according to the particular knowl 
edge which they had of his preaching and actions, and of the events 
of his life. Thus the second and third generations of Christians 
only continued this practice respecting the gospels which the first 
had begun. The custom was, in the second century, so generally 
known, that even those who were not believers were acquainted 
with it. Celsus objects to the Christians, that they had changed 
their gospels three times, four times, and oftener, as if they were 
deprived of their senses. Clement also, at the end of the second 
century, speaks of those who corrupted the gospels, and ascribes 
it to them, that at Matt. v. 10, instead of the words, for theirs is 
Hie kingdom of heaven, there was found in some manuscripts, for 
they shall be perfect ; and in others, for they shall have a place 
where they shall not be persecuted." } 

Einleit. in d. N. T., i. 173, seqq. t Ibid., pp. 652, 653. 



10 STATEMENT OP THE CASE. 

The preceding statements give a view of the difficulties 
which have been supposed to attend the proof of the genuine 
ness of the Gospels ; and likewise of the opinions which have 
been entertained respecting their gross corruption, supposing 
them, in a certain sense, to have proceeded from the authors 
to whom they have been ascribed. The passages quoted from 
Eichhorn are not to be regarded as expressing the views of 
only a single writer. No work of a similar kind has been, 
received in Germany with more approbation than his "Intro 
duction to the New Testament ; " and his notions respecting 
the Gospels, or others of the same general character, essen 
tially affecting the belief of their genuineness, have been held 
by many modern German writers. 

But, if the preceding statements and opinions be correct, 
an objector may say, " You have little or rather no evi 
dence for the genuineness of the Gospels, which reaches back 
beyond the close of the second century ; though they were 
composed, as you imagine, about one hundred and fifty years 
before. You have, in fact, no proof of their existence, in 
their present form, previous to that period. All that can be 
rendered probable is, that some works were in existence, 
which served as a basis for the Gospels you now possess. 
But if, during the first two centuries, it was so common to 
enlarge the histories of Jesus Christ, then in use, with tradi 
tionary tales, and with additions of various kinds, great and 
small; and to alter and remodel them, as the transcribers 
or possessors of manuscripts might think proper, you can 
hardly pretend to rely with much confidence upon those 
histories which now exist. We know in what manner the 
legends of saints have been gradually swelled with the ad 
dition of miraculous stories, unknown to those by whom they 
were first composed ; and something very similar may have 
been the case with your Gospels." 



STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 11 

In answer, then, to all that has been alleged, the object 
of the following work is to establish these two proposi 
tions: 

I. That the Gospels remain essentially the same as they 
were originally composed. 

II. That they have been ascribed to their true authors. 



PAET I. 



PROOF THAT THE GOSPELS REMAIN ESSENTIALLY THE SAME AS 
THEY WERE ORIGINALLY COMPOSED 



PAKT I. 



CHAPTER 1. 

ARGUMENT FROM THE AGREEMENT OF THE RESPECTIVE 
COPIES OF THE FOUR GOSPELS. 

THE first proposition to be established, that the Gospels re 
main essentially the same as they were originally composed, 
requires some explanation and remark. 

In regard to St. Matthew s Gospel, the proposition is to 
be understood in a particular sense. This Gospel, it is prob 
able, was originally composed in Hebrew ; and we possess 
only a Greek translation, made at a very early period.* 
This translation, it will be my purpose to show, has been 
faithfully preserved. No reason has ever been adduced for 
suspecting that the translation was not intended to be a faith 
ful representative of the original. 

The Gospels, I have said, remain essentially the same as 
they were originally written. In common with all other 
ancient writings, they have been exposed to the accidents to 
which works preserved by transcription are liable. In the 
very numerous authorities for determining their text, we find 
a great number of differences, or various readings. But, by 
comparing those authorities together, we are able, in general, 
to ascertain satisfactorily the original text of the last three 

On this subject see Note A, pp. 425-430. 



16 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Gospels, and of the Greek translation of St. Matthew. 
There are, however, a few passages admitted into the Re 
ceived Text (the text in common use before the publication 
of Griesbach s edition), some extant in a majority of our 
present manuscripts, and some even in all, the genuineness of 
: which is still questionable. Various considerations arising 
irom some of these passages not being found in manuscripts 
of the highest authority, from direct historical evidence con 
corning them in the writings of the fathers, from their unsuit- 
ableness to the context, from the nature of their contents, 
and from the want of correspondence between their style and 
that of the evangelist in whose work they now stand may 
lead us to disbelieve or doubt that they proceeded from him. 
In mentioning such as are extant in all our present manu 
scripts, I refer particularly to certain passages in the Greek 
Gospel of Matthew. 

I will here mention the more important passages in the 
Received Text of the Gospels, which, from such causes as I 
have spoken of, may, I think, be regarded as spurious, or as 
lying under suspicion. I shall reserve a more particular 
examination of them for another place, where I shall treat 
at length of the various readings of the text of the Gospels.* 

There are strong reasons for thinking that the first two 
chapters of our present copies of the Greek Gospel of Mat 
thew made no part of the original Hebrew. We may sup 
pose them to have been an ancient document, which, from 
the connection of the subject with his history, was transcribed 
into the same volume with it, and which, though first written 
as a distinct work, with some mark of separation, yet in pro 
cess of time became blended with it, so as apparently to form 
its commencement. Being thus found incorporated with the 
Gospel in the manuscript, or in manuscripts, used by the 
translator, it was rendered by him as part of the original. 



* See Note A, pp. 431-462 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 17 

There are two other passages in our Greek Gospel of 
Matthew, which, as it seems to me, there is much reason for 
regarding as interpolated. These passages are the narrative 
concerning Judas, in the twenty-seventh chapter, beginning 
with the third and ending with the tenth verse ; and the ac 
count of the raising of the bodies of many saints at the time 
of our Saviour s crucifixion, in the latter part of the fifty- 
second verse and the fifty-third of the same chapter. 

Li respect to Mark s Gospel, there is ground for believing 
that the last twelve verses were not written by the evangel 
ist, but were added by some other writer to supply a short 
conclusion to the work, which some cause had prevented the 
author from completing. 

In Luke s Gospel, the only passage of any considerable 
length or importance, the genuineness of which appears to 
me liable to suspicion, consists of the forty-third and forty- 
fourth verses of the twenty-second chapter, containing an 
account of the descent of an angel to Jesus, and of his agony 
and bloody sweat. 

In John s Gospel, what now stands as the conclusion, the 
Litter part of the twenty-fourth verse and the twenty-fifth, of 
the last chapter, has the air of an editorial note. 

In the Received Text of this Gospel, there are likewise 
two other passages to be considered. The genuineness of the 
last clause of the third and the whole of the fourth verse of 
the fifth chapter, which contain an account of the descent 
of an angel into the pool of Bethesda, is very questionable ; 
and the story of the woman taken in adultery is, in my opin 
ion, justly regarded by a majority of modern critics as not 
having been a part of the original Gospel.* 

* Besides those that have been mentioned above, there are two other pas 
sages in the Gospels which it may be well to notice in connection with this 
subject. 

One consists of the words ascribed to our Lord in Matt. xii. 40 : " For 
as Jonah was three days ard three nights in the belly of the fish, so will 

2 



18 EVIDENCES OF THE 

The two passages last mentioned, and the other interpo 
lations that have been suggested, that is, the two insertions 
into the body of the text of the original Hebrew of Matthew s 
Gospel, and one into that of Luke s Gospel, were, we may 
suppose, first written as notes or additional matter in the 
margin of some copies of the Gospel in which they are found. 
But passages belonging to the text of a work, which had been 
accidentally omitted by a transcriber, were likewise ofte i 
preserved in the margin. From this circumstance, notes and 
additional matter, thus written, were not unfrequently mis 
taken for parts of the text, and introduced by a subsequent 
copier into what he thought their proper place. This is a 
fruitful source of various readings in ancient writings ; and 
may explain how the passages in question, if not genuine, 
have become incorporated with the text of the Gospels. 

The facts that have been mentioned, respecting doubtful or 
spurious passages in the text of the Gospels, imply nothing 
opposite to the general proposition maintained. On the con 
trary, in reasoning concerning those passages, we go upon the 
supposition of its truth. It is assumed, that the Gospels, gen 
erally speaking, have been faithfully preserved ; but it is con 
tended, that there are particular reasons for doubting, whether 
one or another of the passages in question, though found in 

the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." 
There are strong, and it may seem sufficient, reasons for believing these words 
not to have been-uttered by our Lord. But, on the supposition that they were 
not, it does not necessarily follow that they are an interpolation in the text 
of Matthew s Gospel. 

The other passage consists of the words in which our Lord is said to have 
reproved James and John for the suggestion of calling down fire from heaven 
upon a village of the Samaritans, Luke ix. 55, 56. There is nothing in the 
words themselves to excite a doubt of their having been spoken by Jesus. 
The only reason for questioning whether they originally made a part of 
Luke s Gospel is, that they are wanting in a large number of the most im 
portant copies of it. The passage presents one of the most ditfieult and 
curious problems in the criticism of the text of the New Testament. 

Both these passages are examined in Note A, before referred to. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 19 

many or in all the extant manuscripts of a Gospel, proceeded 
from the pen of the evangelist. These reasons are specific, 
applying in every case to the particular passage under consid 
eration, and not admitting of a general application. They 
suppose no new theory respecting the corruption of the Gos 
pels, and no habit in transcribers of making unlicensed al 
terations. They imply nothing more than the operation of 
particular accidents, producing error in particular cases ; the 
possibility of which none will deny. All that we can say 
respecting any ancient work is, that it remains essentially the 
same as it was originally composed. For specific reasons, 
applying to some particular passage, we may doubt whethei 
it proceeded from the pen of the evangelist. But unless the 
Gospels were exposed, as has been imagined, to some pecu 
liar causes of corruption, there can be no question, that, gen 
erally speaking, we have satisfactory means of determining 
the original text of the last three Gospels, and that of the 
Greek translation of Matthew ; the number of authorities for 
settling it manuscripts, ancient versions, and quotations by 
ancient writers being far more numerous and important 
than those for settling the text of any other ancient writing. 

We proceed, then, to the proof that the Gospels have not 
been exposed to any peculiar causes of corruption, but remain 
essentially the same as they were originally composed. 

This appears, in the first place, from the agreement among 
our present manuscript copies of the Gospels, or of parts of 
the Gospels, in whatever form these copies appear. There 
have been examined, in a greater or less degree, about six 
hundred and seventy manuscripts* of the whole, or of por 
tions, of the Greek text of the Gospels. These were written 
in different countries, and at different periods, probably from 
the fifth century downwards. They have been found in places 

* See Scholz s Catalogue, in the Prolegomena to his N. T. 



20 EVIDENCES OF THE 

widely remote from each other, in Asia, in Africa, and from 
one extremity of Europe to the other. Besides these manu 
scripts of the Greek text, there are many manuscripts of 
ancient versions of the Gospels, in different languages of each 
of the three great divisions of the world just mentioned. 
There are likewise many manuscripts of the works of the 
Christian fathers, abounding in quotations from the Gospels ; 
and especially manuscripts of ancient commentaries on the 
Gospels, such as those of Origen, who lived in the third cen 
tury, and of Chrysostom, who lived in the fourth, in which 
we find their text quoted, as the different portions of it are 
successively the subjects of remark. 

Now, all these different copies of the Gospels, or parts of 
the Gospels, so numerous, so various in their character, so 
unconnected, offering themselves to notice in parts of the 
world so remote from each other, concur in giving us essen 
tially the same text. Divide them into four classes, corre 
sponding to the four Gospels, and it is evident that those of 
each class are to be referred to one common source ; that they 
are all copies, more or less remote, of the same original ; that 
they all had one common text for their archetype. They vary, 
indeed, more or less from each other: but their variations have 
arisen from the common accidents of transcription; or, as 
regards the versions, partly from errors of translation ; or, in 
respect to the quotations by the fathers, partly from the cir 
cumstance, that, in ancient as in modern times, the language 
of Scripture was often cited loosely, from memory, and with 
out regard to verbal accuracy, in cases where no particular 
verbal accuracy was required. The agreement among the 
extant copies of any one of the Gospels, or of portions of it, 
is essential : the disagreements are accidental and trifling, 
originating in causes which, from the nature of things, we 
know must have been in operation. The same work every 
where appears: and, by comparing together different copies, 
we are able to ascertain the original text to a great degree 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 21 

of exactness ; or, in other words, where various readings 
occur, to determine what were probably the words of the 
author. 

The Greek manuscripts, then, of any one of the Gospels, 
the versions of it, and the quotations from it by the fathers, 
are a l, professedly, copies of that Gospel, or of parts of it ; 
and these correspond with each other. But, as these pro 
fessed copies thus correspond with each other, it follows that 
they were derived more or less remotely from one archetype. 
Their agreement admits of no explanation, except that of 
their being conformed to a common exemplar. In respect to 
each of the Gospels, the copies which we possess must all be 
referred, for their source, to one original Gospel, one original 
text, one original manuscript. As far back as our knowledge 
extends, Christians, throughout all past ages, in Syria, at 
Alexandria, at Rome, at Carthage, at Constantinople, and 
at Moscow, in the East and in the West, have all used copies 
of each of the Gospels, which were evidently derived from 
one original manuscript, and necessarily imply that such a 
manuscript, existing as their archetype, has been faithfully 
copied. 

Let us now consider what must have been the consequence, 
if the supposition before stated, respecting the license taken 
by different transcribers, were true of any one of the Gospels. 
In this case, one transcriber, in one part of the world, would 
have made certain alterations in his copy, and inserted certain 
narratives which he had collected ; and another, in another 
place, would have made different alterations, and inserted dif 
ferent narratives. Such copies, upon the supposition that this 
imagined license continued, would, when again transcribed, 
have been again changed and enlarged. Copies would have 
been continually multiplying, diverging more and more from 
the original and from each other. The original text would 
ha\e been confounded and lost among additions and changes, 
till, at last, it might have appeared, to quote the language of 



22 EVIDENCES OP THE 

Eichhorn, only in "insulated fragments." * No generally re 
ceived text would have existed ; none, therefore, could have 
been preserved and handed down. Instead of that agreement 
among the copies of each Gospel which now exists, we should 
have found everywhere manuscripts, presenting us with differ 
ent collections of narratives and sayings ; and differing, at the 
same time, in their arrangement of the same facts, and in their 
general style of expression. There would have been as great 
a want of correspondence among the manuscripts which pro 
fessed to contain any particular Gospel as there is known to 
exist among those of the Arabian Nights, or among the cop 
ies of the Gesta Romanorum. They would have been more 
unlike than those manuscripts of chronicles of the Middle 
Ages to which Eichhorn refers,! as the Gospels have been 
much more frequently transcribed. The copies of these 
writings would have presented the same phenomena as those 
of some of the apocryphal books ; that, for example, called the 
Gospel of the Infancy, which appears in several different 
forms, this collection of fables having been remodelled by 
one transcriber after another according to his fancy. At the 
same time, we should have found the want of agreement, 
which must have existed among different manuscripts of any 
one of the Gospels, extending itself equally to the transla 
tions of that Gospel, and to the professed quotations from 
it in ancient writers. 

The argument which has been employed seems easy to 
be comprehended ; and at the same time conclusive of the 
fact, that all our present copies of each of the Gospels are to 
l>e traced back to one original manuscript, in multiplying the 
copies of which, no such liberties can have been taken by 
transcribers as are supposed in the hypothesis under con 
sideration. The argument seems, likewise, very obvious ; 
yet its force and bearing appear to have been overlooked 

^ 

* See before, p. 6. f See before, p. 8. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 23 

in framing that hypothesis. The fact does not seem to have 
been distinctly adverted to, that the transcriber or possessor 
of a manuscript, making such alterations as the hypothesis 
supposes, could introduce them only into a single copy, and 
into such others as might be transcribed from it ; and that ho 
could not, properly speaking, add to or corrupt the work 
itself. His copy would have no influence upon contemporarj 
copies ; and in the case of the Gospels, we may say, upon 
numerous contemporary copies, in which the true text might 
be preserved, or into which different alterations might be 
introduced. It is quite otherwise since the invention of 
printing. He who now introduces a corruption into the 
printed edition of a work, introduces it into all the copies 
of that edition ; if it be the only edition, into all the copies of 
that work ; and, in many cases, into a great majority of the 
copies which are extant, or which are most accessible. All 
these copies will agree in presenting us with the same 
changes or interpolations. He may properly be said to cor 
rupt the work itself. Thus, before the invention of printing, 
the famous verse in the first Epistle of John, v. 7, was to be 
found, as far as is known, in the text of not more than two 
Greek manuscripts of all those in existence.* But it was 
early admitted into a printed edition of the New Testament ; 
and it is now to be found in a great majority of the printed 
copies, and consequently of all the copies, of the New Testa 
ment. It is not now to be considered as a corruption of a 
particular manuscript, but as a corruption of the Epistle itself. 
If printing had not been invented, and the Epistle had been 
preserved, as before, only by transcription, the fact would 
probably have been very different. The passage, instead of 
being in a great majority of copies, might have been found 

* I refer to the Codex Montfortianus, and to another lately discovered in 
the Vatican Library by Scholz (see his Biblischkritische Reise, i.e. Travels 
for the Purpose of Biblical Criticism, p. 105). But it is not certain that 
cither o these manuscripts was written before the invention of printing. 



24 EVIDENCES OF THE 

only in a very small minority. The power of an ancient 
copier to alter the text of a work was very different from 
that of a modern editor ; yet it would seem that they must 
have been confounded in the hypothesis under consideration, 
unless some further account is to be given of the manner in 
which the text of our present Gospels has been formed and 
perpetuated. 

It is evident from the preceding statements, that the exist 
ing copies of each of the Gospels have been derived from 
some common exemplar, faithfully followed by transcribers. 
But it may be said, that this exemplar was not the original 
work, as it proceeded from the hand of the evangelist ; that 
the lineage of our present copies is not to be traced so high ; 
but that, at some period, the course of corruption which has 
been described was arrested, and a standard text was selected 
and determined upon, which has served as an archetype for 
all existing copies ; but that this text, thus fixed as the 
standard, had already suffered greatly from the corruptions 
of transcribers, and was very different from the original. 
This supposition is implied in the passage from Eichhorn, 
which has been before quoted.* 

The Church, according to Eichhorn, selected four gospels 
out of a multitude, and labored to procure their general re 
ception in the Church. In order to understand this proposi 
tion, it is necessary to determine what must be the meaning 
of the word " Church." There was no organized universal 
Church, nor any thing resembling such an establishment, in 
existence, till long after the close of the second century 
There was no single ecclesiastical government, which ex 
tended over Christians, or over a majority of Christians, or 
over any considerable portion of their number. They had 
no regular modes of acting in concert, nor any effectual 

* See before, p. T. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 25 

means whatever of combining together for a common pur 
pose. Neither the whole body, nor a majority of Christians. 
ever met by delegation to devise common measures. Such 
an event did not take place till a hundred and twenty years 
after the end of the second century, when Christianity had 
become the established religion of the Roman empire, and 
the first general council, that of Nice, was called together 
by the Emperor Constantine. At the time of which we are 
speaking, Christians were spread over the world from the 
Euphrates to the Pillars of Hercules. They were disturbed 
and unsettled by frequent cruel persecutions, one of which, 
that under Severus, was at its height just about the com 
mencement of the third century. They were separated from 
each other by a difficulty and consequent infrequency of com 
munication, of which, such are the facilities that now exist, 
we can hardly form a just notion. They were kept asunder 
by difference of language ; some speaking the Greek, some 
the Latin, and others different languages and dialects of the 
East. Exclusively of those generally considered as heretics, 
they were disunited and alienated from each other by dif 
ferences of religious opinion, and even by violent controver 
sies ; for it was before the end of the second century, that 
Victor, Bishop of Rome, had excommunicated the Eastern 
churches. This being the state of Christians at the end of 
the second century, the proposition on which I am remarking 
supposes that they corresponded together, and came to an 
agreement to select four out of the many manuscript gospels 
then in existence, all of which had been exposed to the 
license of transcribers. Of these four, no traces are to be 
discovered before that time ; but it was determined to adopt 
them for common use, to the prejudice, it would seem, of 
others longer known, and to which different portions of 
Christians had respectively been accustomed. There was a 
universal and silent compliance with this proposal. Copies 
of the four new manuscripts, and translations of them, were 



26 EVIDENCES OF THE 

at once circulated through the world. All others ceased 
to be transcribed, and suddenly disappeared from common 
notice. Copiers were at the same time checked in their 
former practice of licentious alteration. Thus a revolution 
was effected in regard to the most important sacred books of 
Christians, and at the same time better habits were intro 
duced among the transcribers of those books. 

I believe it will be seen, that I have stated nothing but 
vs hat the supposition we are considering necessarily implies. 
But when we divest it of its looseness and ambiguity of lan 
guage, and state clearly the details which it must embrace, no 
one can suppose that any such series of events took place at 
the end of the second century. It is intrinsically incredible : 
but, if this were not the case, we might urge against it the 
fact, that there is no record, nor any trace of it. It is sup 
posed, that a change was effected in the sacred books of 
Christians, spread abroad, as they were, throughout the 
civilized world. Any change of this sort could not be 
effected without great difficulty, under the most favorable 
circumstances. Let us consider for a moment what an effort 
would be required, and what resistance must be overcome, ia 
order to bring into general use among a single nation of 
Christians at the present day, not other gospels, but simply a 
new and better translation of our present Gospels. In the 
case under consideration, allowing the supposed change to 
have been possible, it must have met with great opposition ; 
it must have provoked much discussion ; it must have been 
the result of much deliberation ; there must have been a 
great deal written about it at the time ; it must have been 
often referred to afterwards, especially in the religious con 
troversies which took place ; it would have been one of the 
most important events in the history of Christians ; and the 
account of the transaction must have been preserved. There 
would have been distinct memorials of it everywhere, in con 
temporary and subsequent writings. That there are no 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 27 

traces of it whatever is alone conclusive evidence that it 
never took place. 

But we may even put out of view all the preceding con 
siderations. " The Church," it is said, " about the end of the 
second and the beginning of the third century, first labored 
to procure the general reception of the four Gospels in the 
Church." By the Church must be meant the great body 
of Christians. The general reception of the Gospels was 
foanded upon the belief, real or pretended, of their being the 
genuine works of those to whom they were ascribed. The 
statement, therefore, resolves itself into the following dilemma : 
Either the great body of Christians determined to believe 
what they knew to be false, or they determined to profess to 
believe it. The first proposition is an absurdity in terms ; 
the last is a moral absurdity. 

There is, then, no ground for the supposition of any inter 
position of authority, or of any concert among Christians, 
at the end of the second century, to select our present Gos 
pels for common use ; or, in other words, to select from the 
great number then in existence four particular manuscripts, 
which should serve as archetypes for all subsequent tran 
scribers, and the text of which should alone be considered as 
the authorized text. Our present agreement of authorities, 
which necessarily refers us back to one manuscript of each 
of the Gospels as the archetype of all the copies of that 
Gospel, cannot thus be explained. We are left, therefore, to 
the obvious conclusion, which we adopt in regard to other 
writings, that this manuscript was the original work of an in 
dividual author, which has been faithfully transmitted to us. 

The argument from the agreement of our present manu 
script copies of the Gospels seems alone to be decisive of the 
truth of the proposition which it is brought to establish. 
But a similar mode of reasoning may be applied to the agree 
ment between the very numerous manuscripts of the Gospels 



28 EVIDENCES OF THE 

which were in existence at the end of the second century ; 
and, as it was before this period that transcribers are fancied 
to have taken the greatest liberties, it may be worth while to 
enter into the detail of this argument, especially as it is 
connected with the proof of the antiquity of the Gospels. 

Our present Gospels, it is conceded, were in common use 
among Christians about the end of the second century. The 
number of manuscripts then in existence bore some propor 
tion to the number of Christians, and this to the whole popu 
lation of the Roman empire. The population of the Roman 
empire in the time of the Antonines is estimated by Gibbon 
at about one hundred and twenty millions.* With regard to 
the proportion of Christians, the same writer observes, " The 
most favorable calculation will not permit us to imagine, that 
more than a twentieth part of the subjects of the empire had 
enlisted themselves under the banner of the cross before the 
important conversion of Constantine." f If not more than a 
twentieth part was Christian at the end of the third century, 
just after which the conversion of Constantine took place, 
we can hardly estimate more than a fortieth part of it as 
Christian at the end of the second century. Yet this propor 
tion seems irreconcilable with the language which we find 
used concerning the number of Christians. Just after the 
close of the first century, Pliny was sent by Trajan to govern 
the provinces of Pontus and Bithynia. While exercising his 
office, many accusations were brought to him against Chris 
tians ; and he wrote to the emperor to consult him on the 
subject : 

"I have recourse," he says, "to you for advice; for it has 
appeared to me a subject proper to consult you about, especially 
on account of the number of those against whom accusations are 
brought. For many of all ages, of every rank, and of both sexes 
likewise, have been and will be accused. The contagion of this 

* Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. ii. f Ibid., ch. xv 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 29 

superstition has made its way, not in cities only, but in the lesser 
towns also, and in the open country . It seems to me that it may 
be stopped and corrected. It is certain, that the temples, which 
were almost deserted, begin to be frequented ; and the sacred 
solemnities are revived after a long intermission. Victims like 
wise are everywhere sold, of which, till lately, there were but 
ver~ few purchasers. 1 * 

There is no reason to suppose, that Christians were moie 
numerous in Pontus and Bithynia than in any other part of 
Asia Minor, or in Macedonia, or in Greece. Yet, if we sup 
pose them to have constituted but a fortieth or even a twen 
tieth part of the inhabitants, there would be an extravagance 
in the statements of Pliny, not to be expected in an official 
letter, written for the purpose of affording facts to the em 
peror, on which to found specific directions. I pass over 
much other evidence with respect to the number of Chris 
tians ; f and will quote only one or two passages from Ter 
tullian, who wrote at the particular period which we are 
considering, about the year 200. In speaking of the sub 
mission of Christians to the civil authority by which they 
were persecuted, he remarks, that it may clearly appear to be 
the result of the patience taught them by their religion ; 

considering," he says, "that we, so great a multitude of men, 
almost the majority of every city, pass our lives silently and 
modestly, more known, perhaps, as individuals than as a body, 
and to be recognized only by our reformation from ancient 



Again, in addressing those who governed the Roman empire, 
be says : 

* We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every thing that 
is yours, cities, islands, castles, free towns, council-halls, the very 



* Plinii Epist, lib. x. epist. 97. 

t See Paley s Evidences of Christianity, p. ii. c- ix. 

| Ad Scapulam, 2, p. 69, ed. Priori!. 



30 EVIDENCES OF THE 

camps, all classes of men, the palace, the senate, the forum, We 
have left you nothing but your temples. We can number your 
armies : there are more Christians in a single province. Even if 
unequal in force, is there any war for which we, who so readily 
submit to death, should not be prepared, or not prompt, if our 
religion did not teach us rather to be slain than to slay? Un 
armed and without rebellion, had we only separated from you, 
we might thus have fought against you, by inflicting the injury 
which you would have suffered from the divorce. If we, such a 
multitude of men, had broken away from you, retiring into some 
remote corner of the world, your government would have been 
covered with shame at the loss of so many citizens, whoever they 
might be. The very desertion would have punished you. With 
out doubt, you would hav.e been terrified at your solitude ; at the 
silence and stupor of all things, as if the world were dead. You 
would have had to look about for subjects." * 

This, it may be said, is the language of exaggeration : un 
questionably it is so. But Tertullian was a writer of far too 
much acuteness and too much real eloquence to suffer the 
boldness and vehemence of his language to pass those limits, 
beyond which their only effect must have been to expose him 
to derision. The very passage which I have quoted shows 
that he was a man of no ordinary mind. But, as far as its 
exaggeration is concerned, the most unwise and most impu 
dent of declaimers would not have so stated the number of 
Christians, if it did not amount to more than a fortieth part 
of the whole population of the empire, exclusively of those 
denominated heretics, who were few in comparison with catho 
lic Christians. I accept, however, this proportion ; and only 
wish it to be well understood, that it is fairly within the 
truth ; probably falling very far short of it. The conclusion 
to be established admits of great wastefulness in the calcula 
tions leading to it. The fortieth part of one hundred and 
twenty millions, the estimated population of the empire, is 

* Apologeticus adversus Gentes, $ 37. See Semler s Ed., torn. v. p. 90. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 31 

three millions. There were Christians without the bounds of 
the empire, but I am willing to include those also in the num 
ber supposed. At the end of the second century, then, there 
were three millions of believers, using our present Gospels, 
regarding them with the highest reverence, and anxious to 
obtain copies of them. Few possessions could have been more 
valued by a Christian than a copy of those books, which con 
tained the history of the religion for which he was exposing 
himself to the severest sacrifices. Their cost, if he were able 
to defray it, must have been but a very trifling consideration. 
But a common copy of the Gospels was not a book of any 
great bulk or expense.* I shall not, therefore, I think, be 



* That the cost of books in ancient times was not excessive, may appear, 
in part, from the circumstance, that Juvenal describes them as among the 
possessions of Codrus, whom he represents as extremely poor. They were 
a part of his totum nihil. 

" Jamque vetus Graces servabat cista libellos." Sat. iii. 206. 

But it is remarkable how little exact information is to be found respecting 
the cost of books in ancient times. "The prices," says Arbuthnot, "which 
I find mentioned by the ancients, are for such as were manuscripts in our 
cense, that is, not published, and valuable for the rarity of them." Mar 
tial, however (lib. i. epig. 118), states the cost of the first book of his Epigrams, 
or perhaps of the first and second (lib. ii. epig. 93), in an ornamented copy, 
rasum pumice, purpuraque cultum, at five denarii ; which, taking silver as the 
standard of comparison, is equal to about seventy-two cents, American money. 
This was a book for the luxurious. A copy of any one of the Gospels might 
probably have been bought at a much cheaper rate in proportion to its size. 
The price of Martial s thirteenth book, which contains far less matter than the 
tirst, but amounts to two hundred and seventy-two verses, he states to have 
been four sestertii ; or, if that were thought too much, two sestertii, which he 
says would still leave a profit to the bookseller (lib. xiii. epig. 3). Two 
sestertii were half a denarius; that is, about seven cents. We sometimes con 
found the state of things in the Middle Ages, when there was a great scarcity 
of books, with that which existed in the flourishing times of Greek and Roman 
literature. It would be a still greater mistake to suppose that the number of 
Greek manuscripts of the Gospels extant during that period in Western Eu 
rope, where the Greek was almost an unknown tongue, affords any means of 
determining the number in existence when the Greek was a living language 
and a medium of communication throughout the civilized world. 



32 EVIDENCES OF THE 

charged with over-estimating, if I suppose that there was one 
copy of the Gospels for every fifty Christians. Scattered over 
the world, as they were, if the proportion of them to the 
heathens was no greater than has been assumed, fifty Chris 
tians would often be as many as were to be found in any one 
place, and often more ; but we cannot suppose that there were 
many collections of Christians without a copy of the Gospels. 
Origen, upon quoting a passage from the New Testament, 
says that it is written not " in any rare books, read only by a 
few studious persons, but in those in the most common use."* 
[n truth, there can be little doubt that copies of the Gospels 
were owned by a large portion of Christians, who had the 
means of procuring them ; and in supposing only one copy of 
these books for every fifty Christians, the estimate is probably 
much within the truth. This proportion, however, will give 
as sixty thousand copies of the Gospels for three millions of 
Christians. 

This number of copies may strike some, who have never 
before made any estimate of the kind, as larger than was to 
be expected. But the following facts may serve to show that 
the calculation is not extravagant. In the latter part of the 
second century, a history of Christ was compiled by Tatian, 
professedly, as is commonly believed, from the four Gospels. 
Tatian was a heretic, and his work never obtained much 
reputation or currency. Eusebius, the historian of the 
Church in the first half of the fourth century, is the earliest 
writer who mentions it. His acquaintance with books was 
extensive ; yet he appears not to have examined it. At the 
present day, no copy of it is known to be in existence. Yet 
of this obscure work, Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus in the fifth 
century, says that he found two hundred copies in use among 
Christian churches, which he removed, and supplied their 



* Ev rolg Sj]fiu6ecT00i(;. Orig. cont. Gels., lib. vii. 37; Opp. i. 720, 
ed. Delarue. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 33 

place by copies of the Gospels.* It appears, then, that, in 
churches to which the examination of a single bishop 
extended, there were two hundred copies of a book of 
suspicious credit, and not in common use ; and that the 
place of these was readily supplied by copies of the Gos 
pels. This fact is one of those which may serve to show 
that the estimate of the whole number of copies of the 
Gospels existing at the end of the second century is far 
from being too great. 

Again, in the Acts of the Apostles,f it is related, that, of 
those who had become converts to Christianity in Ephesus 
and its neighborhood, some had been addicted to the study of 
magic. After their conversion, they brought together their 
books relating to this subject, to be burnt ; and the value of 
them is said to have been fifty thousand pieces of silver. If, 
as is probable, by " pieces of silver " is to be understood cisto- 
phori, a common Asiatic coin and money of account, the sum 
mentioned amounts to about four thousand two hundred and 
fifty dollars. Books of magic, whatever may be here in 
tended by that name, would be sold at a high price. But we 
cannot reasonably suppose those works on magic to have been 
the larger portion of the books owned by the converts of 
Ephesus and its vicinity at this early period. Such being the 
case, we may infer that the number of copies of the Gospels 
in use among Christians at the end of the second century die. 
not fall short of that which has been estimated, but probably 
far exceeded it. 

There were, then, at the end of the second century, when 
it is agreed that the Gospels were in common use, at least 
sixty thousand copies of them dispersed over the world. 
These copies had not been subjected to the licentious altera 
tions of transcribers. They agreed essentially with each 



* Theodore! Hferet. Fab., lib i. c. 20; Opp. iv. 208, ed. Sirmond. 
t Chap. xix. /er. 19 



34 GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 

other. This is implied in the fact that they were copies of 
our present Gospels. It is made evident by the considera 
tion, that, if there had been important discrepancies among 
these sixty thousand copies, no series of events could either 
have destroyed the evidence of these discrepancies, or could 
have produced the present agreement among existing copies, 
derived, as they are, from those in use at the period in ques 
tion. The agreement, then, at the end of the second century, 
among the numerous copies of the respective Gospels, proves 
that an archetype of each Gospel had been faithfully followed 
by transcribers. This archetype, as we have seen, there is no 
ground for imagining to have been any other than the origi 
nal work of the author of that Gospel. It follows, therefore, 
that, in the interval between the composition of these works 
and the end of the second century, their text did not suffer, 
as has been fancied, from the licentiousness of transcribers. 

But it must have taken a long time, I use an indefinite 
expression, to which there can be no objection, leaving it to 
every one to fix such a period as he may think most probable, 
it must have taken a long time for the Gospels to obtain so 
established and extensive a reputation, to come into common 
use as sacred books among Christians throughout the civilized 
world, and for such a number of copies of them to be made. 
They must have been composed, therefore, a long time before 
the end of the second century ; or, rather, before the year 180, 
about which period Irenseus wrote, who asserts their general 
reception and acknowledged authority, in as strong language 
as any Christian would use at the present day. It follows, 
then, from all that has been said, that, long before the latter 
part of the second century, our present Gospels were com 
posed by four different authors, whose works obtained general 
reception among Christians as authentic histories and sacred 
b3oks, and were everywhere spread and handed down, without 
aiiy essential alterations from transcribers. 



CHAPTER II. 

ARGUMENTS DRAWN FROM OTHER CONSIDERATIONS. 

BESIDE the argument already adduced, there are other* to 
which we will now advert, 

I. It would have been inconsistent with the common seitti- 
ments and practice of mankind for transcribers to make such 
alterations and additions as have been imagined, in the sacred 
books which they were copying. No one can be so dull as 
not to feel the propriety and importance of preserving the 
genuine text of books which are regarded as works of 
authority, or as possessing a peculiar character in conse 
quence of their having been composed by a particular author. 
In proportion as a work is of higher authority, this sentiment 
will be stronger. It would be idle to imagine, that the habit 
of making additions and alterations at will, which is attributed 
to the transcribers of the Gospels, was common in ancient 
times, and practised in the transcription of other writings ; 
the histories, for instance, of Thucydides or Tacitus. But, 
with the great body of believers, the Gospels were peculiarly 
guarded from corruption; and what we apprehend so little 
concerning other writings is still less to be apprehended con 
cerning them. The Christians * of the first two centuries, it 



* By " the Christians " I mean, here and elsewhere, the great body of be 
lievers, the generality of Christians, the catholic Christians. Conformably to 



36 EVIDENCES OF THE 

cannot be doubted, valued very highly their sacred books 
and none more highly than those which contained records of 
the actions and discourses of Christ. But they valued them 
as sacred books, and as authentic histories, and not as the 
patchwork of unknown transcribers. They would not, there- 
Core, suffer them gradually to assume the latter character. 
They would not cause or permit alterations and additions to 
be silently introduced into books of history, the authenticity 
of which would be thus destroyed; and sacred books, the 
peculiar character of which would, in consequence, be lost. 
To interpolate or alter any thing in books of the latter kind 
has commonly been considered as a crime, bordering upon 
sacrilege. This sentiment may be counteracted in a certain 
degree ; but it is a very general, a very natural, and a very 
strong one. The care of any community in preserving their 
sacred books from corruption will be proportioned to the 
value which they set upon those books ; and the degree 
in which they value them will be proportioned to the interest 
which they feel in their religion. But no men ever felt that 
interest more strongly than the Christians of the first two 
centuries. There is therefore, as we might expect, abundant 
evidence extant in their writings, that they had as great 
reverence for the sacred books of our religion, and were as 
little disposed to make or to suffer an admixture of foreign 
matter with their genuine text, as Christians of the present 
day. I will quote a few passages in proof of this fact. 

The first writer by whom any one of the Gospels is ex 
pressly mentioned is Papias, who lived about the beginning 
of the second century,* a contemporary of the disciples of the 



rts common use in speaking of the first ages of Christianity, I use the name 
as a general, not a universal term. I do not mean to include under it the 
heretical sects of the Ebionites and the Gnostics, to whom all the assertions 
made respecting " the Christians " do not apply. The evidence which those 
sects afford of the genuineness of the Gospels will be considered hereafter. 
* The assertion of Eichhorn, that we find no traces of our first three Goa- 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 37 

apostles. He speaks particularly of the Gospels of Matthew 
and Mark, affirming that they were composed by those indi 
viduals, and that the Gospel of Mark was founded on the 
oral narratives of Peter. He applies to them the title of 
oracles* The respect in which they were held appears frcm 
this title, and from the authors to whom they were referred. 
Christians would neither corrupt such works, nor suffer them 
te be corrupted. 

About the middle of the second century, Justin Martyr 
describes the histories of Christ which he used as written by 
apostles and their companions,! by those whom Christians 
believed. $ He says, that either these books, or the writings 
of the Jewish prophets, were read in Christian churches on 
the first day of every week. He everywhere appeals to 
them as of undoubted authority. They were regarded by 
him, we may infer, as entitled to at least equal reverence 
with the Jewish Scriptures. But in the dialogue which he 
represents himself as having held with Trypho, an unbe 
lieving Jew, he charges the Jews with having expunged 
certain passages of the Old Testament relating to Christ. 
To this Trypho answers, that the charge seems to him in 
credible. Justin replies : " It does seem incredible ; for to 
mutilate the Scriptures would be a more fearful crime than 
the worship of the golden calf, or than the sacrifice of children 

pels before the end of the second century, can be reconciled with well-known 
and undisputed facts only by supposing that our present Gospels of Matthew, 
Mark, and Luke have been so corrupted as not to be essentially the same 
with those which anciently bore their names. I scarcely knoAV whether it is 
worth while to observe, that Eichhorn repeatedly quotes the mention by Pa- 
pi is of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. In one place, he says, that, " long 
before the end of the second century, the authors of the first three Gospels are 
named as authors of narratives of the life of Jesus; as, for example, Matthew 
and Mark are so named by Papias." Einleitung in d. N. T., vol. i. (2d ed.) 
p. 684. 

* Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles., lib. iii. c. 39. 

f Dial, cum Tryph., p. 361, ed. Thirlb. 

t Apolog. Prim., p. 54. Ibid., p. 97. 



88 EVIDENCES OF THE 

to demons, or than slaying the prophets themselves." * It is 
not probable that Christians were tampering with their own 
sacred books at a time when they had such feelings respect 
ing those of the Old Testament. The histories of Christ 
used by Justin, I shall hereafter show, were our present 
Gospels. 

Some of the heretics in the second century made, or were 
charged with making, alterations in the Christian Scriptures, 
in order to accommodate them to their own opinions. Of 
such corrupters of Scripture, Dionysius, who was bishop 
of Corinth about the year 1 70, thus speaks : " I have written 
epistles at the desire of the brethren. But the apostles of 
the Devil have filled them with darnel, taking out some things, 
and adding others. Against such, a woe is denounced. It is 
not wonderful, therefore, that some have undertaken to cor 
rupt the Scriptures of the Lord, since they have corrupted 
writings not to be compared with them." f The meaning 
of Dionysius is, that, the persons spoken of having shown 
their readiness to commit such a crime, it was not strange 
that they should even corrupt the Scriptures ; these being 
works of much higher authority than his epistles, and from 
the falsification of which more advantage was to be gained. 
We perceive how strongly he expresses his sense of the guilt 
of such corruption ; a sentiment common, without doubt, to 
a great majority of Christians. When Dionysius wrote, it 
clearly could not have been esteemed innocent, and a matter 
of indifference, for transcribers to make intentional altera- 
aons in their copies of the Gospels. Yet this is one of the 
passages which have been adduced to show that such was 
their common practice.^: But, as we have no reason to doubt 
that the prevailing sentiment was that which Dionysius has 
expressed, we may confidently infer that Christians did not 



Dial, cum Tryph., p. 296. f Apud Euseb. H. E., lib. iv. c. 23. 
Sec before, p. 8. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 39 

generally practise or permit what was esteemed a work of 
" the apostles of the Devil," and one " against which a woe 
was denounced." 

"We have not received," says his contemporary, Irenasus, 

* the knowledge of the way of our salvation by any others 
than those through whom the Gospel has come down to us ; 
which Gospel they first preached, and afterwards, by the will 
oi God, transmitted to us in writing, that it might be the 
foundation and pillar of our faith."* He immediately pro 
ceeds to speak particularly of the composition of the four 
Gospels, referring them to the authors to whom they are 
commonly ascribed. These books he afterwards represents 
as the most important books of Scripture ;f and the Scrip 
tures he calls "oracles of God." $ "We know," he says, 

* that the Scriptures are perfect, as dictated by the Logos of 
God, and his spirit." 

Such passages show the reverence in which the Scriptures 
were held, and the feelings with which any corruption of 
them must have been regarded. They are likewise irrecon 
cilable with the supposition, that the Gospels had but just 
appeared in their present form ; and that, previously, those 
who possessed copies of these books had regarded them only 
* as an article of private property, in which any alterations 
were allowable." || If the Gospels had been partly the work 
of unknown transcribers, the fact must have been notorious ; 
and no writer, of whatever character, would have ventured 
to use such language as that of Irenseus. 

Clement of Alexandria, his contemporary, calls the Scrip 
tures divinely inspired^ divine and holy books.** He speaks 
of the four Gospels, in contradistinction from all other ao 



* Cont. Haeres., lib. iii. c. 1, p. 173, ed. Massuet. 

t Ib., lib. iii. c. 11, 8, p. 190. f Ib., lib. i. c. 8, 1 p. 37 

Ib., lib. ii. c. 28, 2, p. 156. || See before, p. 8. 

Tf Stromat, lib. vii. 16, p. 894, ed. Potter. 

** Paedagog., lib. iii. c. 12, p. 309. 



40 EVIDENCES OF THE 

counts of Christ, as having been handed down to the Chris 
tians of his age ; * and he gives an account of the order of 
succession in which they were composed, saying that this 
account was derived from the presbyters of former times, t 

Tertullian manifests the same reverence for the Scriptures, 
and especially for the Gospels, as his contemporaries, Irenasus 
and Clement. He, like them, quotes the Gospels as works 
of decisive authority, in the same manner as any modern 
theologian might do. He wrote much against the heretic 
Marcion, whom he charges with having rejected the other 
Gospels, and having mutilated the Gospel of Luke to con 
form it to his system. This leads him to make some state 
ments which have a direct bearing on the present subject. 
" I affirm," says Tertullian, " that not only in the churches 
founded by apostles, but in all which have fellowship with 
them, that Gospel of Luke, which we so steadfastly defend, 
has been received from its first publication." "The same 
authority," he adds, " of the apostolic churches will support 
the other Gospels, which, in like manner, we have from them, 
conformably to their copies." $ "They," he says, "who were 
resolved to teach otherwise than the truth, were under a 
necessity of new-modelling the records of the doctrine." "As 
they could not have succeeded in corrupting the doctrine 
without corrupting its records, so we could not have preserved 
and transmitted the doctrine in its integrity, but by preserving 
the integrity of its records." 

I quote only a few short passages from Christian writers, 
arid those which have the most immediate relation to my 
present purpose; because I shall hereafter have occasion to 
show, more at length, the general reception of the Gospels, 
and the reverence in which they were held, at the end of the 



* Stromat., lib. iii. 13, p. 553. f Apud Euseb. H. E., lib. vi. c. 14. 
J Advers. Marcion., lib. iv. 5, pp. 415, 416, ed. Priorii. 
De Prescript. Hairet , 38, p. 216. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 41 

second century. The following is from an anonymous writer 
against the heresy of Artemon. He accuses those who main 
tained this heresy, of corrupting the Scriptures, and adds : 
4 How daring a crime this is, they can hardly be ignorant : 
for either they do not believe that the divine Scriptures were 
dictated by the Holy Spirit, and then they are infidels; or 
they believe themselves wiser than the Holy Spirit, and 
what are they then but madmen?"* Origen, in like manner, 
regarded the Scriptures as dictated by the Holy Spirit. He 
has many passages which correspond to the following, from 
one of his commentaries : " After this, Mark says [x. 50], 
And he, casting away his garment, leaped, and came to Jesus. 
Did the evangelist write without thought, when he related 
that the man cast away his garment, and leaped, and came to 
Jesus ? Or shall we dare to say, that this was inserted in the 
Gospel without purpose ? I believe that not one jot or one 
tittle of the divine instructions is without purpose." f 

In commenting upon Matt. xix. 19, Origen suspects, for 
reasons which it is unnecessary to state, the genuineness of 
the words, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; but he 
says, that, if it were not for the number of various readings 
found in different copies of the Gospels, " it might well seem 
irreverent in any one to suspect that the precept has been 
inserted here, without its having been mentioned by the 
Saviour." $ 

The passages quoted show the state of opinion and feeling 
among Christians during the first two centuries. They have 
been alleged to prove nothing in itself improbable, but, on 
the contrary, the existence of sentiments which it is incredible 
should not have existed. But it is clear, that those who enter 
tained them would neither make nor permit intentional altera 
tions in the Gospels. 

* Apud Euseb. H. E., lib. v. c. 28. 

t Comment, in Matt., torn. xvi. 12 ; Opp. iii. 734. 

J Comment, in Matt, torn. xv. 14; Opp. iii. 671. 



42 EVIDENCES OF THE 

II. About the close of the second century, different Chris- 
lian writers express strong censure of the mutilations and 
changes which they charge some heretics, particularly Mar- 
cion, with having made in the Gospels, and other books of 
the New Testament. Some passages to this effect have been 
quoted. It is unnecessary to adduce others, because the fact 
is well known and universally admitted. The feeling ex 
pressed by those writers was common, without doubt, to 
Christians generally. But they could not have felt, or have 
expressed themselves, as they did, if their own copies of the 
Gospels had been left, as is imagined, at the mercy of tran 
scribers, and there had been such a disagreement as must in 
consequence have existed among them. What text of their 
own would they have had to oppose to the text of Marcion, 
or of any other heretic ? What would they have had to bring 
forward, but a collection of discordant manuscripts, many of 
them, probably, differing as much from each other as the 
altered gospels of the heretics did from any one of them? 
If our Gospels had not existed, in their present form, till the 
close of the second century ; if, before that time, their text 
had been fluctuating, and assuming in different copies a differ 
ent form, such as transcribers might choose to give it, those 
by whom they were used could not have ventured to speak 
with such confidence of the alterations of the heretics. They 
must have apprehended too strongly the overwhelming retort, 
to which they lay so exposed, and against which they were so 
defenceless. If, however, any one can imagine that they really 
would have been bold enough to make the charges which they 
do against heretics, yet in this case they must at least have 
shown strong solicitude to guard the point where they them 
selves were so liable to attack. But no trace of such solicitude 
appears. 

III. We happen to have, in the works of a single writer, 
decisive evidence that no such differences ever existed in the 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 43 

manuscripts of the Gospels as are supposed in the hypothesis 
under consideration, and consequently that no such liberties 
as have been imagined were ever taken by their transcribers. 
Origen was born about the year 185, and flourished during 
the first half of the third century, dying about the year 254. 
IIo was particularly skilled in the criticism of the Scriptures. 
II is labors upon the text of the Septuagint are well known 
lie had in his possession, or had the means of consulting, 
Tarions manuscripts of the Gospels, of which he made a crit 
ical use, noticing their various readings. His notices are 
principally found in commentaries, which he wrote on the 
Gospels. Under these circumstances, if the manuscripts of 
the first and second centuries had differed from each other as 
much as has been imagined, we should expect to find distinct 
evidence of the fact in the voluminous writings of this early 
father. But this is not the case. On the contrary, the lan 
guage which he uses, and the kind of various readings which 
he actually adduces, prove that he was ignorant of any such 
diversities as have been fancied. But he could not have been 
ignorant of them, if they had existed. The various readings 
which he mentions are all unimportant variations. The 
greater part of them are still extant in our manuscripts. He 
remarks upon no such diversities as must have existed, if 
transcribers had indulged in such licentious alterations as 
have been supposed. On the contrary, the citations and 
remarks of Origen are adapted to produce a conviction, that 
the manuscripts of his time differed, to say the least, as little 
from each other, as the manuscripts now extant ; and, con 
sequently, that before his time there was the same care to 
preserve the original text as there has been since. 

This conviction is not weakened by a passage in his writ 
ings, which may seem at first view to favor the opposite 
opinion. The passage has been already referred to,* in this 

* See before, p. 41. 



44 EVIDENCES OF THE 

chapter, for the purpose of proving the reverence in which 
the Gospels were held ; but we will now attend to it a little 
more particularly. Origen, as has been said, was led, by 
a course of reasoning of considerable subtilty, to doubt the 
genuineness of the words (Matt. xix. 19), Thou shall love 
thy neighbor as thyself. After stating his arguments at some 
length, he says : 

" But if it were not that in many other passages there is a dif 
ference among copies, so that all those of the Gospel of Matthew 
do not agree together, and so also as it regards the other Gospels, 
it might well seem irreverent in any one to suspect that the pre 
cept has been inserted here without its having been mentioned by 
the Saviour. But it is evident that there exists much difference 
among copies, partly from the carelessness of some transcribers, 
partly from the rashness of others in altering improperly what they 
find written, and partly from those revisers who add or strike out 
according to their own judgment." 

He immediately subjoins, that he had provided a remedy for 
such errors in the copies of the Septuagint, by giving a new 
critical edition of it. 

In this passage, nothing is referred to but well-known, com 
mon causes of error in the transcription of manuscripts. 
We learn from it, that transcribers were sometimes careless : 
that they sometimes improperly altered from conjecture a 
reading in the copy before them, which they fancied to be 
erroneous ; and that those whose business it was to revise 
manuscripts after transcription, for the purpose of correcting 
errors, did sometimes, in the want of proper critical appa 
ratus, rely too much upon their mere judgment concerning 
what was probably the true text. These are all propositions 
which we might credit without the testimony of Origen. His 
language in speaking of the difference among the manuscripts 
of the Gospels, though he had a particular purpose in repre 
senting it as considerable, is much less strong than what has 
been used by some modern critics, and among them by Gries- 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 45 

bach himself, in speaking of the disagreement among our 
present copies. The expressions of the latter, as one may 
easily satisfy himself, are very loose and exaggerated.* If 
they had been found in Origen, it might have been difficult to 
believe that the agreement among the copies of the Gospels 
existing in his time was really as great as we know it to 
be among those extant at the present day. His language, 
inch as it is, affords no ground for a contrary supposition. 

But the passage before us deserves further attention in 
several points of view. In the first place, it goes to prove, 
as has been remarked, the reverence with which the Gospels 
were regarded. In the next place, it shows the importance 
which the most eminent Christian writer of his age attached 
to the proposal of omitting a few words in the text of St. 



* Griesbach, for instance, says (in the Prolegomena to his New Testament, 
sect, iii.), that what he calls the Alexandrine text of the New Testament dif 
fers from what he calls the Western text, " in its whole conformation and 
entire coloring," toto suo habitu universoque color e. According to him, if we 
take the quotations of Origen and Clement, certain manuscripts, and certain 
other authorities, all of which he classes together as Alexandrine, and settle 
the text of the New Testament from them al me, this text will differ in its 
whole aspect from that which may be formed by a similar process from the 
quotations of Tertullian and Cyprian, and the other authorities which, ac 
cording to him, belong to the Western class. All that seems necessary to 
enable one acquainted with the subject to perceive the extravagance of 
Griesbach s language, is to have his attention directed to it. It is incon 
sistent with his own statements elsewhere, and with indisputable facts. 

The assertion of Griesbach above quoted is made by him in a merely criti 
cal essay, in which any thing like exaggeration was least to be expected. If 
&n assertion of a similar kind had been found in any work, however declama 
tory, of a writer of the first three centuries, the circumstance might have 
eeemed embarrassing, as respects the present argument. We should, how 
ever, have been equally justified in regarding such language as highly 
extravagant in the one case as in the other. I advert to these facts in crder to 
illustrate a principle of considerable importance, that single passages from a 
particular writer are often of very little weight or importance, when opposed 
to a conclusion resting upon strong probabilities. Many writers, who have 
no intention of deceiving, are far from being accurate and attentive in esti 
mating the meaning and force of their words. 



46 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Matthew. But this renders incredible the supposition, that 
it had been common for the possessors and transcribers of 
manuscripts to make intentional changes in the text of the 
Gospels. The passage shows the prevalence of a sentiment 
wholly inconsistent with the disposition to make such changes ; 
and the prevalence of a belief in the genuineness of their text, 
which could not have existed if such changes had been com 
mon. This sentiment and belief are further exhibited in 
another passage of Origen, where, comparing the prediction 
of our Saviour, The Son of man shall be three days and three 
nights in the earth, with his declaration to the penitent rob 
ber, This night thou shalt be with me in paradise, he says, 
that " some have been so troubled with the seeming incon 
sistency as to venture to suspect the latter words of being an 
interpolation."* But, further, the passage before us shows, 
that Origen did not regard the Gospels as having been ex 
posed to any other causes of error than those common in the 
transcription of manuscripts ; such, for instance, as had oper 
ated, and without doubt much more extensively, in the copies 
of the Septuagint. And, lastly, the language of this passage 
affords proof, if such proof be needed, that Origen had no 
disposition to keep out of view, or to extenuate, the differ 
ences among the copies of the Gospels extant in his time. 
We may therefore be satisfied, that none of more importance 
existed than what we find noticed by him. 

It appears, then, that Origen thought the diversities of 
manuscripts a subject deserving particular attention ; that 
lie was rather disposed to complain of the carelessness and 
rashness of transcribers and revisers, and to exaggerate the 
discrepancies which had been thus produced; nnd yet that he 
never mentions the existence of any more important differ 
ences among the copies of the Gospels extant in his time, 
than such various readings as are found in our present manu- 

* Comment, in Joan., torn, xxxii. 19 ; Opp. iv. 455. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 47 

scripts. lie was ignorant, therefore, of any such differences 
as are supposed in the hypothesis under consideration. But, 
if unknown to him, they were unknown to other Christians 
at the time when Origen lived ; that is, during the first half 
of the third century. They, therefore, did not exist in 
the manuscripts of this period. But we, at the present 
day, have manuscripts of the Gospels written at least twelve 
hundred years since: and, during the first half of the third 
century, a large portion of all the copies which had ever been 
made was probably in existence ; some written in the earliest 
times, and others in succession during the interval. The 
oldest manuscripts would be sought for by Origen, and other 
critics contemporary with him ; as they have been by critics 
since his time. The manuscripts of a later date extant in his 
age were transcripts of others more ancient, and must have 
perpetuated their discrepancies. But no important discrep 
ancies were known to Origen ; they were not found in earlier 
or later copies, extant in his age ; and it is but little more 
than stating the same thing in other words, to say that they 
never had existed. 

IV. We may reason in a similar manner from all the 
notices in ancient writers relating to the text of the Gospels. 
These notices show that no greater difference existed among 
the manuscripts of the Gospels in their day than exists at 
present. We may even draw a strong argument from their 
silence. If there had been narratives or sayings in some 
copies of the Gospels, not found in the generality, we should 
have information of it in their works. But, on the contrary, 
nothing can be alleged from their writings to prove any 
greater difference among the copies extant in their time 
than what is found among those which we now possess. 
The silence of the fathers proves that there was a similar 
agreement. 



48 EVIDENCES OF THE 

V. When we examine the Gospels themselves, there is 
nothing which discovers marks of their having been subjected 
to such a process of interpolation as has been imagined. On 
the contrary, there is evidence which seems decisive that each 
is the work of an individual, and has been preserved as it 
was written by him. The dialect, the style, and the modes 
of narration in the Gospels, generally have a very marked 
and peculiar character. Each Gospel, also, is distinguished 
from the others by individual peculiarities in the use of lan 
guage,, and other characteristics exclusively its own. Any 
onQ familiar with the originals perceives, for instance, that 
Mark is a writer less acquainted with the Greek language 
than Luke, and having less command of proper expression. 
His style is, in consequence, more affected by the idiom of 
the Hebrew, more harsh, more unformed, more barbarous, 
in the technical sense of that word. If you were to transfer 
into Luke s Gospel a chapter from that of Mark, every critic 
would at once perceive its dissimilitude to the general style 
of the former. The difference would be still more remarka 
ble, if you were to insert a portion from Mark in John s 
Gospel. But the very distinctive character of the style of 
the Gospels generally, and the peculiar character of each 
Gospel, are irreconcilable with the notion, that they have 
been brought to their present state by additions and altera 
tions of successive copiers. A diversity of hands would have 
produced in each Gospel a diversity of style and character. 
Instead of the uniformity that now appears, the modes of 
conception and expression would have been inconsistent and 
vacillating. We are able to give a remarkable exemplifica 
tion and proof of this fact. With the exception of a few 
short passages which have been transferred from one Gospel 
to another, of the doxology at the end of our Lord s Prayer 
in Matthew, and of the story of the woman taken in adultery, 
as inserted in a very few modern manuscripts at the end of 
the twenty-first chapter of Luke, there have been found but 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 49 

three undisputed interpolations of any considerable length 
among all the Greek manuscripts of the Gospels ; and every 
one of the three betrays itself to be spurious by its internal 
character, by a style of thought and langunge clearly dif 
ferent from that which characterizes the Gospel in which it 
has been introduced. This is not a matter of fancy. It is 
a point which no critic will dispute. If, then, our present 
Gospels had been the result of successive additions, made by 
different hands to a common basis, there would have been 
a marked diversity of style in different portions of the same 
Gospel ; so that these works would have been very unlike 
what they now are. We should have perceived clear traces 
of different writers, having greater or less command of ex 
pression, accustomed to a different use of language, and 
viewing the history of Christ under different aspects and 
with different feelings. 

It is true, that in the passage commencing with the fifth 
verse of the first chapter of St. Luke s Gospel, and extend 
ing to the end of the second chapter, there is an observable 
dissimilarity between the language and that of the remainder 
of his Gospel ; so that it forms an exception to the general 
remarks which have just been made. This circumstance has 
given occasion for supposing it to be an interpolation. But 
the true account seems to be, that this passage was a short 
narrative, in existence before the work of the evangelist, 
which he incorporated with his Gospel ; that, if he found it 
extant in Greek, he did not essentially modify the style ; and, 
if in Hebrew, that his translation was literal, and affected 
throughout by the idiom of the original. The events recorded 
in this portion of his Gospel having taken place, as we 
believe, about sixty years before he wrote, the supposition is 
in itself probable ; and it explains the character of this par 
ticular passage, without affecting the force of the preceding 
reasoning. On the contrary, this is strengthened by the cir 
cumstance, that, where an exception occurs, we can assign 

4 



50 EVIDENCES OF THE 

a special and probable cause for it. It may be observed, 
further, that our being able to perceive so much difference 
between the language of this portion of St. Luke s Gospel 
and that of the remainder, shows the general uniformity and 
marked character of St. Luke s style. 

Upon the hypothesis under consideration, it is as probable 
that the stories collected by various transcribers would have 
bojn added to St. John s Gospel, as to any one of the other 
Gospels. By comparing his Gospel with the other three, we 
perceive that there were many narratives concerning Christ 
in existence, which are not contained in the former, and 
which would have afforded an abundant harvest for an 
interpolator. But it is obvious that no such additions have 
been made to St. John s Gospel as are supposed to have 
been commonly made to the histories of Christ. The modes 
of thinking, and the style, are uniform throughout, and 
very marked and distinguishable. It may be separated into 
a few long divisions, each of which is closely connected 
within itself; and it contains scarcely any of those short 
narratives in the style of the other Gospels, among which we 
must look for the additions which transcribers are supposed 
to have made to the latter. Such being the facts, it is impos 
sible to believe that this Gospel has ever been essentially 
corrupted by additions from its copiers. But if this Gospel, 
equally exposed to corruption with any one of the other 
three, has not thus suffered from transcribers, we may infer 
that the same is true of the other three Gospels. 

VI. There is also another ground, on which we infer, from 
the uniformity of style in the several Gospels, and the pecu 
liar character of this style, that they have not been inter 
polated. The Gospels are written in Hellenistic Greek, a 
dialect used by Jews imperfectly acquainted with the Greek 
language, and intimately affected, in consequence, by the 
influence of the Hebrew. A native Greek could not have 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 51 

written in this dialect, if he would, without having made it 
a particular study. Now, it is through the Gentile branch 
of the early converts that Christianity and the Gospels have 
been transmitted to us. But we know from the New Testa 
ment, that, in the very beginning, there were strong tenden 
ciss to schism between the Jewish and Gentile converts. 
After the death of the apostles, and the destruction of Jem 
salem, the former, generally speaking, separated themselves 
more and more from the latter; they remained strongly 
attached to their law ; they were reputed heretics ; they 
seem to have made little or no use of the books which con 
stitute the New Testament, with the exception of the Gospel 
of Matthew ; and at last, after four or five centuries, they 
disappear from our view. It would be a very improbable 
supposition, that any considerable number of the copies of 
the Gospels used by Gentile Christians were made by Jewish 
transcribers, or interpolated by Jews. It is not to such 
copies that we can trace back the lineage of our own. Only 
a portion of the Jews were acquainted with the Greek lan 
guage as written ; and very few, it is probable, exercised the 
trade of transcribers in that language. Origen, in attempting 
to explain the cause of a supposed error, which he believed to 
have arisen from ignorance of the Hebrew, speaks of the 
Gospels as having been continually transcribed by Greeks 
unacquainted with that language.* But the Gospels are 
throughout written in Hellenistic . Greek. Whatever inter 
polations may be fancied to exist, they do not discover them 
selves by being written in pure and common Greek. These 
fancied interpolations, however, are supposed to have been 
made by a series of transcribers. But these transcribers, as 
we have seen, must generally have been Gentiles ; and 
Gentiles would hardly have interpolated in Hebrew-Greek, 
or, to say the least, would hardly have interpolated ID 

* Comment, in Matt., torn. xvi. 19; Opp. iii. 748. 



52 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Hebrew- Greek so uniformly that we should not be able to 
trace any considerable departure from this dialect. 

VII. In those cases in which we have good reason to sus 
pect an ancient writing of being spurious altogether, or of 
having received spurious additions, the fact is almost always 
betrayed by something in the character of the writing itself. 
Spurious works, and interpolations in genuine works, are dis 
covered, for instance, by something not congruous to the char 
acter of the pretended author ; by a style different from that 
of his genuine writings ; by the expression of opinions and 
feelings which it is improbable that he entertained ; by discov 
ering an ignorance of facts with which he must have been 
acquainted ; by a use of language, and the introduction of 
modes of conception, not known at the period to which they 
are assigned ; by an implied reference to opinions, events, or 
even books, of a later age ; or by some bearing and purpose 
not consistent with the time when they are pretended to have 
been written. Traces of the times when they were really 
composed are almost always apparent. This must have been 
the case with the Gospels, if they had been conformed, as has 
been imagined, to the traditions and doctrines of the Church in 
the second century. But, putting this notion out of view, we 
should have perceived distinct traces of a later age than the 
period assigned for their composition, if they had been sub 
jected to alterations and additions from different editors and 
transcribers, with different views and feelings, and more or 
less interested and excited about the opinions and controver 
sies which had sprung up in their own times. But no traces 
of a later age than that which we assign for their composition 
appear in the Gospels. He who fairly examines the scanty 
list of passages which have been produced, as giving some 
countenance to an opposite opinion, may fully satisfy himself 
of the correctness of this assertion. I will quote, in proof of 
it, a passage from Eichhorn, which 1 am unable to reconcile 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 53 

with the statements before adduced from him, and with other 
parts of his writings ; but which, evidently, derives additional 
weight from this inconsistency. In a section " on the credi 
bility " of the Gospels, after mentioning by name Matthew, 
Mark, and Luke, as the authors of the first three, he thus 
proceeds : 

"Every thing in their narratives corresponds to the ago in 
which they lived and wrote, and to the circumstances in which we 
must believe them to have been placed, an unanswerable proof 
of their credibility. No one has yet appeared, who, in this re 
spect, has convicted them of want of truth ; and, until this be done 
by satisfactory evidence, their credibility may be confidently main 
tained." * 

If, then, the Gospels do not bear the impression of later 
times, but correspond in their character to the age in which 
we believe them to have been written, this must be regarded 
as a strong proof that they are genuine, uncorrupted works of 
that age. 

VIII. The character and actions of Jesus Christ, as exhib 
ited in the Gospels, are peculiar and extraordinary beyond all 
example. They distinguish him, in a most remarkable man 
ner, from all other men. They display the highest moral 
sublimity. We perceive, throughout, an ultimate purpose 
of the most extensive benevolence. But this character of 
Christ, which appears in the Gospels, is exhibited with per 
fect consistency. Whatever he is represented as saying or 
doing corresponds to the fact or the conception, call it 
which we will, that he was a teacher sent from God, indued 
with the highest powers, and intrusted with the most impor 
tant office ever exercised upon earth. The different parts of 
each Gospel harmonize together. Now, let any one consider 
how unlikely it is that we should have found this consistency 

* Einleitung in d. N. T., i. 639. 



54 EVIDENCES OF THE 

in the representation of Christ, if the Gospels had been, in 
great part, the work of inconsiderate or presumptuous copiers ; 
or if they had consisted, in great part, of a collection of tra 
ditionary stories ; and especially if these stories had been, as 
some have imagined, either fabulous accounts of miracles, or 
narratives having a foundation in truth, but corresponding so 
little to the real fact as to have assumed a miraculous charac 
ter, which there was nothing in the fact itself to justify. It 
is incredible, that, under such circumstances, there should be 
the consistency which now appears in the Gospels. On the 
contrary, we might expect to find in them stories of the same 
kind with those which were found, or are still found, in cer 
tain writings that have been called apocryphal gospels, 
stories which betray their falsehood at first view by their 
incongruity with the character and actions of our Saviour, as 
displayed by the evangelists. We shall have occasion to 
notice some of them more particularly hereafter. Every one 
acquainted with the stories referred to must perceive and 
acknowledge their striking dissimilitude to the narratives of 
the Gospels. A dissimilitude of the same kind would have 
existed between different parts of the Gospels, if they had 
grown, as has been imagined, to their present form by a grad 
ual contribution of traditionary tales. On the contrary, their 
consistency in the representation of our Saviour is. one 
among the many proofs that they have been preserved essen 
tially as they were first written. 

We have seen, then, in the present chapter, that there is no 
reason to doubt that the Christians of the first two centuries 
had the highest reverence for their sacred books ; and that, 
with this sentiment, they could neither have made nor have 
suffered alterations in the Gospels ; that the manner in which 
the Christian fathers speak of the corruptions with which 
they charged some of the heretics implies, from the nature of 
the case, that they knew of no similar corruptions in their 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 55 

own copies of the Gospels ; that, from the notice which 
Origen takes of the various readings found by him in his 
manuscripts of the Gospels, we may conclude, that no con 
siderable diversity among the manuscripts of the Gospels had 
ever existed ; that we may infer the same from all the other 
notices respecting the text of the Gospels in the writings of 
the fathers, and from the absence of any thing in theii works 
which might show that their copies differed more from each 
other than those now extant ; that the peculiar style of the 
Gospels generally, and the uniform style of each Gospel, 
afford proof that each is essentially the work of one author, 
which has been preserved unaltered ; that this argument be 
comes more striking when we consider that far the greater 
number of the copies of the Gospels, during the first two 
centuries, were made by Greek transcribers, who, if they had 
interpolated, would have interpolated in common Greek ; that 
it is from copies made by them that our own are divided, but 
that the Gospels, as we possess them, are written throughout 
in that dialect of the Greek which was used only by Jews ; 
that spurious works, or spurious additions to genuine works, 
may commonly be discovered by some incongruity with the 
character or the circumstances of the pretended author, 01 
with the age to which they are assigned, but that no such 
incongruity appears in the Gospels as may throw any doubt 
upon their general character; and, lastly, that the consist 
ency preserved throughout each of the Gospels in all that 
relates to the actions, discourses, and most extraordinary char 
acter of Christ, shows that each is a work which remains the 
same essentially as it was originally written, uncorrupted by 
subsequent alterations or additions. 



It has, indeed, been already remarked, that the Gospel of 
St. Matthew was probably written in Hebrew ; and that we 



5t) EVIDENCES OP THE 

possess only a Greek translation. So far, therefore, as re 
gards this Gospel, a part of the arguments adduced, especially 
those in the first chapter, apply directly only to prove the 
uncorrupt preservation of the Greek copy. But I am not 
aware of any consideration that may lead us to suspect, that 
the Greek is not a faithful rendering from the Hebrew copy 
or copies used by the translator, or that the exemplar he 
followed did not essentially correspond with the original. On 
the contrary, there seems no reasonable ground for doubt 
respecting either proposition. 

It is true, that the three additions before suggested* may 
have been made to the Hebrew text used by the translator. 
The liability to those accidents that attend the transcription 
of books was probably increased, in the case of Matthew s 
Gospel, by a more than ordinary want of skill and judgment 
in some of its Hebrew copyists ; for the transcription of 
books cannot be supposed to have been an art much practised 
among the native Jews of Palestine. But the causes of error 
in the text used by Matthew s translator could have operated 
but a short time, since we cannot suppose the interval between 
the composition and translation of the Gospel to have been 
more than about fifty years. 

In regard to the hypothesis we have been considering, of 
licentious and intentional additions by transcribers, as we have 
seen that there is no ground for it as regards the Greek Gos 
pels, so we may infer that the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew 
did not thus suffer during the fifty years after its first appear 
ance. The supposition that it did so, being altogether im 
probable in itself, would require strong, direct proof to justify 
us in admitting it ; but, on the contrary, there is nothing to 
set aside the conclusion, founded on the general analogy of 
other writings, that this Gospel was the work of an individual 



See before, pp. 16, 17. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 57 

author, and was, during the short interval before its transla 
tion, preserved essentially as written by him. 

Speaking of the time when the Hebrew original alone was 
extant, Papias says, that "every one translated it as he 
could ; " meaning, I conceive, that he translated it to himself 
in reading it. His words, it is evident, directly imply that it 
was in the hands of readers whose vernacular language was 
the Greek. Many of the Jewish converts, without doubt, 
were capable of understanding it both in the Hebrew and the 
Greek. There were, therefore, contemporary j idges of the cor 
respondence of the translation with the original, by whom its 
correspondence was not questioned ; for, had it been, we should 
have known the fact. Nor is an expression of doubt con 
cerning its authenticity to be found in any subsequent age : 
on the other hand, controvertists, the most opposed to each 
other, agreed in using the Greek translation as a common 
authority. 



But the whole supposition of licentious alterations in the 
Gospels from the text of their original authors must rest on 
the belief that there was a general indifference among the 
early Christians about the genuineness and authenticity of 
the books from which they derived a knowledge of their 
religion. Those writings they might have preserved uncor- 
rupted, if they would. But such, it must be presumed, was 
their negligence and folly, that they cared not whether the 
contents of the Gospels were true or false ; whether they 
proceeded from apostles and evangelists, or from unknown 
and anonymous individuals. Christians, at the time of which 
we speak, were submitting to severe privations, and exposing 
themselves to great sufferings, for their religion. They were 
supported by a conviction of the infinite value of the truths 
which it taught, those truths, the knowledge of which was 
preserved, as they believed, in the writings cf its first disciples. 



58 GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 

But, if we suppose the text of any one of the Gospels to 
have suffered essential alteration, we must suppose that 
Christians were indifferent about the contents of those books 
which they regarded as the authentic records of their faith, 
tfieir duties, their consolations, and their hopes. It seems, 
therefore, not too much to say of the hypothesis of the essen 
tial corruption of the Gospels, that it is irreconcilable with 
any just conception of the circumstances and feelings of the 
early Christians, and of the moral nature of man. 



CHAPTER III. 

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 

UPON what arguments, then, rests the supposition that essen 
tial alterations have been made in the Gospels since their 
original composition ? These arguments, whatever they are, 
if of any force, must assume the character of objections and 
difficulties, when viewed in relation to the proposition, the 
truth of which has been maintained. But, strongly as the cor 
ruption of the Gospels has been asserted, I am unacquainted 
with any formal statement of arguments in its proof. 

Those by whom it has been principally maintained belong 
to that large class of German critics who reject the belief of 
any thing properly miraculous in the history of Christ. But 
the difficulty of reconciling this disbelief of the miracles with 
the admission of the truth of facts concerning him not miracu 
lous is greatly increased, if the Gospels be acknowledged as 
the uncorrupted works of those who were witnesses of what 
they relate, or who derived their information immediately 
from such witnesses. On the other hand, in proportion as 
suspicion is cast upon the genuineness and authenticity of 
those writings, the history of Christ becomes doubtful and 
obscure. An opening is made for theories concerning his life, 
character, and works, and the origin of his religion. Any 
account of our Saviour, upon the supposition that he was not 
a teacher from God endued with miraculous powers, must be 
almost wholly conjectural. But such a conjectural account 



60 EVIDENCES OF THE 

will appear to less disadvantage, if placed in competition with 
narratives of uncertain origin, than if brought into direct 
opposition to the authority of original witnesses. 

The theory of the corruption of the Gospels has been con 
nected with an hypothesis concerning the manner in which 
the first three Gospels were formed; from which, as I con 
ceive, it has been regarded as deriving its main support. This 
hypothesis is intended to account for the remarkable phenom 
ena in the agreement and disagreement of the first three Gos 
pels with each other. It has been explained and defended, 
with much clearness and ability, by Bishop Marsh.* It sup 
poses the existence of an original document, a brief narrative 
of the public life of Christ, the Original Gospel of Eichhorn. 
This document, it is believed, was in the hands of several 
persons, who added to it different narratives, according to 
their respective information ; so that copies of it were in 
existence with different additions. Each of the first three 
evangelists is thought to have used a different copy as the 
basis of his Gospel. It is then only to suppose, that the same 
custom of making additions, which was common in regard to 
the original document just mentioned, prevailed afterwards 
in regard to the Gospels, and we have the very supposition 
against which we have been contending. 

To this the answer is, that the hypothesis, in any form in 
which it may be presented, can, at most, be regarded only as 
creating a presumption that the Gospels have been corrupted ; 
and this presumption would be of no force in opposition to 
the facts stated in the two preceding chapters. It would only 
bring suspicion upon the hypothesis itself; since this must be 



* In his " Dissertation on the Origin and Composition of the Three First 
Canonical Gospels," and his tracts in the controversy occasioned by an anony 
mous publication (of which Bishop Randolph was the author) entitled, 
" Remarks on Michaelis s Introduction to the New Testament ; by Way of 
Caution to Students in Divinity." 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 61 

conformed to all the facts -which have a bearing upon it. The 
latter must not be made to bend to the former. With such a 
view of the subject, it would be improper, in this place, to 
enter into a particular examination of the theory in question. 
Such an examination, however, may be found in one of the 
additional notes to this volume.* If the reasoning there 
urged be correct, it will appear that the hypothesis of an 
original document gradually receiving additions from different 
hands, and used in different forms by the first three evange 
lists, involves suppositions which cannot be admitted ; that it 
is unnecessary in order to account for the agreement cf the 
Gospels with each other ; and that it is neither implied, nor 
rendered probable, by the phenomena to be explained, but 
that, on the contrary, it is inconsistent with those phenomena. 
It may be recollected, that the Original Gospel is regarded 
by Eichhorn, not only as the common source of our first three 
Gospels, but likewise of certain apocryphal gospels, which 
were in use before them.f These, according to him, were 
the following : The Gospel of the Hebrews ; the Gospel of 
Marcion ; the Memoirs by the Apostles, used by Justin Mar 
tyr ; the gospel adopted by Cerinthus and his sect ; gospels 
used by Tatian in composing his Diatessaron ; and those used 
by the apostolic fathers. These gospels, and our first three 
Gospels, are all supposed to have been so intimately con 
nected, as to prove their derivation from a common original ; 
and the knowledge which we possess respecting their con 
tents is regarded as illustrating the process of change and 
growth which they had all gone through. I shall, in the 
course of this work, remark, under the proper heads, upon 
the gospels mentioned by Eichhorn, and endeavor to show, 
that the Gospel of the Hebrews was probably, in its primi 
tive state, the Hebrew original of St. Matthew ; that the 
books used by Justin were our four Gospels ; that there is no 

* See Note B, pp 463-510. f See before, p. 5, seqq. 



62 EVIDENCES OF THE 

reason to doubt, that the four gospels, which, toward the end 
of the second century, Tatian, who had been a disciple of 
Justin Martyr, made the basis of his Diatessaron, were the 
four canonical Gospels ; that Marcion had a mutilated copy 
of St. Luke, a fact which, in consequence of the exami 
nations that have taken place since Eichhorn wrote, seems 
now to be generally undisputed ; that the scanty, uncertain, 
contradictory information respecting Cerinthus and his sect 
affords no ground for the conclusion that they used a peculiar 
gospel ; and that there is nothing in the writings ascribed to 
Apostolic Fathers which may justify the supposition, that, 
previously to the general reception of our four Gospels, other 
gospels were in common circulation among Christians as 
authentic histories of Christ. 

It is, moreover, affirmed by Eichhorn as a general truth, 
that "before the invention of printing, in transcribing a 
manuscript, the most arbitrary alterations were considered 
as allowable, since they affected only an article of private 
property, written for the use of an individual." 4 It fol 
lows, that, in maintaining that the Gospels have under 
gone a process of corruption, one is only maintaining that 
they shared the common fate of all other ancient writings. 
In proof of his general proposition, Eichhorn alleges, that 
there are many manuscripts of chronicles of the Middle 
Ages, which, purporting to be copies of the same work, 
yet present different texts, some containing more and others 
less ; and, in further evidence that the most arbitrary altera 
tions by transcribers were considered as allowable, he cites 
Dionysius of Corinth as calling some who had corrupted his 
writings apostles of Satan. But the proposition, though 
apparently laid down as the basis of his hypothesis, is so 
obviously false as hardly to admit of remark or contradiction. 

* See before, p. 8. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 03 

It could only have been made through some strange inadvert 
ence. As the ordinary mode of dealing with books in ancient 
times was, as every one knows, the reverse of what Eichhorn 
supposes, it must need very strong and special reasons to 
render the conjecture probable, that the Gospels were made 
exceptions to the common usage. 

As evidence that such was the case, that the Gospels were 
subjected to a mode of treatment different from that which 
other books experienced, a few passages have been quoted 
from ancient writers ; which, in fact, form the whole of what 
can bo considered as a direct attempt to prove the proposi 
tion. Two of them one from Dionysius of Corinth, and the 
othei from Origen we have already had occasion to exam 
ine ; and their true bearing appears to be directly opposed to 
the supposition which they have been brought to establish.* 
Two others remain to be considered. 

" Celsus," says Eichhorn, " objects to the Christians, that 
they had changed their Gospels three times, four times, and 
oftener, as if they were deprived of their senses." f The 
passage is twice quoted by him, and therefore, it may be pre 
sumed, is regarded as an important proof of his theory. If 
it were correctly represented in the words which have been 
given, the first obvious answer would be, that such a charge 
is as little to be credited upon the mere assertion of Celsus, 
as various other calumnies of that writer against the Chris 
tians, which no one at the present day believes. But Celsus 
does not say what he is represented as saying. He does not 
bring the charge against Christians generally, but against 
tome Christians. His words are preserved in the work com 
posed by Origen in reply to Celsus ; and, correctly rendered, 
are as follows : " Afterwards Celsus says, that some believ 
ers, like men driven by drunkenness to commit violence on 

* Seo before, pp. 38, 39, and p. 43, seqq. t See before, p. 9. 



64 EVIDENCES OF THE 

themselves, have altered the Gospel-history,* since its first 
composition, three times, four times, and oftener, and have 
refashioned it, so as to be able to deny the objections made 
against it." To this, the whole reply of Origen is as fol 
lows : " I know of none who have altered the Gospel-history, 
except the followers of Marcion, of Valentinus, and I think 
also those of Lucan. But this affords no ground for reproach 
against the religion itself, but against those who have dared 
to corrupt the Gospels. And as it is no reproach against 
philosophy, that there are Sophists or Epicureans or Peripa 
tetics, or any others who hold false opinions ; so also it is no 
reproach against true Christianity, that there are those who 
have altered the Gospels, and introduced heresies foreign 
from the teaching of Jesus." f 

It is evident, that Origen regarded the words of Celsus as a 
mere declamatory accusation, which he was not called upon 
to repel by any elaborate reply. A grave charge against the 
whole body of Christians, of the nature of that which Celsus 
urges, could not have been dismissed in three sentences of 
a long and able work in defence of Christianity against his 
attacks. The charge may have been founded, as Origen sup 
poses, upon the mutilations and corruptions of the Gospels 
made by some heretics. Another solution of it is, that Cel 
sus, being acquainted with the four Gospels, and perceiving 
that they had much in common with much that was different, 
did, on this ground, represent Christians as having given the 
Gospel-history four different forms. But if we believe that 
Celsus fully understood the subject, and, having no reference 
to any heretical sects or to the existence of four different 
histories of Christ, really meant to bring against catholic 

* Literally, the Gospel, TO evayyefaov ; but this word is here used, as it is 
elsewhere in ancient writers, to denote the Gospel-history. In this use of the 
word, the four Gospels are commonly denoted, considered collectively, as 
containing this history. 

t Orig. cont. Cels , lib. ii. 27; Opp. 5. 411. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 65 

Christians a grave charge of corrupting the Gospels, then we 
must consider what is the proper inference from the passage. 
He was, as no one will deny, forward enough in adducing 
unsupported and calumnious accusations against those whom 
he was attacking. If there had been any pretence for saying 
that Christians generally had altered and corrupted the Gos 
pels, he would have said it. But he does not. He merely 
.says, whether truly or not may be a question, that some 
Christians had done this. It is of the nature of such a 
charge, when brought against some of any community, to 
exculpate the community in general. According, therefore, 
to the implied testimony of their enemy, Christians, generally 
speaking, had not altered nor corrupted the Gospels. 

But the passage affords ground for further remark. Celsus 
compares the conduct of those whom he charges with altering 
the Gospel-history, or the Gospels, to that of men impelled 
by drunkenness to commit violence on themselves. Origen 
does not object to the comparison ; and there is no objection 
to be made to the opinion implied in it, respecting the char 
acter and consequences of such a procedure. It is one which 
the friends and the enemies of the religion must equally have 
perceived to be correct. The question, therefore, whether 
the early Christians altered the Gospels, resolves itself into 
the question, whether they acted like men intoxicated, to the 
evident ruin of their cause. 

The other passage, before referred to, is from Clement of 
Alexandria. " Clement also, at the end of the second cen 
tury, speaks of those who corrupted the gospels, and ascribes 
it to them, that at Matt. v. 10, instead of the words, for theirs 
is the kingdom of heaven, there was found in some manu 
scripts, for they shall be perfect ; and in others, for they shall 
have a plane where they shall not be persecuted" * This 
statement is erroneous. Clement does not speak of those 



See before, p. 
5 



66 EVIDENCES OF THE 

who corrupted, but of those who paraphrased, the Gospels ; 
nor does he give the words alleged by him, as various read 
ings in manuscripts of the Gospels. Quoting the original 
text incorrectly, probably from memory, in these words, 
" Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness* 
sake, for they shall be called the sous of God," * he adds, 
" Qr, as some who have paraphrased the Gospels express 
it, Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness 
sake, for they shall be perfect; and, Blessed are they who 
are persecuted for my sake, for they shall attain a place 
where they shall not be persecuted." It is of paraphrasts 
or scholiasts that the passage is understood by Eichhorn 
himself, when writing without a view to his peculiar theory. f 
Clement expresses no indignation against those of whom he 
speaks, as he would have done if they had corrupted the 
Gospels. On the contrary, his quoting their words as he 
does implies a certain degree of approbation. 

It is remarkable, that, in understanding his words as proving 
a general license of corruption during his time, the extraor 
dinary and quite incredible nature of the inference which is 
to be drawn from them has not been adverted to. If his 
words were thus to be understood, they would prove, not that 
transcribers made additions to what they found before them, 
or occasionally omitted or corrupted a passage, but that they 
indulged themselves in the most wanton alterations of the 
plain language of the Gospels. There are few passages less 
exposed to intentional corruption than the one quoted by 
Clement ; and if this were made to assume three such differ 
ent forms in the manuscripts which he had seen, and if these 
changes afforded, as is maintained, a specimen of the common 
practice of transcribers, it would follow, that the text of the 
Gospels had, in the time of Clement, undergone great altera- 

* The words are not, as given by Eichhorn, For theirs is the kingdom of 
leaven. 

* Einleit. in d. N. T., -u. 553. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 67 

tions, and had assumed a very different character in different 
manuscripts. There must have been, in his age, an astonish 
ing discordance among different copies of the Gospels. Some 
must have been very unlike others in their modes of expres 
sion, as well as in their contents. But, if this be the legitimate 
conclusion from the meaning which has been put upon his 
words, it is only necessary to state it, in order to show that 
that meaning must be false. 

Such are the main arguments in support of the hypothesis 
of the corruption of the Gospels ; or, in other words, such are 
the objections to the proposition that they remain essentially 
the same as they were originally composed. The truth of 
this proposition, it may be recollected, is proved by various 
considerations, unconnected with each other. It appears 
from the essential agreement among the very numerous 
copies of the Gospels, so diverse in their character, and in 
their mode of derivation from the original. This agreement 
among different copies could not have existed, unless some 
archetype had been faithfully followed ; and this archetype, it 
has been shown, could have been no other than the original 
text. It appears from the reverence in which the Gospels 
were held by the early Christians, and the deep sense which 
they had of the impropriety and guilt of making any altera 
tion in those writings. It appears from the historical notices 
respecting their text, which are wholly inconsistent with the 
supposition of its having suffered essential corruptions. And, 
finally, it appears from the internal character of the books 
themselves, which show no marks of gross, intentional inter 
polation ; but, on the contrary, exhibit a consistency of style 
and conception irreconcilable with the supposition of it. 

If, then, we may consider the proposition as established, that 
the Gospels remain essentially the same as they were origi 
nally composed, the remaining inquiry is, whether they are 
the works of those to whom they have been ascribed. 



PART II. 



DIRECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE THAT THE GOSPELS HAVE BEEN 
ASCRIBED TO THEIR TRUE AUTHORS. 



PAKT H. 



CHAPTER I. 

EVIDENCE FROM THE GENERAL RECEPTION OP THE GOS 
PELS AS GENUINE AMONG CHRISTIANS DURING THE 
LAST QUARTER OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 

HAVING shown that the Gospels have been transmitted to 
us as they were first written, I shall, in what follows, adduce 
evidence of the fact that they have been ascribed to their true 
authors. 

The proof which may be first stated is, that they were re 
garded with the highest reverence, as genuine and sacred 
books, by the great body of Christians during the last quarter 
of the second century. 

There is little or no dispute about the truth of this proposi 
tion, and I might perhaps assume it as established, and pro 
ceed to reason upon it ; but it may be better to bring forward 
some of the evidence on which it rests. I have had occasion 
already to quote, or allude to, a part of it ; * and shall en 
deavor, as far as possible, to avoid repetition. The passages 
before given must be viewed in connection with those here 
alleged. 

One of the earliest Christian writers whose works have 
come down to us is Irenaeus. The exact time of his birth is 

* See before, pp. 36-41. 



72 EVIDENCES OF THE 

uncertain ; but he was born in the first half of the second 
century, and but just survived its close. Beside a few frag 
ments of other writings, there is only one of his works which 
remains to us, his treatise "Against Heretics," a name which, 
in his time, was limited in its application to the different sects 
of Gnostics and the Ebionites. It was in the name of the 
great body of catholic believers, and in defence of their opin 
ions, that Irenceus wrote. The first sentence of the following 
passage has been already quoted : 

"We," says Irenseus, " have not received the knowledge of the 
way of our salvation by any others than those through whom the 
Gospel has come down to us ; which Gospel they first preached, and 
afterwards, by the will of God, transmitted to us in writing, that 
it might be the foundation and pillar of our faith." "For after our 
Lord had risen from the dead, and they [the apostles] were clothed 
with the power of the Holy Spirit descending upon them from on 
high, were filled with all gifts, and possessed perfect knowledge, 
they went forth to the ends of the earth, spreading the glad tidings 
of those blessings which God has conferred upon us, and announcing 
\>eace from heaven to men ; having all, and every one alike, the 
Gospel of God. Matthew among the Hebrews published a Gospel 
in their own language ; while Peter and Paul were preaching the 
Gospel at Rome, and founding a church there. And, after their 
departure [death], Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, 
himself delivered to us in writing what Peter had preached ; and 
Luke, the companion of Paul, recorded the Gospel preached by 
him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord who leaned upon 
his breast, likewise published a Gospel while he dwelt at Ephesus, 
in Asia. And all these have taught us, that there is one God, the 
Maker of heaven and earth, announced by the Law and the Proph 
ets ; and one Christ, the Son of God. And he who does not assent 
to them despises indeed those who knew the mind of the Lord ; but 
he despises also Christ himself the Lord, and he despises likewise 
the Father, and is self-condemned, resisting and opposing his own 
salvation; and this all heretics do."* 

* Contra Haeres., lib. iii. c. 1, pp. 173, 174. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 73 

In this passage it may be observed, that Irenaeus, in defend 
ing the Christian doctrine, rests it upon the authority of the 
Gospels ; that he even does this without mentioning the other 
books of the New Testament ; that he considers the former as 
having been composed, that they might be the foundation and 
pillar of the faith of Christians ; and that he assigns them, 
without doubt or hesitation, to the authors by whom we be 
lieve them to have been written. The following passage is 
to the same effect : 

** Nor can there be more or fewer Gospels than these. For, as 
there are four regions of the world in which we live, and four car 
dinal winds, and the Church is spread over all the earth, and the 
Gospel is the pillar and support of the Church, and the breath of 
life ; in like manner is it fit that it should have four pillars, breath 
ing on all sides incorruption, and refreshing mankind. Whence it 
is manifest, that the Logos, the former of all things, who sits upon 
the cherubim, and holds together all things, having appeared to 
men, has given us a Gospel fourfold in its form, but held together 
by one spirit." "The Gospel according to John declares his 
princely, complete, and glorious generation from the Father, say 
ing, In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, 
and the Logos was God ; all things were made by him, and without 
him was nothing made. " " The Gospel according to Luke, being 
of a priestly character, begins with Zacharias, the priest, offering 
incense to God." "Matthew proclaims his human generation, 
saying, The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son 
of Abraham. " " Mark begins with the prophetic Spirit, which 
came down from above to men, saying, The beginning of the Gos 
pel of Jesus Christ; as it is written in Isaiah the prophet. "* 

Here, again, the same remarks may be made as before. 
The Gospels are expressly assigned to the authors to whom 
we ascribe them ; and they are spoken of as the four pillars 
of the Church, breathing on all sides incorruption, and re 
freshing mankind. The figure has been ridiculed; but the 

* Contra Hares., lib. iii. c. 11, 8, pp. 190, 191. 



74 EVIDENCES OF r l HE 

meaning .3 sufficiently clear, and the want of metaphorical 
elegance does not affect the present argument. 

I pass ovor other passages, to be found in Lardner, in 
which Irenseus speaks of the Gospels, referring them to their 
authors, and remarking generally upon their character and 
contents. The passages cited by him from the Gospels, many 
of which are cited more than once, may be found collected in 
Massuet s edition of his works. They fill about eleven closely 
printed folio columns ; while the passages cited from all the 
Old Testament fill about fifteen such columns. He appeals 
to the Gospels continually ; and quotes them as undoubted 
authority for the faith of the great body of Christians, with 
the same confidence which might be felt by any writer of the 
present day. They were books in general circulation, and 
commonly studied. 

Such is the information afforded by Irenaeus concerning 
the general reception of the Gospels in his time. He had 
spent some portion of the earlier part of his life in Asia ; but 
was, at the time when he wrote, bishop of Lyons, in Gaul. 

From Gaul we return to Asia. Theophilus, whom I shall 
next quote, was bishop of Antioch before the year 170, antf 
died before the end of the second century. Of his writings, 
we have remaining only one work, containing an account and 
defence of Christianity, addressed to Autolycus, a heathen. 
After some mention of the Jewish Law and Prophets, he 
has this passage : " Concerning the righteousness of which 
the Law speaks, the like things are to be found also in the 
Prophets and Gospels, because they all spoke by the inspira 
tion of one spirit of God." * The estimation in which the 
Gospels were held by Christians appears as well in the pas 
sage just quoted as in the following : " These things," says 
Theophilus, "the Holy Scriptures teach us, and all who 

* Cent j, Haeres., lib. iii. 12. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 75 

were moved by the Spirit ; among whom John says, * In the 
beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God. " * 
Having quoted a passage from the Old Testament (Prov. 
iv. 25, 26), which he interprets as a precept of chastity, he 
says, " But the Evangelic voice teaches purity yet more im 
peratively," and then quotes Matt. v. 28 and 32 in procf 
of his assertion.f A little after, he quotes several precepts 
from Matthew and from St. Paul; introducing those taken 
from the Gospel of Matthew with the expression, " The Gos 
pel says." * 

From Antioch we pass to Carthage. Here Tertullian was 
born, and here he appears principally to have resided. The 
dates of his birth and death are both uncertain ; but he be 
came distinguished as a writer about the close of the second 
century. No evidence can be more full and satisfactory than 
that which he affords of the general reception of the Gospels, 
and of their authority as the foundation of the Christian 
faith. He ascribes them without hesitation to the authors by 
whom we believe them to have been written ; and he rests 
the proof of their genuineness upon unbroken tradition in 
the churches founded by the apostles. There is not a chap 
ter in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, from which 
he does not quote ; and from most of them his quotations are 
numerous. " We lay it down," says Tertullian, " in the first 
place, that the Evangelic Document had for its authors 
apostles, to whom this office of promulgating the Gospel was 
assigned by our Lord himself. And, if some of them were 
companions of apostles, yet they did not stand alone, bui 
were connected with and guided by apostles." " Among the 
apostles, John and Matthew form the faith within us. Among 

L.b. ii. 22. t Lib. iii. 13. J Ibid., 14. 

Evangelicum instrumentum. " Instrumentum " is here used, as it if 
:len by Tertullian, in a metaphorical sense, derived from its technical mean 
iig, as signifying a legal instrument which may be produced in evidence. 



76 EVIDENCES OF THE 

the companions of the apostles, Luke and Mark renovate 
it."* The Gospels are always appealed to by him as de 
cisive authority for the faith of Christians. The evangelists 
and apostles are placed by him, as they are by Irenaeus and 
Theophilus, in the same rank with the Jewish prophets. In 
his time, the Scriptures, among which the Gospels held the 
first place, were publicly read, as at the present day, in the 
assemblies of Christians. " We come together," he says, " to 
bring to mind the divine Scriptures, for the purpose of warn 
ing or admonition, if the state of the times require it. Cer 
tainly, we nourish our faith, raise our hopes, and confirm out 
trust, by the sacred words." f The Christian Scriptures wer 
accessible to all. In one of his writings, a defence of Chris* 
tians addressed to heathens, he says, " Examine the words of 
God, our literature, which we are far from concealing, and 
which many accidents throw in the way of those who are not 
of our number." $ He then quotes two passages from these 
Scriptures, one from the Gospels, and another from the Epis 
tles, in evidence of what Christians believed to be their duty 
in regard to civil government. 

In defending the genuine Gospel of Luke against the 
mutilated gospel used by Marcion, Tertullian has the fol 
lowing passage, a part of which has been already quoted : 
"To give the sum of all, if it be certain, that that is most 
genuine which is most ancient, that most ancient which has 
been from the beginning, and that from the beginning which 
was from the apostles ; so it is equally certain that that was 
delivered by the apostles which has been held sacred in 
the churches of the apostles." He then enumerates various 
churches founded by apostles, which were still flourishing, 
and proceeds : " I affirm, then, that in those churches, and 
not in those only which were founded by the apostles, but 



* Advers. Marcionem, lib. iv. 2, p. 414. 

f Apologet., 39, p. 31. J Ibid., 31, p. 27. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 77 

in all which have fellowship with them, that Gospel of Luke 
which we so steadfastly defend has been received from its first 
publication." " The same authority," he adds, " of the apos- 
tolic churches will support the other Gospels, which, in like 
manner, we have from them, conformably to their copies." * 

We will pass from Carthage to Alexandria, the residence 
of Clement. Here was a celebrated school for the instruc 
tion of Christians, founded, probably, early in the second 
century, of which Clement was, in his time, the principal 
master. He was eminent during the latter part of the 
second and the beginning of the third century. 

In the evidence which Clement affords of the general re 
ception of the Gospels as sacred books, there is nothing of a 
peculiar character. It is similar to that already adduced 
from Irenaeus and Tertullian. His very numerous quota 
tions from the Gospels in his extant works are, at the present 
day, an important means of settling their true text. In one 
passage, he proposes, after showing that "the Scriptures 
which we [Christians] have believed are confirmed by the 
Omnipotent," "to evince from them, in opposition to all 
heretics, that there is one God and Almighty Lord, clearly 
proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets, and, together with 
them, by the blessed Gospel." f This affords a specimen of 
the manner in which the Gospels are appealed to by him. In 
another place, in reasoning against certain heretics, he notices 
a saying ascribed to Christ, quoted by them in support of 
their opinions from an apocryphal book, called " The Gospel 
according to the Egyptians ; " and commences his answer 
with this remark : "In the first place, we have not that say 
ing in the four Gospels which have been handed down to 
us." t Here, in a few words, he expresses his sense of the 



* Advers. Marcionem, lib. iv. 5, pp. 415, 416. 

f Stromat., lib. iv. 1, p. 564. J Ibid., lib. iii. 13, p. 653. 



78 EVIDENCES OF THE 

exclusive authority of the Gospels as histories of our Saviour ; 
and the fact of their reception before his time. The Gospels 
had been handed down to the Christians of his age ; that is, 
the Christians who lived about the end of the second century. 
By Clement was preserved, as has been before stated, a tradi 
tion received from ancient presbyters concerning the order 
in which they were written. According to this tradition 
" The Gospels containing the genealogies were written first 
The following providence gave occasion to that of Mark. 
While Peter was publicly preaching the word at Rome, and 
through the power of the Spirit making known the Gospel, 
his hearers, who were numerous, exhorted Mark, upon the 
ground of his having accompanied him for a long time, and 
having his discourses in memory, to write down what he had 
spoken ; and Mark, composing his Gospel, delivered it to 
those who made the request. Peter, knowing this, was not 
earnest either to forbid or to encourage it. In the last place, 
John, observing that the things obvious to the senses had 
been clearly set forth in those Gospels, being urged by his 
friends, and divinely moved by the Spirit, composed a 
spiritual Gospel."* 

In the second century, but how long before its close cannot 
be determined, Celsus wrote against Christianity. About 
the middle of the third century, his work was answered by 
Origen, who speaks of him as long since dead;f and who 
evidently was unable, confidently, to identify him with any 
known individual. Origen seems to have observed upon 
every important particular contained in it, and has given 
many extracts from it. It appears from these extracts, that 
Christians, in the time of Celsus, had histories of our Sa 
viour, which they believed to have been written by his 



* Apud Euseb. H. E., lib. vi. c. 14. Comp. lib. ii. c. 15. 
t Cont. Cels. Praefat, 4 ; Opp. i. 317. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 79 

disciples, and the genuineness of which was not contro 
verted by him. Without mentioning their authors by name, 
he frequently quotes and refers to them. It has been ob 
served with truth, that an abridgment of the history of 
Jesus, corresponding to that in the Gospels, may be found 
in the remains of his work. He discusses the account of the 
miraculous birth of Christ, remarking various particulars re 
lated in the first two chapters of Matthew s Gospel. He 
refers to the appearance and voice from heaven at our Lord s 
baptism. He alludes to the account of his temptation. He 
says that he collected " ten or eleven publicans and sailors," 
with whom he travelled about "procuring a shameful and 
beggarly subsistence." He calls Christ himself a carpenter.* 
He speaks of his miracles, of his having cured the lame and 
blind, fed a multitude with a few loaves, and raised the dead ; 
and argues upon the supposition that these facts really took 
place. He says it was a fiction of his disciples, that Jesus 
foreknew and foretold whatever should befall him. He 
refers to the prediction of our Saviour, that deceivers should 
come in his name. He animadverts upon various passages 
in our Lord s discourses : upon his direction to his first disci 
ples to exercise a peculiar trust in the providence of God, to 
observe the lilies and the ravens ; | upon his precept, If any 
man strike thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other 
also ; upon his saying, It is impossible to serve two masters ; 
and upon his declaration, It is easier for a camel to pass 
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the 
kingdom of God. He refers to the incredulity with which 
he was heard, and to his denunciations against the Pharisees. 
He speaks of his having been betrayed by one disciple, and 
denied by another; of his prayer, Father, if it be possible, let 
this cup pass from me : of the soldiers who derided him ; of 
the purple robe, the crown of thorns, and the reed which was 

* Mark vi. 3. f Luke xii. 24, 27. 



80 EVIDENCES OP THE 

put into his hand ; of the vinegar mixed with bitter drugs, 
offered him at his crucifixion; of his saying, I thirst ; of the 
loud cry which he uttered just before expiring ; of the earth 
quake and darkness which accompanied his death ; of his 
rising from the dead ; of the angel who removed the stone 
at the door of the sepulchre; of his appearing, not to his 
enemies, but to a "distracted woman" (Mary Magdalene) 
and u others, engaged with him in the same magical arts ; " 
and of his exhibiting his hands, as they had been wounded 
on the cross, which last circumstance is mentioned by St. 
John alone.* 

In one passage, Celsus says that those who had given gene 
alogies of Jesus had had the confidence to derive his descent 
from the first man, and from the Jewish kings ; referring to 
the genealogies found in the first two chapters of Matthew 
and in Luke. In another passage, he appears to refer at once 
to all our four Gospels ; for he observes, that " some relate that 
one, and some that two, angels descended to his sepulchre 
to announce to the women that Jesus was risen." Matthew 
and Mark speak of but one angel : Luke and John mention 
two. 

The numerous objections of Celsus to the accounts received 
by Christians respecting our Saviour are always made to ac 
counts found in the Gospels. After remarking upon several 
passages, he says, " These things are from your own books, 
for we need no other testimony. Thus you fall by your own 
hands." He nowhere implies the existence of any narrative 
respecting Christ, as believed by Christians, which is not re- 
ated by the evangelists, f 

That the histories of Christ referred to by Celsus were OUT 
present Gospels, appears from the general correspondence of 



* John xx. 27. 

t For the references to the passages quoted above, see Lardner s Ancient 
Heathen Testimonies, chap, xviii.; Works (4to ed.), iv. 113, seqq. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 81 

their contents ; from the particular coincidences which have 
been pointed out ; from their identity with the Gospels being 
constantly implied by Origen, without the appearance of his 
entertaining any doubt upon the subject; from their being 
attacked by Celsus as the acknowledged records of the reli 
gion ; and from the impossibility that in his time there should 
have existed a set of books bearing this character, which have 
been forgotten, and superseded by another set. 

But, in attacking these books, that is, our present Gos 
pels, Celsus evidently considered himself to be undermining 
the foundations of Christianity ; to be attacking books re 
garded by Christians as of the highest authority, as the 
authentic records of the history of their Master, composed or 
sanctioned by his immediate disciples. We have, then, the 
evidence of an enemy of our religion, that the Gospels were 
thus regarded by the Christians of his age. 

Origen was born about the year 185, and died about the 
year 254. There was no Christian writer whose authority 
was so high in his own time, and in the period immediately 
following. His works, only a small portion of which remains 
in their original language, the Greek, were very numer 
ous. He was eminent for his talents, and for the extent of 
his learning. Nor was he less distinguished for his piety, his 
integrity, and his scrupulous conscientiousness. He was also, 
as I have before observed, a careful critic of the text of the 
Septuagint and of the New Testament. In those of his works 
which are still extant in the original, the Gospels are quoted 
so frequently, that, supposing all other copies of them to be 
lost, those of Matthew, Luke, and John might be restored 
almost entire from his quotations alone, if we had a clue by 
which to arrange them. In speaking of the history of their 
composition, he professes to give what he had " learnt by tra 
dition concerning the four Gospels, which alone are received 
without controversy by the Church of God under heaven." 

G 



82 EVIDENCES OF THE 

He says, " The Gospel of Matthew, who, from being a tax- 
gatherer, became an apostle of Christ, was the first written. Il 
was composed in Hebrew, and published for the use of Jewish 
believers. Mark next wrote his Gospel, conformably to the 
accounts which he had received from Peter. Hence, Peter, 
in his catholic Epistle, acknowledges him as his son, saying, 
The sister church in Babylon salutes you ; also, my son Mark. 
The Gospel of Luke, that which is praised by St. Paul, was 
the third, and was composed for Gentile believers. Last of 
all followed that of John."* Elsewhere Origen writes thus: 
" We may, then, be bold to say, that the Gospel f is the prime 
fruit of all the Scriptures." " Of the Scriptures which are 
in common use, and which are believed to be divine by all the 
churches of God, one would not err in calling the Law of 
Moses the first fruit, and the Gospel the prime fruit." $ 
" The Gospels are, as it were, the elements of the faith of the 
Church, of which elements the whole world that is reconciled 
to God by Christ consists." I have before had occasion to 
quote a passage in which Origen speaks of the Scriptures as 
" books in the most common use." || 

Origen, as we have seen, speaks of the Gospels as "re- 

* Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles., lib. vi. c. 25. 

f By the Gospel, here, as elsewhere, is to be understood the Gospel-his 
tory, or the four Gospels. 

} Comment, in Joan., torn. i. 4; Opp. iv. p. 4. Conformably to Origen s 
meaning, and to the proper sense of the terms, I have rendered TrpUToylvvrjfj.a, 
first fruit, and a.Tra(j%7}, prime fruit. These words were borrowed by him from 
the Septuagint, and denote two different kinds of oblations, both of which, 
in our Common Version, are indiscriminate!} - called "first fruits." By 
irnuToyivvr][j.a, first fruit, is meant that first produced, of which an offer 
ing was made on the day after the Passover (Lev. xxiii. 10-14). By 
cnrapXTj, prime fruit, is meant the best of the harvest, which was to be set 
aside for the priests, and from which an offering was to be made on the day 
of Pentecost, and perhaps at the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. xxiii. 15-20; 
Numb, xviii. 12, 13; Deut. xviii. 4). " We must understand," says Origen, 
* that the prime, fruit and the first fruit are not the same. For the print 
fi*uit was offered after the harvest, but the first fruit before." 

Ibid., 6, p. 5. y See before, p. 32. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 83 

ceived without controversy," and as "believed by all the 
churches of God." If these expressions were to be inter 
preted, with the narrowest limitation, as relating only to the 
state of things at the precise time when he wrote, we might 
still infer that the Gospels had been received as of equal 
authority in the last quarter of the second century; since 
nothing had occurred during the short intervening period to 
produce a unanimity which did not then exist. If there had 
been any dissension or difference of opinion then, it is impos 
sible that unanimity should have been afterwards produced 
without some controversy or discussion, without some trace 
remaining of the change from one state of opinion to an 
other ; but nothing of this sort appears. Origen, however, in 
the expressions which he uses, does not refer to his own time 
alone. His language is meant to include all Christians, from 
the first promulgation of the Gospels. It appears from the 
writings of the fathers generally, that the books which Chris 
tians received as sacred books of the highest authority were, 
as they believed, distinguished from all others pretending to 
the same character, by the circumstance that they had been 
unanimously so received from the apostolic age through every 
successive generation of catholic Christians. 

In estimating the weight of evidence which has thus far 
been adduced for the genuineness of the Gospels, we must 
keep in mind, what has not always been sufficiently attended 
to, that it is not the testimony of certain individual writers 
alone on which we rely, important as their testimony might 
be. These writers speak for a whole community, every mem 
ber of which had the strongest reasons for ascertaining the 
correctness of his faith respecting the authenticity, and con 
sequently the genuineness, of the Gospels. We quote the 
Christian fathers, not chiefly to prove their individual belief, 
but in evidence of the belief of the community to which they 
belonged. It is not, therefore, the simple testimony of Ire- 



84 EVIDENCES OF THE 

nrcus and Theophilus and Tertullian and Clement and Origeu 
which we bring forward : it is the testimony of thousands ana 
tens of thousands of believers, many of whom were as well 
informed as they were on this particular subject, and as 
capable of making a right judgment. All these believers 
were equally ready with the writers who have been quoted, 
to affirm the authority and genuineness of the Gospels. The 
most distinguished Christians of the age, men held in high 
esteem by their contemporaries and successors, assert that the 
Gospels were received as genuine throughout the community 
of which they were members, and for which they were 
writing. That the assertion was made by such men, under 
such circumstances, is sufficient evidence of its truth. But 
the proof of the general reception of the Gospels does not 
rest upon their assertions only, though these cannot be 
doubted. It is necessarily implied in their statements and 
reasonings respecting their religion. It is impossible that 
they should have so abundantly quoted the Gospels, as con 
clusive authority for their own faith and that of their fellow- 
Christians, if these books had not been regarded by Christians 
as conclusive authority. We cannot infer more confidently 
from the sermons of Tillotson and Clarke the estimation in 
which the Gospels were held in their day, than we may infer 
from the writers before mentioned, that they were held in 
similar estimation during the period when they lived. 

The testimony to the genuineness of the Gospels is there 
fore distinct in its character from that which may be adduced 
to prove the genuineness of ancient profane writings. As 
testimony to this, we are able, perhaps, to collect from differ 
ent authors a few passages, in which the writing in question 
is quoted as the work of the individual to whom it is ascribed, 
or in which it is expressly affirmed that he composed such a 
work. We may even find it mentioned as his work in some 
other composition, ascribed to the same individual ; but this 
alone does not affect the nature of the evidence, since the 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 85 

genuineness of the last-mentioned writing remains to be 
proved, and, as far as testimony is concerned, can be proved 
only by the testimony of individual writers. But these 
writers do not speak in the name and with the sanction of a 
whole community, every member of which was deeply and 
personally concerned in the question whether the book were 
genuine or not. They give their testimony simply as indi 
viduals ; and they were, for the most part, individuals who 
had no interest in ascertaining the truth, and perhaps little 
curiosity about it. We have commonly no ground for sup 
posing, that any circumstance had led them to a scrupulous 
examination of the claims of the work. We have no cer 
tainty that its genuineness was not doubted by others, equally 
well informed with the authors whom we quote. But such is 
not the character of the historical evidence produced for the 
genuineness of the Gospels. The whole community of Chris 
tians is brought to testify their belief respecting a subject 
which deeply interested them, and about which, as we shall 
now proceed to observe, they were in circumstances to be 
fully informed. 

That Christians during the latter part of the second century 
had sufficient means of determining whether the Gospels were 
genuine or not, may appear from the consideration, that they 
must have been acquainted with the history of the promulga 
tion of these books. If the Gospels were the works of those 
to whom they are ascribed, they had been received as such 
by the contemporaries of the evangelists, by apostles, and 
the companions and disciples of apostles. They had been 
handed down by them to succeeding Christians, as the authen 
tic histories of their Master. There had been a clear, un 
broken, and therefore incontrovertible acknowledgment of 
their genuineness, during the period of somewhat more than 
a century which had elapsed between the time when the 
earliest of them was written, and the time to which we have 



86 EVIDENCES OF THE 

clearly traced back their general reception. Such must have 
been the state of the case upon the supposition of their genu 
ineness ; but their history, whatever it were, must have been 
very different, if they were not genuine. In the latter case, 
they had not been known as the works of their pretended 
authors by the contemporaries of those to whom they were 
afterwards ascribed. They had not, consequently, been 
handed down from the first to the second generation of Chris 
tians as the works of those individuals. But, during the latter 
part of the second century, the only satisfactory evidence of 
their genuineness, that which the case necessarily demanded, 
must have been their general acknowledgment as genu 
ine since the time of their supposed composition. This is 
the proof on which the Christian fathers, and consequently the 
proof on which the Christian community, relied : and it is of 
some importance to observe, that they relied upon this alone ; 
that the earlier writers of whom we speak bring forward no 
other argument in support of their belief. Those facts in the 
history of the Gospels which must have been of common 
notoriety were decisive of the question. On the one hand, 
if the facts necessary to prove their genuineness had really 
existed, the evidence was incontrovertible : on the other hand, 
if these facts had not existed, every other pretended proof of 
the genuineness of the books must have been wholly unsatis 
factory. 

But the Christians of the latter half of the second century 
could not be ignorant of the history of the Gospels, or, in 
other words, of the manner in which they had been regarded 
by their predecessors. From the statements which have been 
quoted from different writers, we may fairly take the year 175 
as a period when, as shown by direct historical evidence, the 
Gospels were generally received among Christians. But 
the old men of this period were born about the end of the 
first and the beginning of the second century. During their 
youth, they had been contemporary with those who had been 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 87 

contemporary with the apostles and the other disciples of 
Christ himself, and who might have received immediate in 
struction from them. Irenasus informs us, that he had listened 
to the discourses of Polycarp, who had been a disciple of St. 
John, and conversant with others who had seen the Lord.* 
This fact is important, as it respects the value of the indi- 
ridual testimony of Irenaeus to the genuineness of the 
fiospels. But it is also to be regarded as a particular 
exemplification of a general truth, about which there can 
t>e no dispute, that it needed but a single link in the chain 
of succession, to connect the old men of the time of Irenaeua 
with the apostolic age. Such being the case, the Christians 
of his time could not be ignorant of the manner in which the 
Gospels had been regarded by their predecessors ; and, in his 
time, the belief of the genuineness of the Gospels was estab 
lished throughout the Christian community. 

but Christians at that period, equally with Christians at 
the present day, must have considered the question of the 
genuineness of the Gospels as one of great importance. If 
a book be offered to us as of the highest authority, there is 
no man who will not ask what claim it has to this authority, 
and upon what proofs its claim is founded. There was every 
thing in the circumstances of the early Christians to give 
strength to this desire for information and evidence. In 
embracing a new religion, they must have felt the strongest 
interest concerning all that related to its character and history. 
This religion did not then, as it does at the present day, con 
stitute the prevailing faith, nor blend itself with the opinions, 
belief, sentiments, and customs of the age. It stood in oppo 
sition to all that was established. Every thing connected with 
it was rendered prominent and striking by the contrast, and 



* Irenaei Epist. ad Florin., apud Euseb. H. E., lib. v. c. 20; Contra Haeres, 
lib. iii. c. 3, 4, p. 176. 



88 EVIDENCES OF THE 

became a subject of earnest attention, an object of attack 
and defence. The early Christians were separated from other 
men. Their religion snapt asunder the ties of common inter 
course. It called them to a new life ; it gave them new senti 
ments, hopes, and desires, a new character; it demanded 
of them such a conscientious and steady performance of duty 
as had hardly before been conceived of; it subjected them to 
privations and insults, to uncertainty and danger ; it required 
them to prepare for torments and death. Every day of their 
lives, they were strongly reminded of it, by the duties which 
it enforced, and the sacrifices which it cost them. Their 
external circumstances, and their connections with this world, 
instead of distracting their thoughts from it, as is the common 
tendency of our relations to the present life, kept it constantly 
pressed upon their attention. In this state of things, it can 
not be supposed that they were indifferent about the genuine 
ness of those records on which their faith rested. They must 
have felt, at least as strongly as we do, the fundamental 
importance of the subject. But respecting the history and 
genuineness of those records, if what has been stated be cor 
rect, they could not have been ignorant if they would. 

In estimating the value of the testimony of the Christian 
community during the latter part of the second century, it is 
well to consider the intellectual and moral character of those 
of whom it was composed. 

Our religion, at the time to which we refer, was not so 
corrupted as greatly to weaken its power over the affections 
and moral principles of those by whom it was held ; and there 
is no doubt, that the Christians of the second and third centu 
ries were, as a body, distinguished from the world around 
them by their moral superiority, and by virtues which scarcely 
existed beyond the limits of their community. They were 
not, as some have pretended, an illiterate people. They had 
among them a full share, to say the least, of the learning and 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 89 

intellectual improvement of the age. From the middle of the 
second century, they abounded in writers, many of whose 
works are lost ; but many which remain give proof of more 
than common learning and vigor of intellect. There is a 
tendency to speak of the Christian fathers with a disrespect 
wholly unmerited by those of the first ages. During the 
latter part of the second and the first half of the third cen 
tury, that is, from the time when Irenaeus wrote till that of 
Origen s death, though the Christians were much fewer in 
number than the heathens, yet the Christian writers, as a 
body, have far higher claims to intellectual distinction than 
the heathen. After the period last mentioned, as Christians 
increased in number, their intellectual ascendency, of course, 
became more conspicuous, and, at the same time, less extraor 
dinary. 

By a community of this character, in the last quarter 
of the second century, the Gospels were received as genuine. 
There was no controversy nor difference of opinion on the 
subject within its limits. 

But, in addition to what has been said, it happens that we 
are able to produce a striking confirmation of the testimony 
of the early Christians to the genuineness of the Gospels, by 
ascertaining, with a high degree of probability, the correct 
ness of this testimony in regard to other books of the Chris 
tian Scriptures, from a distinct source of evidence. It is well 
known, that all our present books of the New Testament were 
not, during the first ages, received as of equal authority. 
Some were universally acknowledged as belonging to the 
class of sacred books, while others were not ; the genuineness 
or the value of the latter being doubted or denied by a greater 
or less portion of the Christian community. The books uni 
versally received as genuine and sacred were the following, 
twenty in number : The four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, 
the thirteen Epistles of St. Paul (exclusive of the Epistle tc 



90 EVIDENCES OF THE 

the Hebrews), the first Epistle of John, and the first of Peter. 
For the genuineness of more than half of this number, we 
have evidence of a peculiar kind. It is that which is so ably 
stated by Paley, in his " Horae Paulinae," arising from the 
undesigned coincidences which appear upon comparing to 
gether the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles pf St. 
Paul.* In respect to the Acts, and most of the Epistles of 
St Paul, this species of evidence, in connection with all the 
other proof, internal and external, which bears upon the same 
point, is abundantly sufficient to put the question to rest. 
The genuineness of three of his Epistles, it is true, those to 
Timothy and Titus, has been attacked by some of the Ger 
man theologians. But, putting these aside for the present, 
there are ten Epistles of St. Paul, and the Acts of the 
Apostles, the genuineness of which we may consider as es 
tablished. Out of twenty books which the early Christians 
have transmitted to us as unquestionably genuine, there are 

* This statement, so far as it respects the Acts of the Apostles, requires a 
few words of explanation. 

Paley s argument goes directly to prove the genuineness of the Epistles 
of Paul ; for they assume to be his compositions. But it does not go directly 
to prove the genuineness of the Acts of the Apostles; for this book does not 
assume to be the work of Luke, whose name is not mentioned in it. 

But Paley s argument proves the truth of the history contained in this 
book. And the book, it appears from the frequent use in it of the first person 
plural, was written by a companion of St. Paul. 

Such being the case, the book being authentic, and being written \>\ a 
companion of St. Paul, there is no supposable mistake, which might have led 
the early Christians to ascribe it to any other than its true author. And they 
unanimously ascribed it to Luke. Throughout the whole of antiquitv, there 
is no suggestion of any other author, nor an intimation of doubt that Luke was 
the author. 

In confirmation of this reasoning, if it need confirmation, we find Luke 
repeatedly mentioned by St. Paul as his companion and friend. He calls 
him (Coloss. iv. 14), "Luke, the beloved physician." He sends to Philemon 
(ver. 24) a salutation from him as one of his "fellow-laborers." And in his 
last Epistle to Timothy, written just before his martyrdom, speaking .f being 
deserted by one and left by others, he says (iv. 11), "Luke alone is with 
me. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 91 

eleven which are unquestionably genuine. There are eleven, 
for the genuineness of which we have strong proof, of a kind 
wholly distinct from their testimony. We have a peculiar 
means of testing the value of our witnesses, in regard to a 
most important part of their evidence ; and by this test their 
correctness is fully established. But the greater the number 
of buuks the genuineness of which is admitted, by whatever 
means this be proved, the greater the presumption that the 
testimony of the early Christians may be relied upon ; or, in 
other words, that all the books of the New Testament which 
they received as unquestionably genuine are in fact genuine. 
This proposition being granted, I think that he who will 
examine the subject may fully satisfy himself that the Epis 
tles to Timothy and Titus were written by St. Paul. I 
think he will find no reason to doubt, that the two catholic 
Epistles before mentioned the first of John and the first 
of Peter were the works of the apostles to whom they 
are ascribed. With regard to them, there is, to say the 
least, nothing to detract from the credit due to the authority 
of the early Christians. But if he should come to the con 
clusion, that all these books, with those before mentioned, 
are genuine ; that sixteen out of the twenty received by the 
early Christians are genuine, he can hardly refuse to 
admit, that there is a very strong presumption in favor of 
the genuineness of the remaining four ; these four, the Gos 
pels, being the most important of all. 



We have hitherto considered the subject as if the early 
Christians, whose testimony has been adduced, might have 
had a firm belief of the truth of their religion, unconnected 
with a belief of the genuineness of the Gospels. There is 
nothing in the nature of things to render this supposition 
incredible. But it is a fact deserving particular attention, 



92 EVIDENCES OP THE 

that the one belief was, in their minds, identified with the 
other. Their faith in Christianity was an assurance of 
the truth of the accounts respecting. Christ recorded by the 
four evangelists. It was a belief, that he was such as he 
was represented to be by them; and that he taught the 
truths, and inculcated the precepts, preserved in their writ 
ings. What was to be learnt from the four Gospels was the 
object of a Christian s faith ; and no other source of instruc 
tion came in competition with them. They were, as Irenaeus 
expresses it, " the pillar and support of the Church." They 
were, in the view of the Christians of his age, the Gospel, 
transmitted in writing, through the appointment of God, by 
those who had been commissioned to preach it.* To be a 
Christian, then, was to believe what was recorded in the 
Gospels ; or, in other words, it was to believe the credibility 
of these books. But these books were believed to be credi 
ble, because they were believed to be genuine; to be the 
works of eye-witnesses, or of those who derived their informa 
tion from eye-witnesses ; histories, all of which had apostolic 
authority, because they were written by apostles, or sanc 
tioned by apostles. Supposing any doubt to have been cast 
upon their genuineness, the same doubt would have extended 
to their credibility. If they did not appear till after the 
apostolic age, a false character had been ascribed to them ; 
and their whole contents would, in consequence, become sus 
picious. Every attestation, therefore, given by a Christian 
of his belief in his religion, was an attestation of his belief 
in the credibility and the genuineness of the four Gospels. 
It was in consequence and in testimony of this belief, that he 
lived as a Christian, and was prepared to die as a martyr. 
But his belief in the genuineness of the Gospels was a belief 
of an historical fact. It did not regard a matter of opinion 
or interpretation. At the same time, it lay at the foundation 

* See before, p. 72. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 93 

of his religious faith. It was the first point to be settled in 
becoming a believer. The conversion, the virtues, and the 
sufferings of the early Christians, all, therefore, bear testi 
mony to their firm belief of this fact ; it was a fact respect 
ing which they had the strongest interest in not being 
deceived; and such, as we have seen, was the information 
necessarily possessed by them, that, in the exercise of com 
mon good sense, they could not be in error. 



But even putting out of view those considerations which 
have been brought forward to explain the value of the testi 
mony of the Christian community, during the last quarter of 
the second century, to the genuineness of the Gospels, it may 
be shown, that the general reception of these books during 
the period in question is to be accounted for only by ad 
mitting their genuineness. 

Before attending to those considerations which may show 
the truth of this proposition in regard to the Gospels gener 
ally, we will advert to some circumstances which respect only 
the first three. These, when compared together, present 
phenomena, of which, if their genuineness be denied, no 
solution can be given, not irreconcilable with the fact of the 
reception of all three as books of the highest authority. 
The phenomena referred to consist in the frequent instances 
of verbal agreement among them, and in their correspondence 
with one another in the selection and narration of the same 
events, viewed in connection with their disagreements and 
individual peculiarities. The common reception of the first 
three Gospels, and the appearances which these writings 
present, must be regarded together. When thus regarded, 
they prove the genuineness of the books in question ; because, 
upon the opposite supposition, no explanation can be given 



94 EVIDENCES OF THE 

of these appearances not inconsistent with the fact of their 
common reception. This is the point to which we will now 
attend. 

If it be maintained that the first three Gospels are the 
compositions of writers who lived after the apostolic age, 
then, at first view, three suppositions may present themselves 
as affording a solution of the phenomena which have been 
mentioned. One writer may have copied from another, o* 
from both of the others ; or each writer may have made us 
of some written document or documents which had much in 
common with those used by the other two, though in many 
respects dissimilar; or they may all have derived their 
accounts from tradition, the traditions preserved by one 
being partly the same with those preserved by another, and 
partly different. We will examine in order each of these 
solutions. 

I. The supposition that the author of any one of the first 
three Gospels copied from either of the others, has, in mod 
ern times, been subjected to very thorough examination. It 
has been found exposed to great, and, as may seem, insu 
perable objections, which show themselves on comparing 
together the contents of the first three Gospels. Some of 
these objections are stated in another place.* But, under 
the conditions of the case now before us, that is, in con 
nection with the belief that the Gospels were written after 
the apostolic age, the supposition is liable to peculiar objec 
tions, which alone it is necessary to consider at present. 

These objections may be shown by applying them to a 
particular instance; it being kept in mind that they are 
applicable to any other which may be presented. Let us 
suppose, then, that the author of the Gospel ascribed to Luke 
made use of that ascribed to Matthew, and derived from it 

See Note B, pp. 463-510. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 95 

the large portion of matter which his history has in common 
with it. The question then arises, What was his purpose in 
composing his own work ? lie must have intended to give a 
better, a more authentic, or a more plausible history than 
that ascribed to Matthew, one which might more effectu 
ally serve the end proposed in such a work, whatever that 
were. It must have been his purpose to remodel the gospel 
before existing ; to arrange its contents in suitable order ; and 
to omit, correct, and add, according to his superior infoima- 
tion, skill, and judgment. The general character of both 
histories is strikingly the same ; they correspond with each 
other in the greater part of their contents ; and, if the writer 
of that ascribed to Luke took that ascribed to Matthew for 
the basis of his own work, all change, addition, or omission 
must appear to be intentional correction or improvement. 
The former work must have been a refashioning of the latter, 
with the purpose of removing its errors, and supplying its 
deficiencies. The object of the author of the new history, 
therefore, was to produce a work which ought to supersede 
the old. But this is inconsistent with the fact, that those who 
received his Gospel as authentic received also that ascribed 
to Matthew as of equal authority ; and those who reverenced 
that ascribed to Matthew made no hesitation in admitting that 
ascribed to Luke as also entitled to the rank of a saci d 
book. If the writer of the gospel ascribed to Luke intend. i 
to give a better or more serviceable history than that as 
cribed to Matthew, he would have been considered either as 
having succeeded or as having failed. In comparison with 
the latter work, his own must either have been preferred or 
rejected. If we imagine that, when he wrote, the gospel 
afterwards ascribed to Matthew was already regarded as the 
composition of that apostle, little favor would have been 
shown to the author of a pretended revision of such a 
work, and his book would have obtained little currency. If, 
at tho time when he wrote, the gospel afterwards ascribed to 



96 EVIDENCES OP THE 

Matthew were regarded as having no claim to higher author 
ity than his own might pretend to, then the two histories 
would have come in competition, and it cannot be supposed 
that both would have been received as of equal authority and 
worth. 

Supposing the first three Gospels to have been composed 
after the apostolic age, or, in other words, if their genuine 
ness be denied, it is obvious that similar arguments may be 
brought to prove that the author of no one of them made 
use of either of the other two, in such a manner as to explain 
the correspondence between their writings. The use sup 
posed is inconsistent with the fact of the common reception 
of all of them as sacred books of the highest authority. 

II. We will, then, examine the next solution which has 
been mentioned. It may be said, that the authors of the first 
three Gospels each made use of a written document or docu 
ments; and that the documents respectively used by them 
had much common and corresponding matter, and much 
verbal agreement, but that they were distinguished from one 
another by many individual peculiarities. 

In respect to this supposition, let us consider of what 
character those documents must have been. They were not 
separate narratives of single events, real or supposed, in the 
life of Christ. It cannot be believed, that, after the apostolic 
age, the history contained in the first three Gospels was, 
before their composition, circulating among Christians in 
many separate written fragments. Whoever was desirous 
of obtaining one written account of an event, or supposed 
event, in the life of Christ, would be desirous of obtaining 
more. He would extend his collection, and arrange it, if he 
did not find a collection arranged to his hands. The coinci 
dence between the Gospels ascribed to Mark and Luke in the 
order of the events which they have in common shows that 
the authors of these Gospels, if they followed written docu- 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 97 

ments, must have copied documents in which the events were 
already thus arranged. The writer of the Gospel ascribed 
to Luke says, that many before him had undertaken to 
prepare accounts of Christ ; and, whether we do or do not 
believe the Gospel to be the work of Luke, there can be no 
reason for doubting the truth of this information. 

The documents in question, then, must have been different 
histories of Christ, different gospels, in existence before our 
first three Gospels. Such writings, when once in existence, 
would soon be widely circulated. Now, upon the supposition 
that the first three Gospels were composed after the apostolic 
age out of such documents, each of them was nothing more 
than a particular compilation of the same kind with those 
already existing, made by some unknown individual, who 
has left no trace of his history. Each of these new collec 
tions, likewise, was incomplete; for each of the first three 
Gospels wants much that is found in the other two, and in 
the Gospel of John, to say nothing of what may have ex 
isted in any of the supposed earlier gospels. There are dis 
crepancies between them, and they present very considerable 
difficulties when compared together. There could be no rea 
son, therefore, why any individual, who had possessed a more 
ancient collection, should reject that to which he had been 
accustomed, in order to substitute these three, or one of these 
three, in its place. There was nothing to give these new 
compilations any peculiar sanctity or authority ; or to secure 
them, any more than other collections of the same kind, from 
additions and changes. No reason can be assigned why any 
one of them, and still less why all three equally, should have 
obtained such celebrity and general reception, a character so 
exclusively sacred, as to cause all similar compilations to dis 
appear. The proprietor of a different collection, if he chanced 
to meet with one of these, might note what he found in it, 
not contained in his own; and, if he thought the relation 
worthy of being preserved, he might insert it in the margin 

7 



98 EVIDENCES OF THE 

of his old manuscript, or in the text of a new one. But there 
was no reason why he should reject what he had before re 
garded as a credible narrative, because he did not find it in 
one of these compilations. Because three unknown indi 
viduals had made three new compilations, not differing in 
their general character from such as had existed before, all 
other manuscripts of a similar kind would not be destroyed. 
Copies of various manuscripts would continue to be multi 
plied, containing, probably, new additions ; till at the end of 
the second century, instead of finding Christians agreed in 
the use of the four Gospels, we should have found as many 
different gospels as there had chanced to be different col 
lectors. Under the circumstances supposed, no authority, 
generally acknowledged, could have belonged to any particu 
lar compilation. 

III. We will now attend to the third supposition men 
tioned, that the correspondence between the first three Gos 
pels, supposing them to have been written after the apostolic 
age, is to be accounted for by the circumstance, that they 
were all founded upon oral traditionary narratives, in great 
part similar or the same. To this, the answer is, that an 
oral traditionary history of Christ would have varied more 
in its form as preserved by three different writers. It would 
have become adulterated in different and opposite ways, 
probably grossly adulterated, through the various opinions, 
conceptions, errors, and passions of the times following the 
apostolic age. A large portion of the accounts concerning 
Christ would have been imperfectly comprehended by many, 
piobably by most Christians; and, in repeating such ac 
counts, they would have conformed them to their own appre 
hensions, and not to the truth. No narratives are so exposed 
to change and corruption by oral transmission, as those which 
relate to supernatural events, real or supposed. The forgeries 
of an excited imagination become more and more mingled 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. U9 

with the history, as it passes from mouth to mouth. Oral 
traditionary relations concerning the Founder of Christianity, 
preserved by Christians after the apostolic age, must have 
received a different moulding and coloring from many differ 
ent hands. Had the first three Gospels been founded upon 
such relations, they would not have been so consistent with 
each other as they now are, in presenting the same view of 
the most remarkable character of Christ, of the events of his 
life, of his words and deeds, and of the purpose of his minis 
try. They would not have had the striking resemblance to 
each other which they now possess, in their general com 
plexion. Nor would there have been the remarkable cor 
respondence which now exists among them in many of their 
relations, in which we find the same facts, conceptions, &nd 
language. 

In estimating the force of these remarks, we must attend 
particularly to the circumstance, that the traditionary ac 
counts supposed could not have assumed a well-defined and 
authorized form, by being embodied into one long, oral nar 
rative, generally taught and received. They must have ex 
isted in a fluctuating and unconnected state ; for many things 
are related differently in the first three Gospels : each of 
them has matter, and two of them, respectively, much mat 
ter, which is not found in either of the others; and the 
arrangement of Mark and Luke differs from that of Mat 
thew. Let us suppose that the history and discourses of 
Socrates had been preserved by oral tradition, a tradition, 
however, not spread over the world, but confined to the city 
of Athens ; and that, some half-century or more after his 
death, they had been first committed to writing by three 
different individuals. The improbability that their three 
works would have resembled each other as much as the first 
three Gospels, partially expresses the improbability, that 
these Gospels, being written after the apostolic age, were 
founded upon oral tradition. 



100 EVIDENCES OF THE 

The argument which it has been my object to illustrate 
may be stated briefly in the following manner. There are 
many correspondences between any two of the first three 
Gospels, so remarkable, that, in each particular case, they 
admit only of one of the following explanations : either one 
writer copied the other, or each writer followed some au 
thority common to both, which authority must have been 
either written or oral. But either of these solutions, to 
which we are reduced by the nature of the case, becomes 
too improbable to be admitted, if we suppose those Gospels 
to have been written after the apostolic age.* 

It is, then, a curious and important circumstance, that in 
the very structure of the first three Gospels, when compared 
together, taken in connection with the fact of their common 
reception and high and peculiar authority among Christians 
before the close of the second century, we find evidence that 
they must have been composed during the apostolic age. 
Upon a contrary supposition, we have seen that no solution 
can be given of the remarkable phenomena presented by 
them, which is in itself probable, and at the same time 
consistent with the fact of their common reception. But, if 
written in the apostolic age, they must have been handed 
down from that period with such a character as gave them 
the authority which they afterwards possessed ; and no rea 
sonable doubt can remain of their genuineness. They were 
works which had received the sanction of that age ; their 
authors were then, undoubtedly, known ; and they were un 
doubtedly ascribed to their true authors. 



We will now regard the four Gospels in common. Their 
general reception as genuine and sacred books, during the 

* On the manner in which the phenomena presented by the first three 
Gospels, when compared together, may be explained on the supposition of 
their genuineness, see Note B, pp. 510-544. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 101 

last quarter of the second century, can be accounted for only 
by admitting their genuineness. 

Let us first view the subject in its simplest form. If the 
Gospels be not genuine, how was it possible for any one of 
them to obtain general reception and authority, as the work 
of the author to whom it was ascribed? This could not 
have taken place during the age of the apostles, while the 
reputed author or his friends were still living. After the 
death, therefore, of the reputed author, and of most of those 
acquainted with him, we must suppose that a claim was first 
set up for a certain book, falsely asserting it to be the work 
of St. Matthew or St. John, or one of the other evangelists. 
The claim had not before been heard of. The evidence 
which the case demanded to satisfy any reasonable man 
that is, the belief and testimony of the preceding age was 
wanting. It must have been evident, therefore, that the 
claim was without foundation. An attempted fraud of this 
kind in relation to books of such general interest, and pre 
tending to such high authority, could not, from its very 
nature, have been successful. It could not have produced 
belief; and it would be an hypothesis against which it is 
unnecessary to bring arguments, to suppose it to have pro 
duced, throughout the widely dispersed Christian community, 
a general profession of belief in what every one must have 
known, or at least strongly suspected, to be a falsehood. 

Possibly, however, the suggestion may still be made, that 
the reception of the Gospels, as the works of those to whom 
they are ascribed, was produced by a general concert and 
combination among Christians, under the direction of those 
of most eminence and authority. Enough has been already 
said to show, that the effect in question could not have been 
the result of such a combination.* But let us again COD- 

* See before, p. 24, seqq. 



102 EVIDENCES OF THE 

sider, that the supposition implies great dishonesty in the 
deceivers, and gross ignorance and credulity in the de 
ceived ; and that no part of the Christian community will be 
exempt from one or the other of these charges. But none 
would venture explicitly to maintain, that the character of 
the early Christians was such as to render it probable that 
one portion of them was so fraudulent as to impose upon 
their brethren, for a rule of faith and practice, certain books 
as genuine, which they knew were not genuine ; and that 
the larger portion was so weak as to submit quietly to the 
imposition. 

It is a strong subsidiary argument, if such be needed, 
against the supposition of a fraudulent or arbitrary assign 
ment of the names of the authors of the Gospels, that only 
two of them are ascribed to apostles ; and one of these two 
is ascribed to an apostle not distinguished, except as tho 
author of the work in question. If the assignment had been 
arbitrary, names of more distinction would have been chosen. 
The early fathers, as is well known, were solicitous to prove, 
that the Gospels of Mark and Luke, though not written by 
apostles, were entitled to apostolical authority, on the ground 
that the former only embodied those narratives which St. 
Peter had delivered orally, and that the latter had received 
the sanction of St. Paul. Upon the supposition that these 
writings were as little the work of the supposed evangelists 
as of the apostles, the names of the latter would have been 
given them at once. 



But there are other considerations to which we will now 
attend. It is to be particularly remarked, that we have not 
one only, but four books, each professing to give a history 
of Jesus Christ. These books, though consistent with each 
other in their representations of his most remarkable charac 
ter ; though they agree in giving the same view of his doc- 






GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 103 

trines, and of the purpose of his ministry ; and though they 
have many facts and discourses common to two or more of 
their number, yet differ much from each other in the selec 
tion, arrangement, and connection of events, and in their 
accounts of some particular facts and transactions. Their 
discrepancies are such as could not escape observation. In 
the first half of the third century, the importance of them 
was magnified by Origen in the language of extravagant 
exaggeration. He adopted, and carried to its greatest length, 
the allegorical mode of interpreting the Scriptures ; and 
thought that there was no means of saving the credit of 
the Gospels, but by recurring to the hidden sense of their 
words. In one place, after remarking upon an apparent 
disagreement between the first three evangelists and St. 
John, he says : " And in regard to many other passages, if 
one carefully examine the Gospels, with a view to the dis 
sonances in their history, which severally we shall endeavor 
to set forth according to our ability, he will, being wholly 
bewildered, either refuse to acknowle dge, conformably to 
truth, the authority of the Gospels, and, making a selection, 
will adhere to one alone, not willing wholly to give up the 
faith concerning our Lord ; or, receiving the four, will deter 
mine that the truth is not in their literal meaning." * 

Now, if we admit that the Gospels were written by the 
authors to whom they are ascribed, the general reception of 
all four as of equal authority, notwithstanding these dis 
crepancies, is at once accounted for. But, supposing them 
not to be genuine, no probable explanation can be given of 
this fact. Allowing that each of the four Gospels might, in 
some way or other, have obtained a certain degree of credit, 
yet one would have been used by one portion of Christians, 
and another by another, according as the place of its com 
position, or some other particular circumstance, favored its 

* Comment, in Joan., torn. x. 2; Opp. iv 163. 



104 EVIDENCES OF THE 

reception. There would have been as many different parties 
among Christians as there were different Gospels ; each party 
maintaining the superior authority of its own Gospel. Be 
side these, there would probably have been another large 
party, which would not have admitted the authority, or at 
least the genuineness, of any one of our present Gospels. 
They who had received, and had been accustomed to use, a 
particular Gospel, would look with suspicion upon another, 
which was presented as its rival. However credulously they 
had admitted the claims of their own history, they would 
examine with jealousy those of a new work. This would 
especially be the case, if the latter appeared in any respects, 
though but of little importance, to be inconsistent with, or 
contradictory to, the former. But obvious discrepancies ex 
ist among the Gospels, the importance of which would be 
magnified by those who, having been accustomed to use and 
reverence one of these books, were urged to receive another 
as its companion, and to regard it as of equal credit. These 
discrepancies, apparent or real, must therefore have greatly 
aggravated the difficulty of introducing any other Gospel 
among those by whom one of the Gospels had been already 
received. 

Let us, for instance, suppose the Gospel ascribed to Luke 
to have been presented for the first time to Christians who 
had been accustomed to use only that ascribed to Matthew. 
Upon first opening the former, they would have been shocked 
at finding a genealogy of Christ quite different from that 
with which they were familiar. They would next have 
missed, in its place, the Sermon on the Mount ; and, having 
found a portion of it elsewhere, they would have regarded 
it as inaccurately reported, when they perceived, that, with 
much verbal similarity, different thoughts were in fact ex 
pressed. They would have been offended by an arrangement 
of events, throughout the narrative, irreconcilable with that 
in their own Gospel. They would have discovered, that 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 105 

even a different name, Levi, was given to the supposed 
author of that Gospel, in the account of his being called by 
Christ to be an apostle. Upon further examination, many 
other discrepancies, real or apparent, that is, many other 
reasons for rejecting this new history, would have presented 
themselves ; and, so far from its being admitted to the same 
rank with that which they had before used, it would have 
been thrown aside with strong dislike. Beside the prejudice 
against it which would thus necessarily exist, we must 
recollect that all well-founded claims to genuineness and 
credit are excluded by the supposition we are considering. 
There is therefore no other account to be given of the com 
mon reception of these two Gospels, together with the re 
maining two, as all of equal authority, except this, that they 
had been handed down from the apostolic age as the works 
of the persons to whom they were ascribed, and had always 
been regarded as of equal authority. 

To recur for a moment to the notion of a concerted pjan 
to select our present Gospels, ascribe them to certain au 
thors, and bring them into common use, it may be observed, 
that the more intelligent Christians before the end of the 
second century would not have concerted a plan to bring four 
Gospels into use, which the most able and learned of their 
immediate successors, Origen, thought exposed to such seri 
ous objections, when compared with each other. 

With the argument just stated, a consideration is connected 
which deserves particular attention. It is, that, if the genu 
ineness of any one of the four Gospels be proved, a very 
strong presumption immediately arises in favor of the genu 
ineness of the remaining three. If the four Gospels were 
not handed down from the apostolic age, and received in 
common by succeeding Christians, then, at some period after 
that age, their respective claims to authority must have come 
in competition. But, if any one of them were genuine, the 



106 EVIDENCES OF THE 

authority of this had been acknowledged since the times of 
the apostles. Now, we cannot suppose that Christians, ac 
customed to use a gospel which they believed, or, rather, 
which, from the nature of the case, they knew to be genuine, 
would receive a spurious history of Christ as of equal au 
thority. All their prejudices would have been in favor of 
the book to which they were accustomed. This, then, being 
genuine, and the other spurious, the evidence for the former 
being decisive, and the pretended evidence in favor of the 
latter false, there could be little probability that the new 
work would be classed with that already received, as a sacred 
book of the highest value. No probable motive, nor mistake, 
can be imagined, which might lead to so extraordinary a 
result. 

This is taking the most obvious view of the subject. But 
when we further consider the discrepancies among the Gos 
pels, and reflect that the new history must have appeared, in 
some respects, inconsistent with, and contradictory to, that 
genuine Gospel, the authority of which was already estab 
lished, we perceive how incredible it is that the former would 
have been placed on a level with the latter. Without doubt, 
it would have been rejected. Common policy alone, if it 
were necessary to recur to such a consideration, would have 
prevented Christians from giving the same authority to a 
spurious as to a genuine book, if discrepancies existed be 
tween them ; as these discrepancies would expose the whole 
history to the cavils and objections of unbelievers. 

It appears, therefore, that, if any one of the Gospels be 
genuine, this circumstance alone goes far to prove that all 
are genuine. If the evidence for either of the Gospels had 
been much weaker than that for the other three, its discrep 
ancies from them, if there had been no other cause, would 
have decided its rejection. The fact that we have four 
Gospels, which, with all their essential agreement, differ so 
much from each other, is a very important means of proving 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 107 

the genuineness of all and of any one of them. That these 
discrepancies should serve to confirm our faith in all that is 
essential or important in the narrative contained in the Gos 
pels, has been often observed. They show that the writers 
had each independent means of information. Such discrep 
ancies naturally, and almost necessarily, exist among all 
original histories of the same events. 



We will pass to another consideration, showing that the 
Gospels must have been transmitted as genuine from the 
apostolic age. 

They are evidently the works of Jewish authors.* But 



* To this statement may be objected the opinion, which has obtained some 
currency, that Luke was a Gentile by birth. But this opinion is countenanced 
by only a very slight show of evidence. 

The main argument for it is derived from the concluding verses of the 
Epistle to the Colossians, where St. Paul, after sending salutations from some 
whom he designates as " of the circumcision " (chap. iv. 11), afterwards sends 
salutations from others, whom it is supposed that he meant to distinguish from 
those first mentioned by him, as not being of the circumcision. Among them 
is Luke; and hence it has been inferred that Luke was by birth a Gentile. 

But those who favor this opinion admit that he was a proselyte to the 
Jewish religion before becoming a Christian; and Lardner has shovvn, that 
there were not, as has been represented, two classes of proselytes among the 
Jews, one circumcised, and the other uncircumcised. (Works, ed. 4to, 1815, 
\ol. iii. p. 395, seqq. ; vol. v. p. 496, seqq. Compare Wetstein s note, N. T., 
vol. i. pp. 483-485. See also Justin Martyr s Dial, cum Tryph., pp. 399-401, 
ed. Thirlb., or p. 215, ed. Maran.) All proselytes were circumcised. If Luke, 
therefore, had been a proselyte, it could not have been the purpose of the 
aposlle to distinguish him as not being of the circumcision; and the argu 
ment therefore falls to the ground. 

But the question whether Luke were a Jew or Gentile by birth is wholly 
HP important, not merely in regard to the reasoning in the text, but in regard 
to the correct use of language in calling him " a Jewish writer." Proselytes, 
as we learn from Dion Cassius (quoted by Wetstein, ubi sup ), were commonly 
culled Jews ; they being Jews by religion, and having become incorporated 
with the Jewish nation. St. Luke (not, however, as I conceive, on the ground 
of his being a proselyte, but because he was a Jew by birth) ranks himself 



108 EVIDENCES OF THE 

the Gospels descend to us through the Gentile branch of 
Christians. Now, as has been already observed,* the Jewish 
and Gentile Christians, from the first admission of the latter 
into the Church, had a strong tendency to separate, and form 
distinct societies. Hardly held together by the authority of 
the apostles, they seem to have started asunder as soon as the 
power of the apostles was removed. Very soon, the Gentile 
Christians far outnumbered the Jewish ; and the two parties 
seem to have regarded each other with somewhat the same 
feelings as had belonged to Jews and Gentiles before the 
introduction of Christianity. Before the close of the second 
century, we find the Jewish Christians, with perhaps some 
individual exceptions, regarded as heretics, under the name 
of Ebionites. There is therefore a great improbability, 
that, at any period after the apostolic age, Gentile Christians 
would have received from Jewish Christians four spurious 
histories of Christ, purporting to have been written by 
apostles and companions of apostles, and would have deferred 
with such credulity to their testimony as to ascribe to these 
works the character of sacred books. 

The improbability of this supposition is increased by the 
fact, that the four Greek Gospels the works in question 
were not in common use among Jewish Christians. They 
made use only of a Hebrew Gospel, which, there seems to 
be no reason to doubt, was, as they first received it, the 
Hebrew original of Matthew s Gospel ; though this, in pro 
cess of time, became corrupted in their hands. Their early 
reception of the Hebrew original may have countenanced the 
use of the Greek translation of Matthew ; but, in regard to 
the other three Gospels, the Gentile Christians could not 

with Jews in the commencement of his Gospel, speaking " of the events ac 
complished among MS." Whatever question may have been raised respecting 
the parentage of Luke, there can be no doubt that the author of the Gospel 
ascribed to him was a Jew by birth or by adoption, a Jewish writer. 
* See before, p. 61. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 109 

have received them upon the authority and recommendation 
of the Jewish Christians, by whom they were not used. 

But there is another circumstance to be considered. The 
Gospels are evidently the work, not merely of Jewish 
authors, but of unlearned Jewish authors ; men unskilled in 
the use of language generally, and of the Greek language 
in particular. These writings can make no pretension to 
any merely literary merit. Their Hebraistic style arid 
idioms, with the peculiar senses given to words, must 
have obscured their meaning, and made them appear bar 
barous to those whose native language was the Greek. 
Origen informs us, that "the style of the Scriptures was 
regarded by the Greeks as poor and contemptible."* " Lit 
erary men," says Lactantius, " when they give their attention 
to the religion of God, unless they receive their fundamental 
instruction from some able teacher, do not become believers ; 
for, being accustomed to pleasing and polished discourses and 
poems, they despise as sordid the simple and common Ian 
guage of the divine writings." f If, therefore, the Gospels 
had not been genuine, their style and idiom alone would have 
formed no small obstacle to their reception. 

Let us now put these circumstances together, and, advert 
ing merely to the particular view of the subject just taken, 
consider what is necessarily embraced in the supposition, that 
the Gospels, being spurious, obtained general authority after 
the apostolic age. According to this supposition, while the 
Jewish and Gentile Christians were regarding each other 
with but very little favor, four spurious works, the produc 
tion of illiterate Jewish writers whose names are wholly 
unknown, the style of which must have been repulsive to 
Greeks, and three of which were not in common use among 
Jewish Christians, and therefore not recommended by their 



* Comment, in Joan , torn. iv. 2 ; Opp. iv. 
t Institut. vi. 21. 



110 EVIDENCES OF THE 

authority, whatever weight that might have had, all, in a 
body, obtained the highest credit as sacred books throughout 
the widely dispersed community of Gentile Christians. 



It is acknowledged, that the four Gospels were received 
with the greatest respect, as genuine and sacred books, by 
catholic Christians ; that is, by the great body of Christians 
at the end of the second century. But, earlier than this 
time, it has been pretended that we find no trace of their 
existence ; and hence it has been inferred, that, before this 
time, they were not in common use, and were but little 
known, even if extant in their present state.* I shall here 
after produce notices of their existence at a much earlier 
period. But waiving, for the present, this consideration, the 
reasoning appears not a little extraordinary. About the end 
of the second century, the Gospels were reverenced as sacred 
books by a community dispersed over the world, composed 
of men of different nations and languages. There were, to 
say the least, sixty thousand copies of them in existence ; t 
they were read in the churches of Christians ; they were 
continually quoted, and appealed to, as of the highest author 
ity ; their reputation was as well established among believers, 
from one end of the Roman empire to the other, as it is at 
the present day among Christians in any country. But it is 
asserted, that, before that period, we find no trace of their 
existence ; and it is therefore inferred, that they were not in 
common use, and but little known, even if extant in their 
present form. This reasoning is of the same kind as if one 
were to say that the first mention of Egyptian Thebes is in 
the poems of Homer. He, indeed, describes it as a city 
which poured a hundred armies from its hundred gates ; but 

* See before, p. 7. t See before, p. 32. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. Ill 

his is the first mention of it, and therefore we have no rea 
son to suppose, that, before his time, it was a place of any 
considerable note. The general reception of the Gospels as 
books of the highest authority, at the end of the second 
century, necessarily implies their celebrity at a much earlier 
period, and the long-continued operation of causes sufficient 
to produce so remarkable a phenomenon. 

This phenomenon, it may appear from what has been said, 
could not have been the result of any combination, nor of 
fraud, nor accident. Those by whom the Gospels were 
received as books of the highest value were men superior, 
generally, in moral and intellectual qualities, to their con 
temporaries. If they were deceived, it was at their peril ; 
they enjoyed such means of knowledge concerning the his 
tory of the Gospels as might, and we may truly say must, 
have removed all doubt whether they were genuine or not ; 
and, in their words and by their lives, they unequivocally 
affirmed them to be genuine. The first three Gospels, when 
compared together, present appearances which, viewed in 
connection with the fact of their general reception, admit of 
no explanation that does not suppose their genuineness. But 
further: from the nature of the case, the Gospels must have 
made their way to general reception by their intrinsic worth 
and authority. Four histories of Christ, the work of 
unlearned Jewish authors, written in a style which must have 
appeared barbarous to native Greeks, and regarded by those 
who held them in the highest respect as presenting discrep 
ancies with each other, which, in the literal sense of their 
words, were irreconcilable, obtained equal reception through 
out the Christian community, from beyond the Euphrates, 
through Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, and Italy, to the western 
coasts of Spain and Africa. They were received as sacred 
books by portions of this community, who probably had 
never heard of each other s existence. Wherever the reli 
gion had spread, they had spread with it. The faith of 



112 GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 

Christians rested on the belief of their authenticity. Of 
these facts, no other account can be given, than that those 
writings were derived from the same sources as the religion 
itself, and had been handed down with it from the apostolic 
age, as its authentic records. But, if this be so, no reasonable 
question can be raised respecting their genuineness. It 
could not be established by any proof more decisive and 
unsuspicious than what has just been stated ; for it appears 
as a necessary inference from notorious and indisputable 
facts. 



Such is the conclusion concerning the genuineness of the 
Gospels to be drawn from the fact of their reception as 
genuine throughout the community of catholic Christians in 
the last quarter of the second century. But all reasoning 
on historical subjects, however decisive it may seem, admits 
of confirmation ; and we are not satisfied till whatever diffi 
culties have been opposed to it are removed. We will 
therefore proceed to examine whether the conclusion to 
which we have arrived is confirmed or weakened by evidence 
from a still earlier period. We will first attend to the evi 
dence of Justin Martyr. It has been maintained, as we have 
before seen,* that he did not quote the Gospels ; but con 
sistently with the conclusion to which we have arrived, and 
in confirmation of it, I trust it may be clearly shown, that he 
did quote the same Gospels to which we now appeal, and 
that he, and the Christians contemporary with him, held 
them in as high respect as the Christians who immediately 
succeeded him, or as do Christians at the present day. 

* See before, p. 4. 



CHAPTER II. 



EVIDENCE TO BE DERIVED FROM THE WRITINGS OF 
JUSTIN MARTYR. 

IN ascending toward the apostolic age, after the fathers who 
have been mentioned in the last chapter, we come to Justin 
Martyr, who flourished about the year 150. He was of Gen 
tile extraction, born in Flavia Neapolis, a city of Samaria, in 
the latte? part of the first or in the beginning of the second 
century. He studied the different systems of heathen phi 
losophy under several masters. He preferred the Platonic, 
until he became acquainted with Christianity, which he then 
embraced as the only "certain and useful philosophy." He 
appears to have spent much of his life in travelling; and, 
according to Eusebius, chose Rome for his residence, where, 
as there seems no reason to doubt, he suffered martyrdom. 
As early as the year 150, he addressed a Defence of Chris 
tianity to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, in connection with 
Marcus Antoninus and Lucius Verus, and the Roman senate 
and people. Afterwards, he wrote another work in explana 
tion and defence of Christianity, in the form of a dialogue 
with an unbelieving Jew, called Trypho. It is doubtful 
whether the form given to it be wholly fictitious, or whether 
the work were occasioned by a conference which actually 
took place. Not long before his death, he published a second 
Defence of Christianity. His two defences are commonly 
called Apologies, the name being used in the sense of the 

8 



114 EVIDENCES OP THE 

Greek word from which it is derived; namely, "defence," 
" vindication." 

Beside those that have been mentioned, Justin composed 
writings which are lost. There are three other short works 
extant, of which he was perhaps the author.* But they are 
all addressed to Gentile unbelievers, and contain no reference 
to any book giving a history of Christ. This is true, like 
wise, of his second Apology, which is short. It was occa 
sioned by a particular act of persecution at Rome, in which 
three Christians were put to death. Our attention, therefore, is 
confined to the first Apology, and the Dialogue with Trypho. 

From these works of Justin might be extracted a brief 
account of the life and doctrines of Christ, corresponding 
with that contained in the Gospels, and corresponding to 
such a degree, both in matter and words, that almost every 
quotation and reference may be readily assigned to its proper 
place in one or other of the Gospels. There was conse 
quently, till within a short period, no doubt entertained that 
the Gospels were quoted by Justin. The facts just men 
tioned do not fully establish this proposition ; but they afford 
a strong presumption of its truth. To the supposition, how 
ever, that Justin quoted the Gospels, objections have been 
made, which, as far as they are important, may be reduced to 
the three following heads : 

I. He nowhere designates any one of the Gospels by the 
title of it afterwards in use, or names the evangelists as 
the authors whom he quotes. His quotations are taken from 
what he calls " Memoirs by the Apostles ; " for so we may 
translate the title which he gives to the work or works to 
which he appeals.f 

* Ad Grsecos Oratio, Ad Graecos Cohortatio, De Monarchia. 
f Tu A.Tro{tvrj l uovVfjiaTa TCJV 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 115 

II. There is a great want of verbal coincidence between his 
quotations, and the corresponding passages in the Gospels. 

III. He has passages apparently or professedly taken 
from the written history of Christ used by him, which are 
not found in the Gospels.* 

The facts stated in the first two objections admit of suffi 
cient explanation, by attending to the character of Justin s 
writings, and the circumstances under which they were com 
posed. His quotations are found, as has been said, in his 
first and longer Apology, and in his Dialogue with Trypho. 
In the former work, he gives an account of Christ and his 
ministry, of the doctrines and precepts of his religion, and 
of the character of his followers. He is, throughout, ad 
dressing heathens. 

We will first, then, consider the manner in which he has 
described the Gospels (as we believe) in this Apology.f He 
quotes much from them without any express reference or 
description, which, however, he has given three times, in the 
following words : 

1. "And the messenger then sent to that virgin announced 
to her the glad news, saying, * Behold, thou shalt conceive 
through the Holy Spirit, and bring forth a son, and he shall 
be the son of the Most High ; and thou shalt call his name 

* These objections are stated in a dissertation by F. A. Stroth, published 
In the first volume of Eichhorn s Repertorium, and entitled, Entdeckte Frag- 
mente des Evangeliums nach den Hebraern in Justin dem Martyrer; i.e., 
Fragments of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, discovered in Justin 
Martyr. Eichhorn s Einleitung in d. N. T., i. 78-106. Bishop Marsh s 
Letters to the anonymous Author of Remarks on Michaelis and his Com 
mentator, pp. 28-32 ; and his Illustration of his Hypothesis respecting the 
Origin and Composition of our three first Gospels, Appendix, pp. 22-79. 

t The order of the Apologies in the older editions being inverted, the first 
written is often cited as the second; as it is by Eiehhorn. This fact, if not 
explained, might produce some confusion. I call that the first Apology which 
was first written, and which is placed first in the later editions; and follow, 
in quoting, the pages of Thirlby s edition. 



116 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Jesus ; for he shall deliver his people from their sins ; as those 
who have written memoirs concerning every thing relating to 
our Saviour, Jesus Christ, have taught, whom we believe"* 

2. In giving an account of the Last Supper of our Lord, 
he says, " The apostles, in the Memoirs composed by them, 
which are called Gospels, have thus informed us," f &c. 

3. He says, " Oil the day which is called the day of the 
Sun [Sunday], we all, whether dwelling in cities or in the 
country, assemble together ; when the Memoirs by the Apos 
tles,:}: or the writings of the Prophets, are read, as long as 
time permits." He then describes the rest of the service, 
which consisted in an exhortation, prayer, the celebration of 
the Lord s Supper, and a contribution for the poor. 

We believe that the books of which Justin thus speaks 
were the Gospels ; and it does not appear how, in addressing 
a heathen emperor and heathen readers, he could have de 
scribed them more clearly than he has done, or afforded more 
satisfactory proof that they were the works to which he 
appealed. How early the term rendered " Gospel " came 
to be applied to a history of Christ, is uncertain. We have 
no evidence that it was so long before the time of Justin. 
In this application, the word was so removed from its original 
sense, that the meaning put upon it would not have been un 
derstood, without explanation, by a native Greek, acquainted 
only with its common use in his language. If it was per 
ceived to be the title of a book, it would still convey to him 
no proper and distinct notion of the contents of that book. 
This, therefore, was not a title to be used without explana 
tion by Justin, in addressing a Roman emperor. Nor would 
there have been more propriety in his giving the names of 
the authors of the respective Gospels. Of Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, and John, neither the emperor, nor the generality of 
those heathens who might read his Apology, had probably 

* p. 54. t p- 96. | p. 97. 






GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 117 

ever heard. The names of four unknown individuals would 
have carried with them no historical authority. Considering 
the state of things at the time when Justin wrote, there would 
have been something incongruous, and almost ludicrous, in 
quoting by name "The Gospel according to Matthew," or 
" The Gospel according to Luke," in an address to the 
Roman emperor and senate. The object of Justin, in appeal 
ing to any history of Christ was, to show, that his own state 
ments rested on authority acknowledged by those in whose 
name he spoke. It was necessary, therefore, for him to de 
scribe those books in words which would be understood, and 
which would show, at the same time, how they were esteemed 
by Christians. This is what he has done. He calls them 
" Memoirs by the Apostles." The description was of the kind 
which his purpose required, and was sufficiently correct : for, 
though only two of the Gospels were written by apostles, the 
other two, according to the universal sentiment of antiquity, 
were considered as carrying with them apostolic authority ; 
being sanctioned by apostles, and containing only narratives 
derived from them. We shall presently perceive, that, on 
another occasion, he expressed himself with perfect accuracy. 
In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin defends and maintains 
Christianity against the objections of the unbelieving Jews. 
Like his Apologies, therefore, this work was intended to be 
read by unbelievers, and by unbelievers who, as appears from 
a passage to be hereafter quoted, might never have heard the 
names of the evangelists. In speaking of the Gospels, Justin, 
accordingly, pursues the same course as in his Apology. But, 
in this Dialogue, we find the following passage : " In those 
Memoirs" says Justin, "which I affirm to have been com 
posed by apostles of Christ and their companions, it is writ 
ten, that sweat, like drops of blood, flowed from him while 
he was praying." * 



p. 361. 



118 EVIDENCES OF THE 

That companions of the apostles are here named by Justin 
serves especially to prove, that he referred to the Gospels, 
when viewed in connection with the fact, that the passage 
which he immediately quotes is found only in the Gospel of 
Luke, who was a companion of the apostles. In another 
place,* a little after, Justin speaks of our Saviour s changing 
the name of Peter, " as it is written in his Memoirs ; " and 
likewise of his giving to James and John the name of Boa- 
nerges.^ By his Memoirs, according to Justin s constant use 
of language, we must understand Memoirs of which Peter 
may be regarded as the author.^ But it was the opinion of 
the ancients, that Mark s Gospel was essentially the narra 
tive of Peter, and thus entitled to apostolic authority. The 
mention of the surname given to James and John is to be 
found in no other Gospel. 

The explanation which has been given of the fact, that 
Justin does not mention the evangelists by name, is con 
firmed by a passage before referred to, as proving that those 
for whom he intended his work might never have heard the 
names of the evangelists. He believed that the Apocalypse 
was written by St. John ; and in defending the doctrine of a 
millennium, after quoting passages from the Old Testament, 
he appeals to that work in the following terms : " And a 
man of our own number, by name John, one of the apostles 
of Christ, in the revelation which was made by him, has 
prophesied that the believers in our Christ shall spend a 



* p. 365. t Comp. Mark iii. 17. 

J AS ATTOCTTO/IUV elsewhere, when governed by ATro^i^ovety/ara, denote? 
the authors, and not the subjects, of these Memoirs; so, in this passage, the 
genitive OITOV must refer to him who was regarded, in a certain sense, aa 
the author of the work in question, namely, Peter, and not to the subject 
nf the work, Christ. Justin nowhere uses the expression, 



On the preceding page. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 119 

thousand years in Jerusalem ; and that after this will be, to 
speak briefly, the general and eternal resurrection and judg 
ment of all men together."* With the exception of St. Paul, 
there was probably no one of the early disciples whose name 
was more likely to be known to unbelievers than that of St. 
John ; yet we see in what manner he is here mentioned. It is 
easy to perceive how little advantage or propriety there would 
have been in Justin s quoting the evangelists by name, when 
addressing those to whom their names were unknown. Nor 
was there any cause why, with the purpose which he had in 
view, either in his Apology or his Dialogue with Trypho, he 
should be careful to distinguish between what he took from 
one evangelist, and what from another. He regarded all as 
of equal authority. There was therefore no reason why he 
should specify the different evangelists by name in quoting 
their Gospels. There was not even a suitable occasion for 
him to do so. 

II. We come, then, to the second objection, the want ot 
verbal coincidence between the quotations of Justin and the 
corresponding passages in the Gospels. 

In order to understand the precise force of this objection, 
it should be premised, that, in the quotations in question, the 
language answers in great part to that of the evangelists; 
but that the cases are comparatively rare in which a series 
of words of any considerable length runs strictly parallel 
with the corresponding passage in the Gospels. There is 
commonly a change, addition, or omission of one or more 
words, or an alteration in the construction or arrangement. 

Respecting the objection, as thus explained, it may first be 
remarked, that it proceeds on a false assumption concerning 
the degree of accuracy generally to be found in the quota 
tions of the fathers, in cases where no particular circum- 



p. 315. 



120 EVIDENCES OF THE 

stance operated to produce it. Strict verbal coincidence 
between their citations from Scripture, and the text of the 
New Testament or of the Septuagint, from which they 
quoted, is not to be confidently expected, except under con 
ditions which do not apply to Justin s citations from the 
Gospels. The fathers may be presumed to have quoted 
verbally in their commentaries ; because they may be sup 
posed to have written with the volume, on which they were 
commenting, open before them. There is a presumption, 
likewise, that they were often accurate in their controversial 
writings ; as it is obviously proper, when a doctrine is to be 
proved or disproved by the Scriptures, to produce the pas 
sages appealed to in the very words of the original. They 
sometimes give proof of quoting verbally by remarking on 
the various readings of a passage. One father, likewise, 
from habits of critical study of the Scriptures, is frequently 
correct, while another is more inaccurate. Origen, for ex 
ample, quotes generally with closer adherence to the text, 
than Clement of Alexandria, of whom it has been remarked, 
that "he not unfrequently cites from memory, and gives 
rather the sense than the words of the sacred writers."* 
But, in many of the works of the fathers, there is a want of 
verbal coincidence similar to that found in Justin s quotations 
from the Gospels. The other fathers, like Justin, quoted 
from memory carelessly, substituting one synonymous word 
or clause for another, transposing the order of words and 
thoughts, omitting parts of a passage, paraphrasing, inserting 
their own explanations, expressing the meaning in their own 
language, and blending together passages which stand remote 
from each other in the Scriptures. 

Accuracy of quotation seems to have been less regarded 
by ancient writers, in general, than by modern ; a circum 
stance probably arising from the greater difficulty in pro- 

* Griesbach. Symbol. Crit, torn. ii. p. 235. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 121 

curing and in consulting books. It has been remarked, for 
instance, that Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in his rhetorical 
works, often quotes the same passage differently; and that, 
particularly, he has long citations from Isocrates repeated, 
sometimes more than once, with variations.* We may men 
tion, as another example, the well-known fact of the want 
of exactness in the quotations from the Old Testament, 
contained in the Gospels and Epistles. In ancient times, 
the unrolling of a volume to find a particular passage must 
have taken more time, and given more trouble, than the 
opening of a book in modern days. 

But, besides the false assumption respecting the general 
accuracy of the fathers in their quotations, the objection we 
are considering rests for support upon an express assertion 
respecting Justin in particular. It has been said, that " Justin 
is extremely accurate as to the words of his quotations." t 
If Justin had been extremely accurate in his quotations from 
other books, there might be a reasonable doubt whether the 
" Memoirs by the Apostles " were the four Gospels, on 
account of the want of verbal agreement between his quota 
tions and the text of the Gospels. But with the special 
exception to be hereafter mentioned, which does not affect 
the present argument, the assertion is strangely erroneous. 
Justin s frequent want of accuracy in his quotations has been 
remarked in strong language by the commentators on his 
writings.! There is a great want of verbal coincidence in 
many of his quotations from the Septuagint. He alters and 
transposes the language ; he brings together detached pas 
sages from the same or from different books, giving them in 
connection, as if they followed each other in the original. 

* Vid. Matthtei Nov. Test. Graced, torn. i. p. 690, n. 13. 
t Marsh s Letters, p. 31, note. Comp. Appendix to Illustration, p. 82, 
sqq. 

J See Thirlby s edition, pp. 75, 92, 166, 180. 



12i EVIDENCES OF THE 

It is not uncommon for him to commit the error of ascribing 
to one prophet the words of another; and he has even, 
apparently through indistinct recollection and the confound 
ing of different things together, quoted the Pentateuch, once 
expressly and once by implication, for facts not to be found 
in it. I have noticed in his Apologies and Dialogue seven 
quotations from Plato. There is one of them, consisting 
only of four words in the original, which would be verbally 
accurate if Justin had not inserted a particle. None of the 
others is so. In three, he gives what he conceived to be 
the sense, without regard to the words, of Plato ; and, in the 
only other of any considerable length, there is much discrep 
ance of language. He quotes likewise from Xenophon the 
story of the choice of Hercules, giving this also in his own 
words. 

It is true, that many of Justin s quotations from the Sep- 
tuagint, in the Dialogue with Trypho, correspond closely 
to the text of the original. But their difference in this 
respect from his other quotations in his first Apology and in 
the Dialogue is easily explained. Many of those referred to 
are of such length, as, at first view, to render it improbable 
that he trusted to his memory, as on other occasions. In 
citing a whole Psalm, or a long passage from one of the 
prophets, he is verbally correct, or nearly so, because, as it 
may be presumed, he recurred to the volume, and transcribed 
it In his Dialogue with Trypho, he is reasoning in contro 
versy with a Jew from passages of the Old Testament ; and 
this circumstance would lead him to pay particular attention 
to accuracy in citing it It is to be observed also, that, for 
his quotations from the Septuagint, he had an invariable 
archetype ; while, on the contrary, the same facts or dis- 
couises were often recorded in different terms in each of the 
first three Gospels. This diversity would tend to prevent a 
distinct and accurate impression of any particular form of 
words from being left on the memory ; and would, at the 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 123 

same time, seem to prove it unimportant to adhere closely to 
the language of any one of the evangelists. 

It seemed proper to enter into the preceding explana 
tions, in order to show the sources of the erroneous reasoning 
respecting the quotations of Justin. But the fact, that he 
did not cite the work or works, which he entitles " Memoirs," 
with verbal accuracy, admits of decisive proof. In at least 
seventeen instances, he has repeated the same quotation. 
Now, if he had cited with verbal accuracy, every quotation, 
when repeated, must have agreed with itself. But this is not 
the fact Passing over what may be considered as trifling 
variations, we find, that in more than half of them, as re 
peated, there is a striking want of correspondence, either in 
the words themselves, or in their connection with other 
words quoted. Nothing can be said which will tend either 
to illustrate or to set aside the inference from this fact. The 
conclusion, that Justin did not quote the "Memoirs" used 
by him with verbal accuracy, is irresistible ; and it is truly 
an extraordinary phenomenon, that an hypothesis should 
have been built upon the opposite supposition. 

It would have been strange, if Justin, in composing such 
works as he did, had regarded verbal accuracy in quoting 
the Gospels. He wrote for unbelieving Gentiles and Jews, 
men ignorant of what Christianity really was. It was his 
purpose to give a general view of its history and character. 
In pursuing this purpose, while using the Gospels as his 
main authority, he intermixes with his statements quotations 
from them, sometimes partly in the words of the original, 
and partly in his own. He blends together passages taken 
from different places in the same Gospel, or from different 
evangelists. He quotes the Gospels from memory, as, with 
the exceptions before mentioned, he does the Septuagint. 
In thus quoting the Septuagint, he has committed remarkable 



124 EVIDENCES OF THE 

mistakes ; but he might well feel assured, that, in reporting 
the teachings or the history of our Lord, his memory wouL 
not so fail as to cause him to give a false representation of 
them. It would have been, not a degree of accuracy tha 
we might reckon upon, but it would have been superstitious 
precision, if, in addressing a Roman emperor or unbelieving 
Jews, he had thought it necessary to transcribe the exact 
words of any one of the Gospels in the exact order in which 
they stand, especially while he found the same facts and 
the same sayings presented by different evangelists in differ 
ent words. In works of such a character as those of Justin, 
composed at so early a period in the history of Christianity, 
his mode of quotation was such as might reasonably be 
expected. 

In not mentioning the Gospels by the titles in use among 
Christians, and in not appealing to the evangelists by name, 
Justin pursued a course similar to that which was adopted by 
a long series of Christian Apologists from his time to that of 
Constantine. In other words, it was the course pursued 
by the fathers generally in their works addressed to unbe 
lievers, by Justin s disciple, Tatian, who, though he formed 
a history of Christ out of the four Gospels, does not make 
mention of them, nor of the evangelists, in his Oration to 
the Gentiles; by Athenagoras, who is equally silent about 
them in his Apology, addressed, in the last quarter of the 
second century, to Marcus Aurelius; by Theophilus, who 
conforms to the common usage of the writers with whom he 
is to be classed, except that, as before mentioned,* he once 
speaks of " the Gospels," and uses once the name " Gospel," 
and once the term " Evangelic Voice," in citing the Gos 
pels, and once quotes the evangelist John by name ; by Ter- 
tullian, who quotes the Gospels elsewhere so abundantly, but 

* S?e before, pp. 74, 75. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 125 

from whose Apology, or from whose work " To the Nations," 
no information (supposing those works to stand alone) could 
be gleaned concerning them ; by Minutius Felix, whose 
single remaining book a spirited and interesting defence of 
Christianity and attack on heathenism, in the form of a 
dialogue affords, likewise, no evidence that the Gospels 
were in existence; by Cyprian, the well-known bishop of 
Carthage about the middle of the third century, who in his 
defence of Christianity, addressed to Demetrian, a heathen, 
does not name the Gospels nor the evangelists ; and, to come 
down to the beginning of the fourth century, by Arnobius, 
who, in his long work " Against the Gentiles," does not cite 
any book of Scripture ; and by Lactantius, who, in his 
v - Divine Institutes," does not speak of the Gospels, nor 
quote by name any one of the evangelists, except John, and 
mentions him only in a single passage.* 

Cyprian, in his work addressed to Demetrian, has quota 
tions from Scripture, and, among them, three from the Gos 
pels, though the Gospels are not expressly named by him. 
On this, Lactantius remarks, that Cyprian has not treated 
the subject as he ought ; for Demetrian " was not to be 
confuted by authorities from that Scripture which he re 
garded as false and fabricated, but by arguments and rea 
son."t 

Such, as we have seen, was the course generally adopted 
by the fathers, in their works addressed to unbelievers. 
But, among all who have been mentioned, Justin is remark 
ably distinguished by the abundance of his quotations from 
the Gospels, and by the explicitness with which he has 
described their character. 

III. We proceed to the last objection. It is, that Justin 
has passages, apparently or professedly taken from the his- 

* Institut., lib. iv. 8. f Ibid., lib. v. 4. 



126 EVIDENCES OF THE 

tory or histories of Christ used by him, which are not found 
in the Gospels. 

In respect to these passages, it is first to be observed, that 
with only one exception,* which presents no considerable 
difficulty, they are not professedly taken by Justin from the 
Memoirs used by him, or from any other book. That they 
are not found in the Gospels can therefore afford no proof 
that Justin did not elsewhere quote the Gospels. It must 
be remembered, that he lived near the times of the apostles ; 
and that there would be nothing strange in his having learnt, 
by oral tradition, or from some writing or writings then 
extant, but since lost, a few facts respecting our Saviour, not 
recorded by the evangelists. From either source, accord 
ingly, we may suppose him to have derived one or two 
circumstances which he mentions. In other passages, he 
has probably done nothing more than express, in different 
terms, his conception of the meaning of the evangelists ; 
sometimes dilating it a little, and blending with it his own 
inferences. The following are the only passages of sufficient 
curiosity or importance to require particular remark. 

1. Justin says, that the Jews who witnessed the miracles 
performed by Jesus "said that they were a magical delu 
sion ; and dared to call him a magician, and a deceiver of 
the people." f 

Justin has here only stated, in different language, facts 
recorded by the evangelists, who relate that the enemies of 
Christ said, that he cast out devils by Beelzebub, and that 
he deceived the people. Lactantius expresses himself in the 
game manner as Justin. " He performed wonderful things," 
says that writer ; " we might have thought him a magician, 
as you now think him, and as the Jews then thought him, 
if all the prophets, inspired by the same spirit, had not pre- 

* See No. 4, following. f Dial- cum Tiyph., p. 288. 






GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 127 

dieted that the Messiah would perform those very things."* 
It was a common pretence of the enemies of Christianity, 
that our Lord performed his miracles by magic. 

2. Justin says, that " Christ, being regarded as a worker 
in wood, did make, while among men, ploughs and yokes; 
thus setting before them symbols of righteousness, and teach 
ing an active life."f 

It may be doubted, whether Justin was acquainted with 
any narrative to this effect. In the Gospel of Mark, the 
Nazarenes, according to the Common Version, are repre 
sented as asking concerning Jesus, " Is not this the carpen 
ter ? " J The word rendered " carpenter," Justin, it appears, 
understood as denoting a worker in wood, which is not 
improbably its meaning in this passage. He may therefore 
have mentioned the particular implements which he does, 
because he regarded their fabrication as part of the proper 
business of a worker in wood. 

3. Justin says, that " when Christ was born at Bethlehem, 
as Joseph could find no room in any inn in that village, he 
lodged in a certain cave, near the village; and, while they 
were there, Mary brought forth the Messiah, and laid him in 
a stall." 

There was a prevailing tradition, that our Lord was born 
in a cave, which is found in many of the fathers besides Jus 
tin. At the present day, in the East, caves, it is said, are 
Bometimes used for stables. Origen states, that, " conforma 
bly to the account in the Gospel-history of the birth of 
Christ, there is shown the cave in Bethlehem, in which he 
was born ; and, in the cave, the stall where he was swathed : 
and the place which is shown is famous in that neighbor- 



Institut., lib. v. 3. f Dial- cum Tiyph., p. 333. 

Mark vi. 3 Dial, cum Tryph., p. 306. Comp. Luke ii. 7 



128 EVIDENCES OF THE 

hood, even among those who are aliens from the faith, on 
the ground that in this cave was born that Jesus whom 
Christians revere and venerate."* The alleged cave of the 
Nativity is still shown at Bethlehem. 

4. Justin twice t gives the words, Thou art my Son, this 
day have I begotten thee, as those uttered at our Saviour s 
baptism ; and, in one place, says expressly that the words 
were found in the Memoirs by the Apostles. 

The words alleged by Justin are not in the Gospels ; but 
they are given, as uttered at the baptism of our Saviour, by 
several other ancient writers, whose acquaintance with, and 
constant use of, the Gospels is well known. They are found 
in Clement of Alexandria, Methodius, Hilary, Lactantius, 
and Juvencus. Augustin states that these words were the 
reading of some manuscripts, though not, it was said, of 
the most ancient Greek copies, upon Luke iii. 22 ; and they 
are still found there in the Cambridge manuscript, and in 
several Latin manuscripts.^: 

This, then, is nothing more than an error common to Jus 
tin, with many others. It seems to have had its origin in a 
confusion of memory ; the words in question being applied to 
our Saviour repeatedly in the New Testament. 

5. The next passage, likewise, relates to the baptism of our 
Saviour. Justin says, " When Jesus came to the river Jor 
dan, where John was baptizing, upon his entering the water, 
a fire was kindled in the Jordan ; and the apostles of this 
same person, our Messiah, have written, that, when he came 
out of the water, the Holy Spirit, like a dove, alighted upon 
him." || 

* Cont. Gels., lib. i. 51 ; Opp. i. 367. 

t Dial, cum Tryph., p. 333 et p. 361. 

J See Thirlby s note, p. 333; and Griesbach s Nov. Test., Luke iii. 22. 

Acts xiii. 33. Heb. i. 5; y. 6. || Dial, cum Trypk., p. 331. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 129 

Justin says, that, as Jesus entered the water, a fire was 
kindled in the Jordan. Of this story, beside the mention of 
it by him, traces are elsewhere extant.* His mention of it 
is incidental. In what precedes the passage quoted, he is 
explaining at length what he supposes to be meant by " the 
Spirit of God resting upon Jesus." In relation to this sub 
ject, he quotes the account of the descent of the Holy Spirit 
upon Jesus at his baptism, and alleges for this fact the testi 
mony of the apostles. But he does not bring into his argu 
ment the appearance of lire in the Jordan ; nor, according to 
the grammatical construction of his words, does he say that 
this appearance was related by the apostles. 

But it has been contended, that his whole account of the 
baptism of our Lord is so closely connected, that he must be 
understood as giving for the whole the authority of the apos 
tles, and therefore that he quoted the whole from his Me 
moirs by the Apostles. This seems to be forcing a construction 
on his words, for the sake of creating a difficulty or an argu 
ment. But, should it be admitted that Justin is to be thus 
understood, we might conclude, either that the story of the 
fire in the Jordan had been interpolated in the copy of 
the Gospels which he used, as a similar story has been 
interpolated in two manuscripts, now extant, of old Latin 
versions;! or, what may seem more probable, that Justin, 
who often wrote carelessly, adduced the authority of the 
apostles for the whole of his account, while in fact it applied 
only to the essential part of it, and not to the circumstance 
which he had incidentally mentioned. As I have before 
observed, he twice refers to the Pentateuch for supposed 
facts not to be found in it. 

6. The following is the only remaining passage : " Accord- 



* See Thirlby s note, p. 331 ; and Maran s note, p. 185 of his edition of 
Justin. Also Grabe s Spicilegium, i. 69. 
1 See Griesbach s N. T., Matt. iii. 15. 



130 ETIDENCES OF THE 

ingly," Justin remarks, " our Lord Jesus Christ said, In what 
ever actions I apprehend you, by those I will judge you. " * 

These words are found, with some variety of form, in many 
ancient Christian writers ; but Justin is the only one who 
appears to ascribe them to Christ.f His error, for I doubt 
not it is an error, may have arisen from a failure of memory 
similar to that through which he has elsewhere ascribed to 
one prophet the words of another ; or, perhaps, he may have 
been acquainted with some tradition or writing which as 
cribed the saying in question to our Saviour. 

There are a few sayings attributed to Jesus in the writings 
of the fathers, which are not recorded in the Gospels. Thus, 
for example, Irenaeus quotes, $ without distrust, from Papias 
a pretended discourse of our Lord relating to the millennium, 
resembling the extravagant fables of the Jewish rabbis found 
in the Talmud. He is represented as predicting, that there 
would be at that time an enormous increase in the size and 
productiveness of plants, particularly of the vine and of wheat, 
and as describing the clusters of grapes as about to be indued 
with a human voice. The story deserves particular attention, 
as serving to show what sort of materials might have gone to 
the composition of the Gospels, if their composition had been 
delayed till the times of Irenasus and Justin Martyr. 

Origen speaks of " the precept of Jesus," Be good money 
changers ; that is, learn to distinguish well between what is 
true and what is false, as skilful money-changers distinguish 
readily good money from bad. There is no intrinsic improba 
bility that these words were uttered by Jesus. Origen often 
quotes or alludes to them. So also does Clement of Alex 
andria, who cites them as words of Scripture ; || and they are 



* Dial, cum Tryph., p. 232. 

t Fabricii Cod. Apoc. N. T., torn. i. p. 333 ; ed. 2da. 

t Cont. Ilseres., lib. v. c. 23, 3, 4, p. 333. 

Comment, in Joan., torn. xix. 2; Opp. iv. 289, where see Huet s note. 

y StrOmat., lib. i. 28, p. 425. See Potter s note. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 131 

found in many other ancient writers, though the greater num 
ber do not expressly refer them to Christ* 

Clement represents our Lord as saying, "Ask great things, 
ard what are small shall be given you in addition." t Origen 
quotes these words without expressly ascribing them to Chrisi, 
but appearing to give them as his, and adds the following : 
" Ask heavenly things, and what are earthly shall be given 
you in addition ; " $ and, in another place, he states that Jesus 
said, " For the sake of the weak, I was weak ; for the sake of 
the hungry, I hungered; and, for the sake of the thirsty, [ 
thirsted." 

We know how familiarly acquainted Ireneeus, Clement, and 
Origen were with the Gospels, and in what high respect they 
held them. The fact, therefore, that Justin quotes a supposed 
saying of our Lord not found in the Gospels, or that he men 
tions some unimportant incidents not recorded in them, affords 
no proof that he was not equally well acquainted with the 
Gospels, and did not hold them in like respect. 

The examination of the passages from Justin, which we 
have gone over, is of much more interest than may appear 
at first sight. He carries us back to the age which followed 
that of the apostles. His writings have been searched for 
the purpose of finding some notices of Christ, or some inti 
mations relating to him, different from the accounts of the 
evangelists. But nothing that can be regarded as of any 
importance has been discovered. On the contrary, he gives 
a great part of the history of Christ in perfect harmony with 
what is found in the Gospels, sometimes agreeing in words, 
and always in meaning. It is remarkable, that, ip so early a 
writer as Justin, there is so little matter additional to what ia 

* Fabricii Cod. Apoc. N. T., torn. i. pp. 330, 331. 

t Stroinat, lib. i. 24, p. 416. Comp. lib. iv. 6, p. 67?. 

J De Orat, 2 et 14; Opp. i. 197 et 219. 

Comment in Matt., torn. xiii. 2; Opp. iii. 573. 



132 EVIDENCES OF THE 

contained iii the Gospels ; so little which one can suppose to 
be derived from any other source. That we find what we do, 
presents no marvel nor difficulty. The phenomenon to be 
accounted for is, that we find no more ; and of this phenome 
non the only satisfactory explanation is, that the Gospels had 
come down from the apostolic age with such a weight of 
authority, there was such an entire reliance on their credi 
bility, that it was generally felt to be unwise and unsafe to 
blend any uncertain accounts with the history contained in 
them. Such accounts, therefore, were neglected and for 
gotten. The Gospels extinguished all feebler lights. 

In what precedes, we have examined the objections to the 
conclusion that Justin quoted the Gospels. We will now 
attend to the arguments in proof of this fact. 

I. In other cases, where we find such an agreement of 
thoughts and words as exists between the passages quoted 
by Justin and passages of the Gospels, particularly of Mat 
thew and Luke, no doubt is entertained that the volume thus 
furnishing a counterpart to certain citations was the work 
cited/* The presumption arising from this agreement is to 
be overborne only by the strongest objections, founded on 
some striking peculiarity in the case. Nothing, however, has 
been opposed to it but the conjecture, that there may have 
been some work extant in the time of Justin, as nearly allied 
in character to the first three Gospels as any one of these is 
to either of the others ; and that Justin quoted this work, and 
not the Gospels. 

But, in regard to any book which Justin may be conjectured 

* The coincidence is particularly striking in several citations from the 
01 1 Testament, common to St. Matthew and Justin, in which the latter writer 
appears to have followed, wholly or in part, the Greek Gospel of the former; 
though the passages, as they stand in that Gospel, agree neither with the 
Septuagint nor the Hebi-ew. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 133 

to have quoted, it must answer to the following conditions : 
It must have been one which he and other Christians believed, 
or professed to believe, " written by apostles and companions 
of apostles ; " it must have been of the highest authority 
among Christians, a sacred book, read in their churches ; 
it must have been the work to be appealed to as containing 
those facts, doctrines, and precepts on which they formed 
their lives ; and it must, immediately after he wrote, have 
fallen into entire neglect and oblivion ; for no mention of it, 
or allusion to it, as quoted by him, is discoverable in any 
writer who succeeded him. But it is impossible to believe 
all these propositions to be true of any book. 

The supposition of some one book, different from the Gos 
pels, has been resorted to by those who have maintained that 
Justin did not quote the Gospels ; though they have not 
agreed among themselves in their conjectures as to what this 
book might be. But this supposition is irreconcilable with 
the language of Justin, which implies that he quoted a num 
ber of books, as I shall remark more particularly hereafter. 
Should it, in consequence, be maintained that he used a num 
ber of books different from the Gospels, the objections just 
urged would apply with even greater force, if possible, to 
this supposition than to that of a single book. No plausible 
hypothesis, therefore, can be framed to detract from the evi 
dence afforded by the correspondence of Justin s quotations 
with the contents of the Gospels. 

These quotations principally correspond to passages in the 
Gospels of Matthew and Luke. But if Justin, and the Chris 
tians contemporary with him, received those Gospels as works 
of the highest authority, we may confidently infer that they 
received the other two Gospels as bearing the same character. 
Had they not done so, it is impossible that the Gospels of 
Mark and John should have been so regarded by their younger 
contemporaries, the Christians of the time of Irenseus. We 
have before attended to the consider ttions which show, that 



134 EVIDENCES OF THE 

such an event could not have occurred ; that if the authority 
of two, or of one, of the Gospels were established in the Chris 
tian community, this would present a decisive obstacle to the 
reception of any other, which had not always been regarded 
as having like authority.* 

In respect to the use made by Justin of the Gospels of 
Mark and John, it may be observed, that Mark records but 
few discourses of our Saviour, and has very little which is 
not common to him with Matthew or Luke, except some 
additional circumstances in the relation of particular facts, 
not of a character to be noticed in giving a general view of 
the history and doctrines of Christianity. His language, 
likewise, when different, being commonly inferior to that of 
Matthew and Luke, Justin would naturally prefer their ex 
pressions. But, as we have seen,t he has mentioned two 
facts recorded only by Mark, and that with an almost explicit 
reference to his particular Gospel. 

From John s Gospel, Justin derived his doctrine of the 
incarnation of the Logos in Christ, a doctrine which must 
have been founded on the first verses of that Gospel. The 
conception of the Logos, indeed, was familiar before the time 
when either Justin or St. John wrote ; but the doctrine of the 
incarnation of the Logos in Christ must have rested wholly 
on the passage referred to. Accordingly, Justin speaks in 
language similar to that of St. John, of " the Logos having 
been made flesh." $ He has likewise other conceptions and 
turns of expression apparently derived from John s Gospel. 
He represents John the Baptist as having said, " I am not 
the Christ." He justifies Christians for not keeping the 
Jewish sabbath, "because God has carried on the same ad 
ministration of the universe during that day as during all 



* See before, pp. 102-107. t See before, p. 118. 

J Apolog. Prim., p. 62. John i. 14. 

Dial, cum Tryph., p. 332. John i. 20 ; iii. 28. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 135 

others ; " * a thought so remarkable, that there can be little 
doubt, that he borrowed it from what was said by our Saviour, 
when the Jews were enraged at his having performed a 
miracle on the sabbath: "My Father has been working 
hitherto, as I am working." | And, in the last place, he 
Btates, that " Christ said, Unless ye be born again, ye can 
not enter the kingdom of heaven ; " adding, with allusion to 
the words of Nicodemus, that " it is evidently impossible for 
those once born to enter into their mother s womb." $ 

II. That Justin made use of the Gospels, appears from the 
fact that there is no intimation to the contrary in the whole 
numerous succession of subsequent Christian fathers. We 
have the evidence of Eusebius in the fourth century, and of 
Photius in the ninth, that his works were well known, and 
held in high esteem. They are referred to with respect by 
several of the principal fathers. But his quotations excited 
no attention, as presenting any unexpected appearance, or as 
a matter of any difficulty or curiosity. If he had quoted 
histories of Christ different from the Gospels, it is incredible 
that the fact should have escaped the knowledge of all ancient 
writers after his time ; or that, being known, it should not 
have been adverted to. 

in. The description given by Justin of the books which 
he used shows that those books were the Gospels. He 
appeals to several books. He speaks, not of one, but of 
several authors. " Those," he says, " who have written me 
moirs concerning every thing relating to our Saviour Jesus 
Christ, whom we believe ; " " Memoirs, which I affirm to 
be composed by the apostles of Christ, and their com 
panions ; " 4 * Memoirs composed by the apostles, which are 



* Dial, cum Tiyph., pp. 194, 195. t John v. 17. 

$ Apolog. Prim., p. 89. John iii. 3, 4. 



136 EVIDENCES OF THE 

called Gospels."* These passages, taken in connection, ap 
pear, without any other evidence, to be decisive of the point 
in question. It is hardly to be contended, that books extant 
in the time of Justin, which were called Gospels, and which 
were written, or were supposed to be written, by apostles of 
Christ and their companions, could be any other than our 
present Gospels.f 

IV. The manner in which Justin speaks of the character 
and authority of the books to which he appeals, of their 
reception among Christians, and of the use which was made 
of them, proves these books to have been the Gospels. They 
carried with them the authority of the apostles. They 
were those writings from which he and other Christians 
derived their knowledge of the history and doctrines of 
Christ. They were relied upon by him as primary and 
decisive evidence in his explanations of the character of 
Christianity. They were regarded as sacred books. They 
were read in the assemblies of Christians on the Lord s day, 



* See before, pp. 204, 207. 

t It deserves remark, that Justin, besides saying that the books he used 
were called Gospels, twice speaks of " the Gospel " in the singular, using the 
article. 

He represents Trypho as saying (p. 156), " I know also that your precepts 
in what is called the Gospel are so wonderful and weighty, as to cause a sus 
picion that no one may be able to observe them ; for I have taken the pains 
to read them." 

In the other passage referred to, he quotes (p. 352) Matt. xi. 27, as being 
" written in the Gospel." 

In both passages, the force of the article in Greek is the same as in Eng 
lish. By " the Gospel " must be meant some particular, well-known book. 
But it is not to be imagined, that, in the time of Justin, any history of Christ, 
not one oi the four Gospels, was thus pre-eminently distinguished above them 
by the title of " the Gospel," or that any one of the four Gospels was so dis 
tinguished from the other three. No conclusion remains, but that Justin used 
the term "the Gospel " in a sense familiar to the fathers who succeeded him, 
as denoting the four Gospels collectively, and consequently the volume iu 
which they were brought together. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 137 

in connection with the prophets of the Old Testament. Let 
us now consider the manner in which the Gospels were 
regarded by the contemporaries of Justin. Irenasus was in 
the vigor of life before Justin s death ; and the same was 
true of very many thousands of Christians living when 
Irenoeus wrote. But he tells us, that the four Gospels are 
the four pillars of the Church, the foundation of Christian 
faith, written by those who had first orally preached the 
Gospel, by two apostles and two companions of apostles.* 
It is incredible that Irenasus and Justin should have spoken 
of different books. We cannot suppose, that writings, such 
as the Memoirs of which Justin speaks, believed to be the 
works of apostles and companions of the apostles, read in 
Christian churches, and received as sacred books of the 
highest authority, should, immediately after he wrote, have 
fallen into neglect and oblivion, and been superseded by 
another set of books. The strong sentiment of their value 
could not so silently, and so unaccountably, have changed 
into entire disregard, and have been transferred to other 
writings. The copies of them spread over the world could 
not so suddenly and so mysteriously have disappeared, that 
no subsequent trace of their existence should be clearly dis 
coverable. When, therefore, we find Irenasus, the contem 
porary of Justin, ascribing to the four Gospels the same 
character, the same authority, and the same authors, as are 
ascribed by Justin to the Memoirs quoted by him, which 
were called Gospels, there can be no reasonable doubt that 
the Memoirs of Justin were the Gospels of Irenaeus. 

We shall next consider a portion of the evidence for the 
genuineness of the Gospels, to be gathered from a still earlier 
period. 

* See before, p. 72, seqq. 



CHAPTER III. 

EVIDENCE OF PAPIAS. ST. LUKE S OWN TESTIMONY TO 
THE GENUINENESS OF HIS GOSPEL. 

BETWEEN the death of St. John and the time when Justin 
wrote, an interval, probably, of about fifty years, there 
were very few Christian writers of whose works any remains 
are extant. It was a period of distress and confusion. Our 
religion, left upon the death of that apostle without any 
powerful and distinguished advocate, was struggling for 
establishment against the opposition and persecution of the 
world. A great revolution was taking place in the minds 
of those who had been acted upon by the preaching of the 
apostles. Their opinions, like their circumstances, were 
unsettled. The separation or the union, which was after 
wards effected, between ancient errors and the new doctrines 
of our faith, was as yet undecided. Our religion had not 
assumed among its professed followers a well-defined charac 
ter ; and its sublime truths were not so fully comprehended 
as when men had become more familiar with the conception 
of them. It had not yet secured possession of the minds 
and hearts of many converts well qualified by their literary 
eminence to explain and defend it. These causes will 
account for the few remains of writers from among the 
catholic Christians during this period ; and for the absence 
of any historical notice of the Gospels, which has come 
down to our times, except that of Papias. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 139 

Papias I have already had occasion to mention.* He lived, 
it may be recollected, during the first quarter of the second 
century ; and was acquainted, as he informs us, with many of 
the disciples of the apostles. He wrote a work, now lost, but 
of which some fragments are preserved by Eusebius. In this 
work, as quoted by Eusebius, Papias mentions the Gospels 
of Matthew and Mark. He says that he received much 
information from John the Presbyter ; and gives the follow 
ing account, as derived from him: 

* The Presbyter said, that Mark, being the interpreter of 
Peter, carefully wrote down all that he retained in memory 
of the actions or discourses of Christ ; not, however, in order, 
for he was not himself a hearer or follower of the Lord ; but 
afterwards was, as I said, a companion of Peter, who taught in 
the manner best suited to the instruction of his hearers, without 
making a connected narrative of his discourses concerning the 
Lord. Such being the case, Mark committed no errors in thus 
writing some things from memory ; for he made it his sole object 
not to omit any thing which he had heard, and not to state any 
thing falsely." f 

Of Matthew, Papias says, " Matthew wrote the oracles in 
the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he 
was able." t 

It appears from these passages, that the Gospels of Mat 
thew and Mark were well known before the time of Papias, 
that they were attributed to those writers, and, being regarded 
as authentic, were venerated as oracles. 

In the commencement of the Acts of the Apostles, we 
have Luke s own testimony to the genuineness of his Gospel. 
The historical proof that the first-mentioned work was writ 
ten by him is confirmed by other evidence, so satisfactory as 



* See before, pp. 36, 37. t Euseb. Hist. Eccles., lib. iii. c. 38 
J Euseb. Hist. Eccles., lib. iii. c. 39. 



140 EVIDENCES OF THE 

to leave no reasonable doubt on the subject.* We have, 
then, Luke s own testimony that he was the author of a 
history of Christ. But as no one will adopt so absurd 
a supposition as that the history which he wrote has been 
lost, and another substituted in its place, the work of which 
he speaks must be our present Gospel. 

But Luke s testimony not only establishes the genuine 
ness of his Gospel : it has a further bearing. There is a 
striking resemblance between his Gospel and those of Mat 
thew and Mark. There are, likewise, many striking points 
of resemblance between the character and situation of the 
former writer and the two latter. They had similar oppor 
tunities for information respecting all the common objects of 
knowledge ; the influences of our faith had produced in them 
similar feelings and conceptions ; they were all placed in 
circumstances the most extraordinary, and peculiar to a few 
individuals ; they all belonged to the small class of the first 
missionaries of our religion. One of them is supposed to 
have been an eye-witness of many of the facts, and a hearer 
of many of the discourses, which he records ; and the other 
two are believed to have derived their information from 
those who, like him, were companions of our Lord. When, 
therefore, we find that a work of a very remarkable charac 
ter was written by Luke, and that two other works distin 
guished by the same characteristics are ascribed to Matthew 
and Mark, there arises a strong presumption that they have 
been ascribed to their true authors. No objection can be 
brought against the genuineness of the two latter histories; 
stronger than those which may be adduced against the genu 
ineness of the former. In one case, we find that these 
objections are unfounded : we have therefore good reason to 
believe that they are equally unfounded in the other. 

* See before, pp. 89-91. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 141 

Here, likewise, we would recur to the considerations before 
presented,* which show that the proof of the genuineness 
of any one of the Gospels involves the proof of the genuine 
ness of all. The argument that has been brought forward, 
when reduced to its simplest form, is nothing more than an 
obvious truth, which may be thus stated: Supposing any 
body of men to possess an account of events esteemed by 
them of the greatest interest to themselves and to the world, 
to know that this account was the work of an author whom 
they hold in the highest respect, to believe him to have had 
the most satisfactory means of information, and to regard his 
work, therefore, as entitled to the fullest credit, and, still 
more, to a sacred character ; and supposing them, further, to 
be placed in circumstances, which alone, even without any 
careful scrutiny on their part, almost exclude the possibility 
of deception, these men will not receive, as likewise en 
titled to the fullest credit and to a sacred character, another 
account, a fraudulent work, falsely ascribed to some vener 
ated name, falsely pretending to an authority to which it has 
no claim, and, at the same time, in more or fewer respects, 
irreconcilable with that which has been received as the truth. 

The Gospel of Luke, then, came down from the apostolic 
age as his work, with his own attestation to its genuineness. 
This being so, the other three Gospels could not have ob 
tained reception as sacred books, in common with it, if they 
had not been the works of the authors to whom they were 
ascribed. 

Confining our view merely to the evidence presented in 
this chapter, we may regard the result of it under still 
another aspect. Luke testifies to the genuineness of his 
own Gospel ; Papias, to that of the Gospels of Matthew and 
Mark: it follows that the authority of all three was estab- 

* See before, pp. 102-107. 



142 GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 

lished in the time of Papias. Now, this was a period but 
just after the death of St. John, when thousands were living 
who had seen that last survivor of the apostles, many per 
haps who had made a pilgrimage to Ephesus to behold his 
countenance and listen to his voice, and hundreds who be 
longed to the church over which he had presided in person. 
It is incredible, therefore, that, before the time of Papias, a 
spurious gospel should have been received as his work ; and 
after the time of Papias, when the authority of the first three 
Gospels was established, the attempt to introduce a gospel 
falsely ascribed to St. John must have been, if possible, still 
more impracticable. 

Here, then, we finish the statement of the direct historical 
evidence for the genuineness of the Gospels, from their re 
ception by the great body of Christians.* We will hereafter 
consider what may be inferred from the use made of them by 
the earlier heretical sects. 



* It has been customary, in treating the- subject before us, to allege the 
supposed testimony of certain writings ascribed to contemporaries of the apos 
tles, and called Writings of Apostolical Fathers. But nothing has, in my 
opinion, contributed more to give a false and unfavorable impression of the 
real nature and strength of the evidence for the genuineness of the Gospels. 
On this subject, see Note C, pp. 545-569. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE DIRECT HISTORICAL EVI 
DENCE OF THE GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 

SUCH, as we have seen, is the direct historical evidence of 
the genuineness of the Gospels. The confirmation it receives 
from the manner in which they were regarded by the earlier 
heretical sects is still to be considered ; and likewise all that 
proof to be derived from the Gospels themselves, which 
makes it evident, that they could have been written only by 
individuals bearing the character, and placed in the circum 
stances, of those to whom they are ascribed. For the present, 
we confine our attention to the direct historical evidence 
alone. 

In regard to this, the nature of the case is such, that no 
evidence of the same character, or of the same weight, can 
be produced for the genuineness of any other ancient work, 
which was not, like them, received as an undisputed book of 
the Christian Scriptures. It is the testimony of a great, 
widely spread, and intelligent community to a fact about 
which they had full means of information, and in which they 
had the deepest interest. It is their testimony to the genu 
ineness of books, the reception of which as authentic would 
change the whole complexion of their lives ; and might, not 
improbably, put at hazard life itself, or all that they had 
before considered as rendering life desirable. It is the testi- 



144 EVIDENCES OP THE 

mony of Gentiles to their belief of the genuineness and truth 
of books derived from Jews, books regarded with strong 
dislike by a great majority of that nation ; three of which 
were not in common use among those few Jews who, like 
them, were disciples of Christ; and all of which were so 
stamped throughout with a Jewish character, as to be likely, 
at first view, strongly to offend their prejudices and tastes. 

But the peculiar nature and value of this testimony may 
be laid out of consideration. The fact alone, that the four 
Gospels were all received as genuine books, entitled to the 
highest credit, by the whole community of catholic Christians 
dispersed throughout the world, admits of no explanation, 
except that they had always been so regarded. We have 
begun by reasoning from their reception during the last 
quarter of the second century; and their reception at that 
time affords, as we have seen, decisive proof of the estimation 
in which they must have been held during the whole pre 
ceding interval from their first appearance. But, though we 
may entitle this proof decisive, yet, like all other probable 
reasoning, it admits of confirmation ; and we have seen the 
confirmation afforded by the evidence of Justin Martyr, who 
gives direct proof, that the authority of the Gospels was 
established among Christians before the middle of the second 
century. I say, before the middle of the second century ; 
for, though this was the precise time when he wrote his first 
Apology, yet his testimony must be considered as relating to 
a state of things with which he had been previously con 
versant. We have next remarked the express and particular 
testimony of Papias to the genuineness of two of the Gospels, 
and to the estimation in which they were held by Christians. 
Then, tracing the stream of evidence back to its very source, 
we have seen Luke s own attestation to the genuineness of 
his Gospel. And in connection with this, and with the 
testimony of Papias, we have attended to the fact, that the 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 145 

acknowledged genuineness of any one of the Gospels must 
have presented an insuperable barrier to the reception of any 
spurious gospel as a work of like authority. The testimony 
to the genuineness of any one of the Gospels is virtually a 
testimony to the genuineness of all ; and the testimony to 
their genuineness is a testimony to their reception by all 
catholic Christians wherever they had become known. 

But, in regard to our present argument, it is unimportant 
what period an objector may fix upon for the general recep 
tion of the Gospels as genuine. The later the period as 
signed for this event, the more obviously incredible does it 
become that it should have taken place, on the supposition 
that the Gospels were not received from the beginning in the 
character which they afterwards bore. The longer the Chris 
tian community had existed without a knowledge of the 
Gospels, or without a belief in their genuineness, the more 
difficult must it have been to produce this belief, and to 
cause them to be recognized as books of the highest value 
and authority. Let us suppose that they were not so 
regarded till the last quarter of the second century. Their 
general recognition at that period becomes a most remarka 
ble phenomenon. Some very effective cause or causes must 
be assigned for it, sufficient to explain how four spurious 
books, not before known, or known only to be rejected, 
should suddenly have obtained universal acceptance through 
out the Christian world, as containing the truths fundamental 
to a Christian s belief. No trace of any causes capable of 
producing this result can be discovered or imagined. In the 
nature of things, it is impossible that such causes should 
have existed. The Christians of that age professed to re 
ceive the Gospels as genuine and authentic, on the ground 
that they had always been so regarded. The truth of this 
fact is the only explanation which can be given of the uni 
versal respect in which they were then held. 

10 



146 EVIDENCES OF THE 

It appears, therefore, that the evidence of the genuineness 
of the Gospels is of a very different character from what we 
are able to produce for the genuineness of any ancient classi 
cal work. Very few readers, I presume, could at once recol 
lect and state the grounds on which we believe the Epistles 
to Atticus to have been written by Cicero, or the History of 
the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. But should any 
writer undertake to impugn the genuineness of these, or of 
many other ancient works that might be named, in the man 
ner in which attempts have been made to weaken the histori 
cal argument for the genuineness of the Gospels, he would 
hardly succeed even in gaining a discreditable notoriety. 

But there are objections derived from the Gospels them 
selves, which are relied upon as doing away the whole force 
of the historical argument. It is urged, that the contents of 
one Gospel are irreconcilable with those of another, and 
therefore that the Gospels could not be the works of well- 
informed narrators. By the opponents of Christianity, the 
errors of theologians are commonly confounded with the truths 
of our religion ; and, so far as the objection just mentioned 
rests on any tenable grounds, it bears, not against the authen 
ticity and genuineness of the Gospels, but against the doctrine 
that they were written by miraculous inspiration. It would 
be an extraordinary fact, if these books presented on their 
face decisive objections to their own credibility, which had 
been overlooked for eighteen centuries by intelligent Chris 
tians engaged in their study. To any one, indeed, who is 
capable of a just apprehension of the proof of the genuineness 
of the Gospels, afforded by their intrinsic character, nothing 
can appear more idle than such an attempt to prove, from 
their contents, that they could not have been written by the 
authors to whom they are ascribed. 

But there is another objection drawn from the essential 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 147 

character of the Gospels, which is, in fact, the root, and 
furnishes the sap and strength, of all others which have been 
urged against them. They contain the history of a miracu 
lous dispensation ; and a miracle, it is asserted, is impossible. 

This objection, if it can be maintained, is final, not merely 
in regard to the truth of the Gospels, and the truth of Chris 
tianity, but in regard to the truth of all religion. 

The assertion, that a miracle is impossible, and, conse 
quently, that such a miraculous intervention of the Deity as 
Christianity supposes is impossible, must rest for support 
solely on the doctrine, that there is no God, but that the 
universe has been formed and is controlled by physical pow 
ers essential to its elementary principles, which, always 
remaining the same, must always produce their effects uni 
formly, according to their necessary laws of action. This 
being so, a miracle, which would be a change in these neces 
sary laws, is of course impossible. 

But when we refer the powers operating throughout the 
universe to one Being, as the source of all power, and ascribe 
to this Being intelligence, design, and benevolence, that is, 
when we recognize the truth that there is a God, it becomes 
the extravagance of presumptuous folly to pretend, that we 
may be assured, that this Being can or will act in no other 
way than according to what we call the laws of nature ; that 
he has no ability, or can have no purpose, to manifest him 
self to his creatures by any display of his power and goodness 
which they have not before witnessed, or do not ordinarily 
witness. 

The assertion, therefore, that a miracle is impossible, can 
be maintained by no coherent reasoning, which does not 
assume, for its basis, that all religion is false ; that its fun 
damental doctrine, that there is a God, is untrue. The con 
troversy respecting it is not between Christianity and atheism : 
it is between religion, in any form in which it may appear, 
and atheism. 



148 EVIDENCES OF THE 

One may, indeed, give the name of God to the physical 
powers operating throughout the universe, considered col 
lectively, or to some abstraction, as the moral law of the 
universe, for example, or to some conception still more un 
substantial and unintelligible, and thus contend that he does 
not deny the existence of God. But there is only one view 
which an honest man can take of the deception which in this 
and other similar cases has been attempted through a gross 
abuse of words, by which their true meaning is razed out, and 
a false meaning forced upon them. In contending with irre- 
ligion, we have a right to demand that we shall not be mocked 
with the language of religion. 

But the fact has been overlooked, that, supposing the propo 
sition to be admitted, that a miraculous intervention of the 
Deity is impossible, it would have no bearing on our imme 
diate subject. No inference could be drawn from it to show, 
that the Gospels were not written by those to whom they are 
ascribed. 

The first disciples of our Lord, the first preachers of his 
religion, whether their account was true or false, taught that 
he was a messenger from God, whose authority was continu 
ally attested by displays of divine power, superseding the 
common laws of nature. They represented Christianity only 
under the character of a dispensation wholly miraculous. It 
has come down to us bearing this character from the first 
accounts we have of its annunciation, from the time when 
St. Paul wrote those Epistles, the genuineness of which can 
not be questioned. The fact that Christianity is a miraculous 
dispensation was the basis of his whole teaching, and equally 
of the teaching of the other apostles. It cannot be pretended, 
that any indication is to be found of its having been presented 
to men under another character. The effects which followed 
its preaching- are such as could have resulted only from such 
a conception of it. The hypothesis, therefore, for such an 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 149 

hypothesis has actually been put forward,* that this was 
not the original character of Christianity ; that its first preach 
ers did not announce it as a miraculous dispensation, but that 
some time during the lives of the apostles, or immediately 
after, it assumed this character, can be regarded only as 
one of the most extraordinary of those exhibitions of- human 
folly which have lately been given to the world as specula 
tions concerning our religion. There is no doubt, that the 
apostles and their companions represented Christ as a mes 
senger from God, whose divine authority was attested through 
out his ministry by miracles. It can therefore be no objection 
to the genuineness of the Gospels, that such is the representa 
tion to be found in them. Whether true or false, it is the only 
representation that was to be expected in histories of Jesus 
given by apostles and their companions. 

The Gospels, then, contain that view of Christianity which 
was presented by its first preachers. We have in these books 
that solemn attestation which was borne by them, and was 
confirmed by circumstances that exclude all doubt of its truth, 
to facts in the ministry and character of Christ which evince 
his divine mission. 

In regard to men s belief in Christianity, and their appre 
hension of its character, the present is an age of transition. 
We are leaving behind us the errors and superstitions of 
former days, with all their deplorable consequences, the 
domination of a priesthood, tyranny over reason, persecution, 
false conceptions of morality by which its sanctions were 
often wholly perverted, and that disgust toward Christianity 
which the deformed image bearing its name, and set up for 
idol- worship, was so fitted to produce. But through a revul 
sion of feeling, occasioned by this state of things, many of the 

* By Strauss, in his Leben Jesu (Life of Jesus 



150 EVIDENCES OF THE 

clergy, particularly in England, one is reluctant to say 
many priests, though this is a title which they readily assume, 
have turned about, and are travelling back into the dark 
region of implicit faith, Jesuitical morality, and religious for 
malities, absurdities, and crimes. On the other hand, there is 
a multitude of speculatists, who, in the abandonment of re 
ligious error, have abandoned religion itself, and whose only 
substitute for it, if they have any, is an unsubstantial spectre 
which they have decorated with its titles. Meanwhile, very 
many enlightened men, who have been repelled from the 
study of Christianity by the imbecility or folly of those who 
have assumed to be its privileged expositors and defenders, 
regard it, at best, only with a certain degree of respect, as 
being, perhaps, a noble system, if properly understood, and 
one the belief of which, even under the forms that it has 
been made to assume, is, at all events, useful to the commu 
nity. Magnified quidem res et salutaris, si modo est ulla. 

In order that we may pass from this state of things to a 
better, it is necessary that the intellect of men should be 
awakened, and brought to exercise itself on the most impor 
tant subject that can be presented to its examination. The 
result would be a rational and firm faith in Christianity, with 
all the consequences that must flow from such a faith. The 
convictions which rest on reason are of very different efficacy 
from the impressions produced through prejudice, imagina 
tion, or passion. The latter may lead to great evil : the former 
can produce only good. There is a sense of reality attending 
the convictions of reason, which makes it impossible that they 
should not penetrate into the character. Let any one, in the 
best exercise of his understanding, be persuaded that the his 
tory of Jesus Christ is true ; that the miracle of his mission 
from God, which belongs to the order of events lying beyond 
the sphere of this world, and concerning the whole of man s 
existence, is as real as those facts which take place in this 
world, conformably to the narrow circle of its laws with which 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 



151 



we are familiar, and he has become intellectually, and can 
hardly fail to become morally, a new being. In recognizing 
that fact, he recognizes his relation to God, or rather, if I 
may so speak, God s relation to him. Life assumes another 
character. It is not a short period of existence in which we 
are to confine our views and desires to what may be attained 
within its limits. It is a state of preparation for a life to 
come, which will continue into an infinity where the eye of 
the mind is wholly incapable of following its course. Viewed 
in the broad light which thus pours in upon us, their false 
coloring disappears from the objects of passion ; and we per 
ceive that there is nothing permanently good, but what 
tends to the moral and intellectual progress of the soul, and 
nothing to be dreaded as essentially evil, but what tends 
to impede it 



PART III. 



ON THE EVIDENCE FOR THE GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS 
AFFORDED BY THE EARLY HERETICS. 



PAKT in. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY REMARKS. THE EBIONITES. THEIR USE 

OP THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW ONLY. INFERENCES FROM 

THEIR NOT USING THE OTHER THREE GOSPELS. 

WE now come to a subject, concerning which important errors 
have been committed, and which requires a more thorough 
examination than it has hitherto received. It is the manner 
in which the Gospels were regarded by the heretics of the 
first two centuries, particularly by the Gnostics. 

Beside the great body of Christians, the Catholic Chris 
tians, as they may be denominated, conformably to the ancient 
use of the term, who were united, notwithstanding many 
diversities of opinion, in the general reception of a common 
system of faith, there were, at an early period, various sects 
called Heresies. The generality of the Heretics of the first 
two centuries may be divided into two principal classes, the 
Ebionites and the Gnostics ; and these two classes alone are 
of importance as furnishing evidence in regard to the genuine- 
oess of the Gospels. 

Ol the EBIONITES, the heretical Jewish Christians, I shall 
state in sect. ii. of Note A,* nearly all that may be said con- 

* pp. 425-430. 



156 EVIDENCES OF THE 

cerning them in relation to the present subject. They were 
a sect that attracted but little notice from the earlier fathers ; 
whose accounts of them, however, are explicit and consistent. 
The discussions concerning them, in modern times, have been 
founded principally on the confused, contradictory, and obvi 
ously very inaccurate statements of Epiphanius, in the latter 
part of the fourth century. But all the ancient accounts of 
them agree, in affirming, that they used the Gospel of 
Matthew in its original language, with a text more or less 
pure. This would not have been said of them, had they 
not said it of themselves. They comprehended, as appears, 
the generality of Jewish Christians, and were the successors 
and representatives of those early converts in Judea, who 
were all " zealous for the law," and regarded with dislike 
or distrust the preaching of St. Paul.* There seems to have 
been but little intermixture among them of those Jews, the 
Hellenists, to whom, as living in foreign countries, the Greek 
language was often more familiar than that of their own 
nation. Thus, using the Gospel of Matthew, which was 
written in their native language, and, as there seems no 
doubt, with particular reference to Jewish Christians, they 
neglected the other Gospels. Their testimony, in receiving 
the Gospel of Matthew as his work, is blended with that of 
the common mass of Christians. Nor is it important to urge 
it any further ; but it may be worth while, here as elsewhere, 
to keep in mind those considerations, formerly presented,! 
which show that the direct proof of the genuineness of any 
one of the Gospels is an indirect proof of the genuineness 
of all. 

But there is another aspect in which this subject is tc be 
viewed. The fact, that the Jewish Christians generally did 
not usa the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John, is to be con- 

* Acts xxi. 20, 21. f pp. 102-107, 141. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 157 

sidered in connection with the fact of the reception of those 
Gospels by the whole body of Gentile Christians. We have 
already taken notice of some of the inferences resulting from 
this consideration.* But the subject well deserves further 
consideration. 

Christianity had its origin among the Jews. From theix 
it was communicated to the Gentiles, between whom and tho 
Jews there had been previously a wide separation. This 
separation continued between the Jewish Christians gene 
rally and the Gentile Christians. With the exception of 
the Gospel of Matthew, the former did not use the Gospels 
received by the latter. It was not, therefore, from the main 
body of Jewish converts that the Gentile Christians received 
the books, or, to say the least, three of the books, which 
obtained universal reception among them, as genuine and 
authentic histories of Jesus. But these books did not have 
their origin among the Gentile Christians. They are evi 
dently the works of Jewish writers. 

From whom, then, and when, did the Gentile Christians 
receive them ? There were preachers of the Gospel to the 
Gentiles, like St. Paul and his associates ; like Barnabas, 
the early friend of St. Paul ; like Peter, who defended their 
cause before the assembled Church at Jerusalem; like the com 
panion of his travels, the evangelist Mark ; and like John, who 
spent the latter part of his life among them, men enlight 
ened by the spirit of God, who, in the first age of Christianity, 
communicated its great truths to the Gentiles, and called upon 
them to embrace it, teaching them that God had made no 
difference between them and the Jews as to a participation of 
its blessings. These early missionaries sent by God broke 
through the inveterate prejudices of their nation ; they made 
an opening in the "partition-wall" which separated Gentiles 
from Jews ; and from them, together with the religion itself, 

* See p. 107, seqq. ; p. 50, seqq. 



158 EVIDENCES OF THE 

must the Gospel have been received by the Gentile Chris 
tians. 

The prejudices which had been broken through by the 
apostles and their associates quickly closed round the remain 
ing body of Jewish Christians, who were very soon regarded 
as an heretical sect, under the name of Ebionites. After the 
apostolic age, there were no missionaries from their numbei 
for the conversion of the Gentile world. 

St. John is supposed to have been the last survivor of that 
noble company of the first preachers of Christ to the heathen 
world, through whom we who are not Jews by descent have 
received the blessings of our religion. Before his death, the 
Jewish nation had been trampled to the earth. But the Gos 
pels are unquestionably the work of Jewish authors. This 
being the state of the case, it is a supposition utterly in 
credible, that, after the destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70), 
three writers should have risen up among the Jews, not apos 
tles nor associates of apostles, but free from the narrow spirit 
of their nation, and zealous for the conversion of the Gen 
tiles, who, to effect this object, composed three spurious Gos 
pels under the names of Mark, Luke, and John. But the 
improbability does not stop here ; for it must further be sup 
posed, that these three anonymous Jews put forward their 
Gospels, not only some time after the death of St. John, as 
well as of the other two pretended authors, but some time 
after the death of those who had known them familiarly ; and, 
still more, that those Jews, though they could not procure 
reception or countenance for their works among their own 
countrymen, succeeded effectually in deluding the whole body 
of Gentile Christians throughout the world, though it .must 
have been at a pretty late period that they undertook to 
accomplish this object. 

Such, however, are the suppositions that must be resorted to, 
if it be denied that the Gospels were written by the authors 
to whom they are ascribed, and passed with the religion itself to 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 159 

the first converts from heathenism, sanctioned and certified 
by its earliest missionaries. The undisputed facts relating to 
the history of the Gospels, especially the fact that three of 
them were not used by the main body of Jewish Christians, 
make it evident that those books were received by the Gen 
tile world through the channel of the first preachers of 
Christianity ; that they were received from apostles and thei. 
associates. 



CHAPTER 11. 

GENERAL ACCOUNT OP THE GNOSTICS. STATE OF OPINION 
AMONG THE GREAT BODY OF CHRISTIANS DURING THE 
SECOND CENTURY. 

WE here take leave of the Ebionites, and enter on a much 
more extensive and difficult subject. Our attention will now 
be confined to the GNOSTICS. 

The Greek word rendered Gnostic denoted, in its primary 
meaning, an enlightened man ; and is commonly used by 
Clement of Alexandria to signify an enlightened Christian, a 
Christian philosopher.* In this sense, it was assumed as a 
designation by those heretics to whom the name is now re 
stricted. The heretical Gnostics were divided into many 
particular sects ; but there were striking characteristics com 
mon to them all, by which they were distinguished from the 
great body of Christians. Their religion was eclectic. While 
some of their contemporaries among the Heathens, of a similar 
cast of mind to their own, the later Platonists, were form 
ing systems in opposition to, and in rivalship of, Christianity, 
they, on the contrary, incorporated into their theology the his 
torical facts and some of the essential doctrines of our faith. 

* This meaning survived the application of the word to the Gnostic here 
tics. In the Lexicon ascribed to Zonaras, who lived in the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries, TvuartKuf (a "Gnostic") is defined to be "one perfectly 
conformed to the truth." 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 161 

In the systems thus composed by the Gnostics, foreign as they 
were from pure Christianity, the ministry of Christ held a 
very important place. -It was the key-stone of their hypotheses. 

Some of the leaders of the Gnostic sects appear to have 
been generally regarded in their day as men of more than 
common learning and ability ; and their systems were so 
accordant with conceptions and habits of thinking which then 
prevailed, as to obtain a considerable degree of reputation 
and credence. Of the doctrines maintained by them, it is 
necessary to our purpose to give some general account, which, 
in order that it may be at all satisfactory, or afford ground 
for a correct estimate of the character of those doctrines, will 
lead us to look beyond the Gnostics considered in themselves, 
and to view them in their relations to the state of things in 
which they existed. 

By the generality of Christians, they were regarded as 
adversaries, not as fellow-disciples ; and they, in return, 
looked upon the many as unenlightened followers of Christ, 
who did not .comprehend the essential character of his mission, 
were ignorant of the true God, whom he came to reveal, and 
mistook for that God, who had been before unknown, the 
inferior being who was the god of the Jews. With the ex 
ception of the Marcionites, they appear generally to have 
considered themselves as distinguished from all others, in 
their original conformation, by the peculiar possession of a 
spiritual principle, implanted in their nature, which was 
a constant source of divine illumination. Thus, in examining 
into the genuineness of the Gospels, the early Gnostics pre 
sent themselves as an independent set of witnesses, widely 
separated, in their opinions and feelings, from the catholic 
Christians. Their doctrines were, at the same time, of such 
a character, as to seem, at first view, to admit of no recon 
ciliation with the contents of the Gospels. " It was impos 
sible," says Gibbon, " that the Gnostics could receive our 
present Gospels, many parts of which (particularly in the 

11 



162 EVIDENCES OF THE 

resurrection of Christ) are directly, and, as it might seem, 
designedly, pointed against their favorite tenets."* If, not 
withstanding this supposed impossibility, we should find that 
the Gnostics actually bear testimony to the genuineness of 
the Gospels, their evidence must clearly have a distinct and 
peculiar value. 

It is true, that other sects, whose doctrines may appear to 
an intelligent Christian as irreconcilable with the contents of 
the Gospels as those of the Gnostics, have been zealous in 
asserting the claim of those books to the highest deference. 
But this has been done under very different circumstances. 
The systems of those sects have been slowly formed, during 
ages of ignorance and false reasoning ; the true sense of the 
language of the Gospels has been gradually obliterated, and 
false meanings, derived from a barbarous theology, have been 
substituted in its place; the considerations necessary to be 
attended to, in order to understand the words of Jesus, have 
been disregarded ; and thus, the key to their true explanation 
being lost or thrown away, modes of interpretation have been 
introduced, at once so irrational and so unsettled, that, by 
their application, the Scriptures may be made to speak any 
doctrine. Those systems, having no aid from reason, but 
being assailed by it on every side, have been obliged to rely, 
for their sole support, on the supposititious meanings assigned 
to the Scriptures ; and thus, in the very act of falsifying the 
testimony of the books appealed to, it has become essential 
to maintain their credit. At the same time, the prevailing 
Delief in the genuineness of the Gospels, not being the result 
of any investigation of the subject, had assumed the charac 
ter of an inveterate and unassailable prejudice. But the case 
of the Gnostics was widely different. Their systems were in 
narmony with many of the philosophical speculations of their 

* Decline and Fall o* he Roman Empire, chap. xv. note 35 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 163 

age, and relied for support upon doctrines already received, 
rather than upon the misinterpretation of the Scriptures. If 
they admitted the Gospels as genuine, they did not feel obliged, 
in consequence, to admit their authority as final : they ap 
pealed to other sources of religious knowledge, to their own 
reasonings, to oral tradition, by which they pretended that 
the higher and esoteric doctrines of Jesus had been trans 
mitted to them, and to the divine light within, the privilege 
of their spiritual nature. 

But it is particularly to be observed, that the earlier 
Gnostics lived at a time, when, if the Gospels be not genuine, 
the question respecting their credit and value must have been 
entirely open and unsettled ; that, upon the supposition of 
their not being genuine, they were works of the contempo 
raries of those Gnostics, or of individuals of the age imme 
diately preceding; and that their late origin, therefore, 
must have been so notorious, that no process of reasoning 
could have been required to make it evident that they were 
not genuine. But, in rejecting their authority on such indis 
putable ground, the Gnostics, instead of carrying on a doubt 
ful and disadvantageous contest, would have gained a decisive 
triumph over their opponents, by simply pointing out the 
fact, that the catholic system of faith, so far as it contradicted 
their own, was founded on writings pretending to an authority 
which they did not possess. 

It follows from what has been said, that the nature and 
value of the evidence which the Gnostics afford for the 
genuineness of the Gospels cannot be understood and cor 
rectly estimated without some acquaintance with their history 
and doctrines. The subject is worthy of investigation ; and 
I enter the more readily upon the explanation of it, such 
explanation as it may be in my power to give, because it 
is not only necessary to my present purpose, but may also 
open to us new views of the history of opinions, and of the 



164 EVIDENCES OF THE 

early history and of the evidences of our religion. It may 
be well, before proceeding farther, to advert to some of these 
bearings of the inquiry. 

The study of the history and doctrines of the Gnostics, 
connected as those doctrines were with the morals and 
philosophy of the age, and giving birth to controversies in 
which much of the character of the age is exhibited, may 
enlarge our views of the condition of the world when Chris 
tianity was revealed ; and every accession to our knowledge 
concerning the intellectual and moral state of men in those 
times is adapted to strengthen our conviction of the divine 
origin of our religion. 

In order to have a full conception of the evidences and 
value of Christianity, we must be informed of the state of the 
human character that existed at the time of its introduction, 
and with which it had to struggle. As our prospect widens 
and becomes more distinct, we may be reminded of the 
ancient doctrine of the East, that this world is the battle 
field of the good and evil spirits who divide the universe. 
The power of our religion will be perceived in the strength 
of the obstacles over which it triumphed. Its great truths, 
in their own nature intelligible as they are sublime, were 
then " dark with excessive bright." Men s minds were over 
whelmed by their grandeur and novelty, and could not open 
to their full comprehension. In their colossal simplicity, they 
stood opposed to the baseless and visionary speculations 
which then passed for philosophy. The very plainness of 
their evidence, appealing only to the authority of God, as 
made evident by miraculous displays of his power, was in 
striking contrast with the reasoning of the age, resting on 
dreams, dealing in slippery words, and full of shallow subtil- 
ties. The morality of the Gospel, having for its object to 
free the individual from whatever may injure himself or 
others, and to teach him that his highest good consists in 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 1G5 

acting for the common good of all, presented itself in strange 
contrast with the unabashed selfishness, the loathsome sensu 
ality, the rapacity, violence, and cruelty, which overspread 
society. This morality was, at the same time, very different 
from that magnificent but impracticable scheme which, though 
fully developed only by the Stoics, was presented in its chief 
lineaments by all the higher philosophy of the age, the pro 
fessed purpose of which was to aggrandize, and, as it were, 
deify its disciple, by raising him above all passion and suffer 
ing ; to teach him, as tl\e sum of duty, to bear and to forbear ; 
and to place him in a state of stern, insulated quiet, unmoved 
by all around him. The first word which our religion ad 
dressed to men was " Reform." It came to re-create their 
characters, to change them in their own view from earthly to 
immortal beings, to call forth new affections, to supply new 
principles and aims, and to teach "the new doctrine of 
piety;"* making men feel what they had not before con 
ceived of, their relations to God. By revealing him, it 
came to annihilate the superstitions of the heathen world, 
blended as they were with all its history, philosophy, elo 
quence, and poetry ; forming an essential part of the machi 
nery of government, entering into the daily habits of common 
life, and the source of those frequent festivals, games, and 
shows, which, barbarous and licentious as they often were, 
afforded to the many their most exciting pleasures. A 
principle was at work which had to contend with all that 
existed on earth, except what might remain uncorrupted in 
the moral nature of man. 

The strength of the errors that were to be overcome may 
be partially estimated by their continued operation to the 
present day, appearing in false doctrines, which were gradu 
ally introduced, and are now incorporated with the professed 
faith of most Christians ; in modern systems of what is 

* 1 Tim. iii. 16. 



166 EVIDENCES OP THE 

called philosophy, allied in thought and language to the mys 
ticism of the later Platonists, and the pantheism of other 
ancient theologists ; and in the influences of pagan history 
and literature upon our taste and morals, in changing and 
debasing that standard of human excellence which Christian 
ity would lead us to form. 

Such being the state of the ancient world, the conceptions 
of our religion entertained by its early converts were not 
only imperfect, but were modified and discolored by the 
universal prevalence of error. These converts might change 
their hearts and lives, but they could not renovate their 
minds. They could not divest themselves of the whole 
character of their age, so as fully to comprehend the great 
truths they had been taught, in their proper bearing upon 
the conceptions and doctrines prevailing around them. They 
could not break up all their previous associations of thought 
and feeling, originate new and rational systems of the highest 
philosophy, and pursue only those correct modes of reason 
ing, which, even at the present day, are but partially under 
stood, and imperfectly applied to all subjects connected with 
our moral and intellectual nature. They could not at once 
do for themselves what many centuries have been slowly 
effecting for the wisest of modern times. 

The causes which operated in common upon Christian 
converts, to alloy the doctrines of our faith with the errors of 
the age, produced their most remarkable effects among the 
Gnostics. More visionary and more self-confident than 
Che catholic Christians, they relied more on their philosophy, 
and less on the written records of our religion. Many of 
them, also, were among the mystics of those times, and 
trusted for guidance to their divine inward light. Hence, 
the Gnostics proceeded to extravagances, from which the 
catholic Christians kept aloof; but, in comparing together 
the distinctive opinions of the two parties, we shall find that 
their conceptions often approximated each other, and that, 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 167 

with essential differences of doctrine, there were also re 
markable analogies and coincidences. 

Thus, though the Gnostic doctrines were in stronger con 
trast with the truths of Christianity than the errors and 
misconceptions of the catholic Christians, yet, as they had 
ultimately the same origin or occasion, as they are to be 
traced alike to the false notions which had prevailed in the 
world, either among heathens or Jews, their history may 
serve to bring out to view more distinctly the direct and 
indirect operation of some of those causes of error which 
enthralled the minds of the early catholic Christians ; to 
make us apprehend more clearly, that there might be, and 
were, many conceptions of the wisest among them which are 
not to be confounded with the doctrines of Christ ; and to 
enable us to discern the real derivation of opinions that 
we might otherwise ascribe, as they have been ascribed, to 
traditionary explanations or to mere misconceptions of 
our faith. It is in a great measure by such investigations 
that Christianity may be relieved from that apparent respon 
sibility for what, in fact, are but the errors of its disciples, 
which, at the present day, is a principal obstacle to its re 
ception. 

It is true, that in the fundamental opinions of the early 
catholic Christians, as they appear in the writings of the 
most eminent of their number during the first three centu 
ries, there was nothing that essentially changed the character 
of our religion, or was adapted greatly to pervert its moral 
influence. But when we compare their writings with the 
New Testament, and remark the operation of tlie world 
around them on their sentiments and belief, we are, if I 
mistake not, irresistibly led to the conclusion, that the re 
ligion of Christ, the religion taught in the Gospels, did not 
come into being at any period subsequent to his time. 
Those who became its disciples after his death did not origi 
nate what they but imperfectly and erroneously apprehended. 



168 EVIDENCES OF THE 

They were not the authors of doctrines or of books, of which 
they were, in many respects, but poor expositors. 

Nor, it may be added, did Christianity have its origin in 
any wisdom of a preceding age. Distinguishable, as it is, 
from the opinions of its earlier converts respecting it, it 
stands far more widely separated from all that preceded 
it, either in the Jewish or Gentile world. There is nothing 
human to which its origin can be traced. When we under 
stand the Gospels, and enter into their spirit; when we 
consider their teachings respecting God, his inseparable re 
lations to all his creatures, and his universal providence and 
love ; their disclosures concerning man s immortality and the 
purposes of life, our duties and our prospects ; their narra 
tive, as consistent as it is wonderful, and their unparalleled 
portraiture of moral greatness in the character of Jesus ; and 
when we observe that these histories are inartificial and 
imperfect, written in a rude style, clearly that of unedu 
cated persons, so that their intrinsic character, even -in this 
respect alone, precludes, as an incredible anomaly, the idea 
that they were the result of literary skill, the study of phi 
losophy, or any art of man, it becomes evident that their 
existence cannot be explained by any thing known or felt on 
earth before the events which they record. It is a phenome 
non marked by its dissimilitude from all around it, the 
unlikeness between the things of time and eternity, and, if I 
may so speak, between man and God. 

As has been said, the religion of Christ is one thing, and 
the religion of the early Christians was another. But this 
renders it the more necessary, in order to estimate correctly 
the character of the early fathers, the early writers of emi 
nence among the catholic Christians, that we should not 
forget the strong disturbing forces which acted upon their 
minds to draw them from the sphere of Christian truth. 
They labored under great disadvantages, from the universa 1 






GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 109 

ignorance of the Gentile world Respecting many of the new 
subjects presented to their inquiry. On the one hand, they 
were biased by the inveterate errors of their age; and on 
the other, so far as those errors were connected with licen 
tiousness of life, they were repelled by them to the opposite 
extreme of asceticism in speculation and practice, an ex 
treme to which, also, they were led by their hard circum 
stances, as members of a suffering and persecuted sect. To 
judge them fairly, we must be acquainted with the principles, 
conceptions, and modes of reasoning, which characterized the 
philosophy of their times, and had modified all existing 
forms of thought, having been transmitted from the ancient 
philosophers, particularly Plato, with the whole weight of 
their authority. We must know what advances the human 
intellect had made, comprehend the influences under which 
their minds had been formed, and compare them, not with 
the most enlightened men of modern times, who have en 
joyed advantages for the culture of the understanding which 
they never dreamed of, but with their predecessors and con 
temporaries. We must view them, like all other eminent 
men of ancient days, as figures in the age to which they 
belong, and not bring them prominently forward, surrounded 
only by modern associations. If ignorant of the philosophy 
of their age, we have no standard by which to judge of their 
intellectual powers. Nay, we shall often misunderstand their 
meaning, and may direct our contempt or ridicule, not against 
what they have said, but against our own misconception 
of what they have said. Now, the doctrines of the Gnostics 
will show us what extravagances might be advanced by those 
who were reputed able and learned men in the times of 
which we speak ; and such is the connection or identity of 
many opinions of the Gnostics with opinions that had before 
been held, or were appearing simultaneously in the writings 
of their contemporaries, that we cannot study their systems 
without being led to look beyond them to the philosophy 



170 EVIDENCES OF THE 

of the age ; and, in doing so, we shall find that the Christian 
fathers suffer as little by a comparison with the heathen phi 
losophers, as with the Gnostic heretics. Such are some of 
the considerations incidentally presented to us in the inquiry 
on which we are now about to enter. 

The Gnostics may be separated into two great divisions, 
the MARCIONITES, on the one hand, and the THEOSOPHTC 
GNOSTICS, as they may be called, on the other; this epithet 
being understood as referring to the imaginations of the latter 
respecting the Supreme God, and the spiritual world, as 
developed from him. Of the latter class the Valentinians are 
the principal representatives, as being the most considerable 
and numerous sect, and one the essential characteristics of 
which appear throughout the systems of other theosophic 
Gnostics. The fundamental doctrines held in common by the 
Valentinians and Marcionites were the following : That the 
material world, the visible universe, was not the work of 
the Supreme Being, but of a far inferior agent, the Demiur- 
gus, or the Creator,* who was also the god of the Jews ; that 
the spiritual world, the Pleroma, as it was called, over which 
the true Divinity presided, and the material world, the realm 
of the Creator, were widely separated from each other ; that 
evil was inherent in matter ; that the material world, both as 
being material, and as being the work of an inferior being, 
was full of imperfection and evil ; that the Saviour descended 
from the spiritual world, as a manifestation of the Supreme 
God, to reveal him to men, to reform the disorders here exist- 



* AT/^ovpyof, literally the "Workman." The term "Maker" might 
seem the preferable rendering, except that the associations with the word 
" Creator," when standing alone, correspond better with the conceptions of 
the Gnostics. But, in thus using the term "Creator," we must divest it 
of the idea of creation from nothing. There is no satisfactory evidence, that 
any of the Gnostics rejected the then common philosophical notion of eternal, 
uncreated matter. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 171 

ing, and to deliver whatever is spiritual from the dominion of 
matter; and that the Supreme God had been unknown to 
men, to Jews and Heathens equally, before his manifestation 
of himself by Christ. In their view, he was the God of the 
New Testament, and the Creator was the god of the Old 
Testament. They at the same time conceived of the Creator 
as exercising a moral government over men, as dispensing 
rewards and inflicting punishments. He, in their view, was 
"Just." But the Supreme God did not punish. He was un- 
mingled benevolence. He was " Good." 

In connection with these doctrines, neither the Valentinians 
nor the Marcionites supposed the Saviour to have had a 
proper human body of flesh and blood, in which corruption 
would have dwelt. The Valentinians, however, ascribed to 
him a real though not a human body, while the Marcionites 
regarded his apparent body as a mere phantom. Those who 
maintained the latter opinion were called Docetce, a name for 
which we may give an equivalent in the word Apparitionists. 
But this name was also sometimes, if not commonly, ex 
tended to all who denied that Christ had a proper human 
body; and, thus used, comprehended the generality of the 
Gnostics. 

In the systems of the Marcionites and Valentinians, the 
Creator appears as one. Other sects, it is said, believed 
the material world to have been formed by angels. But, 
among those angels, one was generally, perhaps universally, 
regarded as pre-eminent, and as the god of the Jews ; that is, 
as one to whom the name Creator may be distinctively ap 
plied. The Valentinians themselves sometimes spoke of the 
Creator as an angel, and associated with him, in the govern 
ment of his works, other beings whom he had produced, giv 
ing them also the name of angels. 

Such were the common doctrines of the Gnostics. Their 
fundamental distinction may be regarded as consisting in the 



172 EVIDENCES OF THE 

belief, that the material universe was not formed by th 
Supreme Being, but by some inferior being or beings ; and 
that this being, or one of these beings, was the god of the 
Jews. In the writings of the earlier fathers against them, 
the stress of the controversy concerns this topic. It was, as 
we might suppose, the great point at issue between them 
and the catholic Christians. 

Thus, Tertullian, in his work against Marcion, states it to 
be " the principal question"* between them ; and the whole 
tenor of his argument shows that it was so. The principal 
question, he says, in commencing his work, " whence the 
whole controversy arises, is, whether it be allowable to intro 
duce two gods." The main object of his work is to prove 
from reason, from the Old Testament, from the Gospels, 
and from the Epistles, that the Supreme Being, the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the same being with the 
Creator of the material universe, and the God of the Jews. 

Irenasus is our great authority concerning the theosophic 
Gnostics, of whom alone he treats, to the exclusion of Mar 
cion and his followers, for a reason to be hereafter mentioned. 
In the introduction to his work, he assigns, as the cause of 
his undertaking to write against the heretics, that they " over 
turn the faith of many, leading them away, by a pretence of 
superior knowledge, from Him who framed and ordered the 
universe, as if they had something higher and better to 
show them than the God who made heaven and earth, and 
all that is therein ; bringing ruin upon their converts, by 
giving them injurious and irreligious sentiments toward the 
Creator." f In the first book of his work, he gives an ac 
count of the opinions of the Gnostics. In his second book, 
he undertakes to confute them, by showing their intrinsic 
incredibility, and commences by saying, " It will be proper to 



* Advers. Marcion., lib. i. c. 1 ; Opp. p. 366, ed. Priori!. 
, Cent. Haeres., lib. i. Praef. 1, p. 2, ed. Massuet. 






GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 173 

begin with the first and principal topic, God, the Creator, 
whom they blaspheme, who is God and Lord alone, sole 
author of all, sole Father." * In concluding the book, he 
affirms that what ho has been maintaining is consonant to 
what was taught by Christ and his apostles, by the Law 
and the Prophets, namely, that there is one God and Father 
of all, and that all things were made by him, and not by 
angels, nor by any other Power, f He then begins his third 
book by proving this doctrine from the Gospels, which, he 
says, all teach " that there is one God, the Maker of heaven 
and earth, who was announced by the prophets ; and one 
Messiah, the Son of God." J In the last paragraph of this 
book, he prays that the heretics may not persevere in their 
errors, but that, being "converted to the Church of God, 
Christ may be formed within them ; and that they may know 
the Maker of this universe, the only true God and Lord of 
all." " Thus we pray for them," he says, " loving them better 
than they love themselves." He then states, that in his next 
book he shall endeavor to induce them, by reasoning from the 
words of Christ, " to abstain from speaking evil of their 
Maker, who alone is God ; " and accordingly, in the com 
mencement of the fourth book, he repeats similar representa 
tions of their fundamental doctrine, which, with others to the 
same effect, it is unnecessary to subjoin. 

" I will endeavor," says Origen, " to define who is a heretic. 
All who profess to believe in Christ, and yet affirm that there is 
one god of the Law and the Prophets, and another of the Gospels, 
and maintain that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 
was not He who was proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets, but 
another, I know not what, God, wholly unknown and unheard of, 
- all such we consider as heretics, however they may set off their 

Lib. ii. c. 1, 1, p. 116. f Lib. ii. c. 35, 4, p. 171. 

J Lib. iii. c. 1, 2, p. 174. 

Apud Pamphili Hart. Apolog. pro Origene; in Origen. Opp. iv., Ap 
pend., p. 22. 



174 EVIDENCES OF THE 

doctrines with different fictions. Such are the followers of Maiv 
cion and Valentinus and Basilides." * 

In the fifth century, Theodoret wrote a history of heresies. 
He speaks of the Gnostics as nearly extinct, and professes 
that his accounts of them are derived from preceding 
writers, f He treats of them in his first book ; and this 
book, he says, contains " an account of the fables of those 
who have imagined another Creator, and, denying that there 
is one principle of all things, have introduced other principles 
which have no existence ; and who say that the Lord ap 
peared to men in the semblance of a man only." $ 

Our information concerning the distinguishing doctrines 
common to the Gnostics, in the general form in which they 
have been stated, is full and satisfactory ; and these doctrines 
there is no difficulty in comprehending. But the same cannot 
be said of the transcendental speculations of the theosophic 
Gnostics. These concerned the supposed production from the 
Supreme Divinity of hypostatized attributes and ideas* 
forming beings whom, in common with him, they denomi 
nated .^Eons, or Immortals ; the full development of the 
Deity by those emanations, constituting the Pleroma ; || the 



* The original adds, "and those who call themselves Tethians;" where, 
for " Tethians," I suppose we should read " Sethians," a name assumed by 
some of the Gnostics, who regarded Seth as the progenitor or prototype of 
the spiritual among men. 

I See the Introduction to his " Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium," 
and the Preface to the Second Book; Opp. iv. pp. 187-189, 218, ed. Sir- 
tnond. 

J Ibid., p. 188. 

I use the term " hypostatize," and its relatives, to express the ascribing 
of proper personality to what in its nature is devoid of it. 

|| IlA^p<J//a, Fulness, Completeness, Perfection, here signifying the full, 
complete, perfect development of the Deity. The word, though with a change 
of its meaning, was borrowed by the Gnostics from St. Paul. See Eph. i. 
23; iii. 19. Col. i. 19; ii. 9. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 175 

realm of God, the spiritual world (in contradistinction to the 
animal and material), which was likewise called the Pleroma ; 
all properly spiritual existences being considered as deriving 
their substance from that of the Infinite Spirit; and the 
mingling of spirit with matter ; the causes which led to 
the formation of the material world, and the relations of this 
to the spiritual world. 

These speculations of the theosophic Gnostics were very 
foreign from any conceptions with which we are familiar. 
They seem to have assumed no definite and permanent shape, 
but to have varied according to the imaginations of different 
sects and individuals ; every one, as Tertullian says, mould 
ing what he had received to his own liking; the disciple 
thinking himself as much at liberty as his master to innovate 
at pleasure.* Nearly all the direct information concerning 
them, on which we can rely with any confidence, is derived 
from their earlier controversial opponents, the fathers of the 
second and third centuries ; and it cannot be supposed, that 
those writers furnish a full explanation of the theories of the 
Gnostics in their most intelligible and plausible form. It 
was the business of the fathers to divest them of all adventi 
tious recommendations, to remove whatever might dazzle and 
deceive the eye, and to show, not their coincidence with any 
existing forms of philosophy, but their essential errors, their 
intrinsic incongruity, and their opposition to reason and Scrip 
ture. They have taken them to pieces, to exhibit their 



* Tertullian., De Prescript. Hseretic., c. 42, pp. 217, 218. Of the sect 
of the Marcosians, Irenacus treats at much length, probably because they pre 
vailed particularly in the part of Gaul where he resided (lib. i. c. 13, 7, 
p. 66). He concludes his account of them with saying, "But, since they 
disagree among themselves in doctrine and teaching, and those who are 
acknowledged as the more recent affect every day to find out something new, 
and to bring forth what never had been thought of before, it is hard to de 
scribe the notions of all of them " (lib. i. c. 21, 15, p. 98). The same, or 
nearly the same, might, I conceive, have been said of every other body of 
theosophic Gnostics, who were classed together as a sect. 



176 EVIDENCES OF THE 

defects ; and it is not easy, or rather it is impossible, to restore 
them as they were originally put together. At the same 
time, clearness of thought, precision of language, and accuracy 
in reporting opinions, were not characteristics of the writers 
of that age. Beside this, the Gnostics did not understand 
themselves ; and it was impossible, therefore, that the fathers 
should understand them. 

All these causes combine to occasion peculiar difficulty in 
forming a just notion of the speculations of the theosophic 
Gnostics. If their own writings had remained to us entire, 
no common acuteness would probably have been necessary to 
follow the process by which visionary conceptions and alle 
gories passed into doctrines ; to apprehend the state of mind, 
the confused mingling of imperfect, changing, and inconsistent 
fancies, out of which their theories arose ; to determine where 
mysticism was brightening into meaning ; or to detect what 
portion of truth, under some disguise or other, may have 
entered into and been neutralized in their composition. As 
in so many metaphysical and theological systems, from the 
age of Plato to our own, we should doubtless have found, that 
their dialect admitted of but a very partial translation into the 
universal language of common sense. With the best guidance, 
we should have been unable to place ourselves in the same 
position with the Gnostics, under the same circumstances, so 
as to discern the spectral illusions which, in the dawn of 
Christianity, they saw pictured on the clouds, and fancied to 
be celestial visions. 

Still, even as regards their theosophic doctrines, enough 
may be ascertained for our purpose ; perhaps all that is 
of importance in relation to the history of opinions, or 
the history of our religion. After fixing our attention 
on thsm ste adily, what appeared at first view altogether 
confused and monstrous begins to assume a form better 
defined; the great features common to their systems show 
themselves more distinctly, and we are able to discern 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 177 

their likeness to other modes of opinion that have widely 
prevailed. 

The fathers, as has been said, were but poor interpreters of 
the dreams of the theosophic Gnostics. But, as regards the 
whole history of the Gnostics, there is constant need of caution 
in admitting, and care in scrutinizing, the representations 
of their catholic opponents. What is related by the fathers 
concerning supposed heretics of the first century is mixed 
with fables and improbabilities. Their fuller accounts of the 
more important sects of the second century, the Marcionitos 
and Valentinians, were founded upon the writings of mem 
bers of these sects. But there are other cases, in which it 
admits of no doubt, that even those of the fathers who are 
our best authorities proceeded upon common rumor and oral 
information, distorted, exaggerated, and unfounded. 

It often requires much acuteness and discrimination, as well 
as intellectual and moral fairness, to give a correct report of 
the system of an individual or a sect, especially when its doc 
trines, being involved in mysticism, present no definite ideas, 
even to the minds of those by whom they are held. Some of 
the ancient philosophers, particularly Plato, could they have 
had a foreknowledge of the works of their admirers and ex 
positors, in ancient and modern times, would, I believe, have 
wondered greatly at much which they could, and much which 
they could not, understand. But the fathers did not write of 
the Gnostics as admiring historians. With the partial excep 
tion of Clement of Alexandria, they wrote as controvertists, 
whose feelings were enlisted against them. All the errors, 
but such as spring from intentional dishonesty, to which such 
controvertists are liable, are to be expected, even from those 
of their number on whom alone we can rely, the fathers of 
the first three centuries, or the earlier fathers, as they may be 
called by way of specific distinction. Under circumstances 
which furnish much less excuse, the grossest mistakes are not 

12 



178 EVIDENCES OF THE 

unfrequently committed. Thus, a German theologian of our 
day classes Priestley among decided atheists;* and another, 
a naturalist himself, states that Locke agreed with Spinoza, 
Hobbes, and Hume, in believing reputed miracles to be only 
natural events, referring, in evidence of his assertion, to a tract 
by which it is clearly disproved.! A still more remarkable 
error concerning that great man is the statement or implica 
tion, to be found, I believe, in some writers above the lowest 
class, that he referred the origin of all our ideas to sensation. 
Many similar misrepresentations might be produced; and 
from such errors, committed, as it were, before our eyes, 
through the neglect or misuse of means of information open 
to all, we learn what may have been the errors of ancient 
writers, at a period when it was incomparably more difficult 
to ascertain the truth ; when all communication of knowledge 
from a distance was tardy and imperfect ; when oral accounts, 
with the misunderstandings and misrepresentations by which 
they are usually characterized, were often the only source of 
information attainable ; and when the voice of the press, which 
now makes itself heard on every side, to confirm truth or to 
confute error, in regard to all facts that are anywhere of 
common notoriety, was as yet unuttered. 

Thus, as reporters of the history and doctrines of the 
Gnostics, in their obscurer ramifications, even the earlier 
fathers were in a great measure disqualified, not merely by 
their feelings of dislike toward those heretics, but by the 
great difficulty of obtaining full and correct knowledge con 
cerning them ; and, we may add, by that want of accuracy of 
conception and representation, which they shared in com 
mon with their opponents, and with all others of their age. 

We must, furthermore, keep in view their prejudices, and 

* Lehrbuch des Christlichen Glaubens, von August Hahn (Leipzig, 1828), 
p. 178. 

t Institutiones Theologiae Christianas Dogmatics a I. A. L. Wegscheider, 
48, not. a, p. Ill, ed. 2dae. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 179 

their liability to mistake, not merely as respects the doctrines, 
but also as respects the character and morals, of the Gnostics. 
We may readily believe, that vices, which were more prop 
erty to be ascribed to the depravity of individuals, were some 
times brought as general charges against the whole body 
to which those individuals were considered as belonging, and 
that the practical inferences unfavorable to morality, to be 
drawn from the false doctrines of the Gnostics, were repre 
sented as their common practical effects ; though it is often 
the case, that men do not follow out in action the results 
of bad principles any more than of good. 

In determining the truth concerning the Gnostics, we may 
find a concurrence of credible and contemporary testimony to 
what is probable in itself, and coincident or consistent with 
the still remaining expositions which they themselves gave of 
their doctrines ; and consistent, also, with forms of opinion 
which prevailed during the period when they sprung up and 
flourished. This testimony, so confirmed, is sufficient to estab 
lish the leading facts concerning their character and doctrines. 
In proceeding farther, we must judge of the accounts given 
of them from the particular probabilities that each case may 
present, and especially from the consistency of those accounts 
with the truths concerning them which we have found means 
to settle. Arid, throughout this whole inquiry, particular at 
tention must be given to the very different value of those 
ancient writers who have treated of the Gnostics, to the 
period when they lived, to their means of information, to the 
temper and purpose with which they wrote, and to their 
respective characters for correctness and truth. In this re 
spect, as we shall hereafter see, a wide distinction is to be 
made among writers who have often been indiscriminately 
quoted, as of equal authority in regard to the history of tho 
Gnostics. 

This subject has afforded scope for an abundance of hypoth- 



180 EVIDENCES OF THE 

eses in modern times ; for few facts have been so well estab 
lished, and so generally acknowledged, as to stand in theii 
way. It has been a sort of disputed province between fiction 
and history. We may meet, on every side, with statements 
respecting the Gnostics altogether unfounded. Gibbon says, 
that they " were distinguished as the most learned, the most 
polite, and most wealthy of the Christian name : " * but 
the assertion is made without proof, on his own responsibility; 
unless, indeed, he has repeated or exaggerated the error of 
some preceding modern writer, of which I am not aware. 
The representation is such as it may readily be supposed was 
not derived from their ancient controversial opponents, who 
alone can be referred to for information concerning the sub 
ject. No one, I think, besides Gibbon, has ascribed to them 
the worldly distinctions of superior refinement and wealth; 
but the zeal for paradoxes, which prevails among many of the 
theological writers of our age, has shown itself in other repre 
sentations. The theosophic Gnostics, though their specula 
tions are among the most vague and inconsequent that any 
visionaries have produced, have been transformed into pene 
trating and refined philosophers, or, rather, described as 
" equally versed in the mysteries of Platonism, of the Cab 
bala, of the Zend-Avesta, and of the New Testament ; as 
belonging rather to the world of ideas than to that of sensa 
tions, and as manifesting the human soul in its sublime 
ecstasies." f This is the language of a writer who does not 
separate himself from the rest of the intellectual world by 
his general tone of thought and expression, or by any radical 
changes iu the use of language. But one of the followers 
of the latest, darkest, and most repulsive school of German 
metaphysicians has likewise thought to do honor to the Gnos 
tics, by claiming them as its progenitors.^ 

* Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xv. 

t Matter, Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme (1828), torn. ii. p. 281. 

J I refer to Baur, Professor of Gospel Theology in the University of 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 181 

To justify such eulogies as have been bestowed on them 
by the writer first mentioned, their systems are professedly 
laid open ; and though the end be not obtained, though noth- 

Tiibingen, a disciple of Hegel, and a writer of much note among his coun 
trymen, who has published a large work relating to the Gnostics, entitled 
"The Christian Gnosis (or Gnosticism); or, the Christian Philosophy of 
Religion historically developed " (Tubingen, 8vo, 1835). His main pur 
pose is to represent the Gnvtics as the true religious philosophers of their 
times, and to exhibit the resemblance of their doctrines to the latest philoso 
phy of religion, as developed by Jacob Boehmen, Schilling, Schleiermacher, 
and finally by Hegel, who has brought it nearest to perfection. The funda 
mental doctrine, in which he regards the Gnostics as coinciding with these 
modern philosophers, is one which he has arbitrarily ascribed to them. 
According to him, they viewed God (their Supreme God) as an unconscious, 
impersonal, and unintelligent being. The doctrine of Hegel teaches that all 
individual spirits are but modifications of one universal spirit, the only posi 
tive existence in the universe. Ideas alone are things. But this universal 
spirit is, in itself, unconscious, and first arrives at consciousness in its devel 
opment in man. Man is the only conscious God. " The essence of religion, 
therefore, is the self-consciousness of God. God knows himself in a con 
sciousness different from him, which, in itself, is the consciousness of God, 
but which also has reference to itself, as it knows its identity with God ; an 
identity existing through the negation of finiteness. Thus, in one word, 
God is this, to distinguish one s self from one s self, to become objective 
to one s self, but, in this distinction, to be absolutely identical with one s 
self." These words, in which Baur reports the doctrine of Hegel on the most 
important of subjects, seem rather the language of a man not of sane mind, 
than such as accords with the character of one reputed, by many of his coun 
trymen, to be the wisest of philosophers. 

After this account of " The Christian Philosophy of Religion," which, it 
appears, is atheism, Baur remarks, that it is evident " how intimately this 
philosophy is connected with Christianity, how eagerly it transfers to itself 
its entire substance, nay, that, in its whole purpose, it is nothing else than a 
scientific explanation of the problem of historical Christianity" (pp. 709, 
710). 

In the work of Baur, there is no critical examination of the history of the 
Gnostics, nor any information of value concerning them. He ascribes to 
them, not only without authority, but contrary to all evidence, the doctrine 
of an unconscious and impersonal God. His work, like those of many of his 
countrymen, exhibits an incapacity of thinking clearly and consistently, and 
of presenting a lucid and well-digested exposition of a subject; and is char 
acterized by such a use of words, especially concerning the topics of religion 
as would unsettle all their established meanings. It belongs to that class of 



182 EVIDENCES UF THE 

ing wonderful appear, yet the Gnostics, could they revive, 
might address their expositors in words like those which 
Plato puts into the mouth of Thesetetus, after subjecting him 
to the questioning of Socrates : " By Jupiter, you have made 
me say more than I had in me." Nor has this too great 
ingenuity of explanation been confined to those who have 
formed an over-estimate of the spiritual acquirements of the 
Gnostics. In the development of their opinions, it is not 
uncommon to find a striking contrast between the scanty 
or worthless materials that antiquity has left us, and the 
long and ready detail of a modern expositor, defining the 
particulars, and tracing the history, of a system. When 



speculative writings, of which Germany has been so fertile ; treating of the 
most important subjects, and promulgating, sometimes with dogmatical 
phlegm, and sometimes with heartless flippancy, doctrines the most disas 
trous to faith and morals. These writings are distinguished, not so much bv 
a want of reasoning, or an evident incapacity of reasoning, as by an apparent 
insensibility to its necessity or use. Every thing is assumed. The most 
extravagant and most pernicious theories are put forward as if they consisted 
of self-evident propositions. Yet when the metaphysician or theologist of 
the day brings out his new system, resting on no truths or facts, but spun 
irom his own brain, his disciples (les plus sots qui toujours admirent un sot) 
applaud the rigid thought and profound speculations of their master; while 
more intelligent readers, unaccustomed to this style of discussion without 
explanation or argument, are at first perplexed by a phenomenon which 
they cannot readily understand. These works, numerous as they are, do not 
belong to the literature of the world. They form a literature, if it may be so 
called, immiscible with any other. The speculations they contain have no 
alliance with those truths which human wisdom has established, or which 
God has revealed to us. Tennemann, the German historian of philosophy, 
likened the new school of German metaphysicians, as it existed in his time, 
to the later Platonists. Baur finds a strong resemblance between those of 
our day and the Gnostics. These modern metaphysicians do, in truth, 
belong to the age of the later Platonists and Gnostics. But they resemble 
them, not so much through a correspondence of doctrines, as in their mystical 
and barbarous obscurity, in their perversion and fabrication of language, in 
their arrogant claims, in their contempt for the exercise of the understanding 
in the investigation and establishment of truth, and in their pretending to 
Borne other foundation than reason and the revelation of God on which to rest 
our highest knowledge. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 183 

we look for the proof of what is affirmed, we find, per 
haps, straggling authorities of doubtful credit or uncertain 
application ; supposed analogies with opinions less under 
stood than those of the Gnostics, to establish which, the 
mere shadows of meaning are to be tracked through the 
obscurity of Eastern theology, or some imaginary scheme of 
Egyptian superstition ; etymological conjectures ; and expla 
nations of allegories and symbols, to which the ingenuity of 
the writer may give a glimmering of probability, while his 
page is open before us. In the words of Tertullian, Late quce- 
runtur incerta, latins disputantur prcesumpta, " There is a 
wide search after uncertainties, and a wider discussion of 
assumptions." At the same time, facts that lie most open to 
view have been disregarded or misrepresented, or but par 
tially stated. 

In consequence, however, of all the attention which has 
been given to the subject, the character of the Gnostics may 
undoubtedly at the present day be better understood than it 
has been. The extravagant over-estimate of them, which 
appears in some modern writers, is, in part, a re-action pro 
duced by the extravagant depreciation of them which preceded 
it. The crude accounts of the later as well as earlier fathers 
were formerly received without discrimination, and without 
any attempt to disengage the truth from the language of con 
troversy, or from the mass of falsehood in which it was envel 
oped, and consequently without any exercise of judgment on 
the respective credibility of the authorities adduced. The 
charges made against them by the later as well as earlier 
fathers, whether probable or not, have been repeated without 
examination by theological bigotry, which, connecting with 
the name of heretic the ideas of folly, immorality, and im 
piety, has given itself full scope in ascribing these bad quali 
ties to the Gnostics. Even more sober and judicious writers 
have spoken of their systems as if they had just appeared, 
instead of having been produced many centuries ago ; and 



184 EVIDENCES OP THE 

have rather compared them with an abstract standard of 
what they themselves deemed sound philosophy, than viewed 
them relatively to the erroneous conceptions of ancient times. 
Their proper rank has not been assigned them among the 
other forms of metaphysical and religious belief, equally false 
and irrational, which have been or still are extensively re 
ceived. But the Gnostics were prodigies neither of wisdom 
nor of folly. There was nothing peculiar in the character 
of their minds to distinguish them from numerous theorists of 
their own and other times. With the exception of the Mar- 
cionites, they belonged to the large class of the professors 
of hidden but intuitive wisdom, who exhibit to the ignorant 
bits of colored glass, with the air of men displaying inesti 
mable jewels. The most eminent among them were probably 
far inferior to some of their opponents, to such men as Ter- 
tullian and Origen, in vigor and clearness of intellect, and 
in that intense conviction of the truths of religion which 
at once implies a sound judgment, and tends to perfect it; but 
I do not know that they would appear to much disadvantage, 
if brought into comparison with the later Platonists of the 
third and fourth centuries. 

The Gnostics and Ebionites, as has been remarked, were 
the principal heretics of the first two centuries. They 
were both divided from the communion of catholic Christians. 
The Ebionites, belonging to what, in their view, was the 
privileged race of the Jews, kept aloof from the Gentile con 
verts ; and, among the Gnostics, the Marcionites formed 
separate churches of their own.* The theosophic Gnostics, it 
is probable, likewise had their separate religious assemblies, 
unless they were prevented by the smallness of their numbers, 
or by what they regarded as a philosophical indifference to out 
ward forms of religion. Tertullian, however, says generally 

* Tertullian. advers. Marcion., lib. iv. c. 5, pp. 415, 416. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 185 

of the heretics, that, " for the most part, they have no churches 
motherless, without a settled habitation, bereaved of faith, 
outcasts, they wander about without a home."* An open 
separation between the Gnostics and the catholic Christians 
was produced, on the one hand, by the pride of the Gnostics 
in their peculiar opinions, and by their regarding themselves 
as the only spiritual believers, and all beside as lying in dark 
ness ; and, on the other hand, by the strong dislike which the 
great body of Christians entertained for their doctrines and 
pretensions, and by the brief profession of faith (the origin of 
what was afterward called " The Apostles Creed ") required 
of a catechumen, after passing his noviciate, before admission 
to the communion. The Gnostics, however, sometimes rep 
resented their exclusion from the Church as unjust. Irenseus 
says of the Valentinians, 

" For the sake of making converts of those of the Church, they 
address discourses to the multitude, by which they delude and en 
tice the more simple, imitating our modes of expression to induce 
them to become more frequent hearers, and complaining to them 
of us, that when they think as we do, say the same things, and 
hold the same doctrine, we abstain without reason from their com 
munion, and call them heretics." f 

Till toward the middle of the third century, when the 
heretics were spoken of in general terms, the Gnostics alone 
were for the most part intended. Thus, for example, Clement 
of Alexandria sets forth his design to " show to all the here 
tics, that there is one God and one Lord omnipotent clearly 
proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets, in connection with 
the blessed Gospel ; " $ a proposition requiring to be proved 
only against the Gnostics. So also Irenaeus, in the Preface 
to his fourth book, disregarding his own previous mention of 

* De Prescript. Haeretic., c. 42, p. 218. 
t Cont. Hseres., lib. iii. c. 15, 2, p. 203. 
J Stroinat., lib. iv. 1, p. 564, ed. Potter. 



186 EVIDENCES OP THE 

the Ebionites, speaks of all heretics as " teaching blasphemy 
against our Maker and Preserver." * 

But, in considering the subject of the early heretics, it is to 
be remarked, that among the catholic Christians, their con 
temporaries, there was great freedom of speculation, and great 
diversity of opinion, till after the time of Origen. Probably 
no standard of orthodoxy was generally received, much more 
comprehensive than what has been called the Apostles 
Creed ; and the opinions of no individual writer were con 
formable to any of the standards which have been since 
established. In comparing Tertullian with Origen, the one 
the most eminent defender of the common faith among the 
Greeks, and the other among the Latins, and both, after their 
death, reputed as heretics, we not only find in them a wholly 
different cast of mind and temper, but the speculations of the 
one are in many respects diverse from, and opposite to, those 
of the other; while those of each of them are often very 
remote from what is the general belief of Christians at the 
present day. The author of the Clementine Homilies seems, 
in ancient times, to have escaped the imputation of being a 
heretic ; yet, among other doctrines widely different from the 
more common faith, he brought forward a theory, to be else 
where noticed, respecting the Jewish Law and the Old Testa 
ment, in opposition to the Gnostics, which approached little 
nearer than their own to the opinions afterwards established. 
Tertullian wrote warmly against Hermogenes, who main 
tained that evil had its source in eternal, unoriginated matter. 
Yet Hermogenes does not appear to have been separated 
from the communion of the catholic Church; and probably 
riot a few other catholic Christians held, in common with 
him, a doctrine so prevalent in pagan philosophy. It may be 
observed, that Hermogenes gave his name to no sect, which 

* Cont. Hjeres., lib. iv. Pref. 4, p. 228. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 187 

beems to show that there was nothing extraordinary in his 
opinions being held by a Christian. Tertullian also wrote 
against Praxeas, who opposed the speculations which had 
been introduced concerning the proper personality of the 
Logos. His zeal was inflamed by the circumstance, that 
Praxeas had been an opponent of the Montanists, of which 
sect Tertullian had become a member. But he tells us, that 
the greater part of Christians, "the simple, not to say the 
unwise and ignorant," favored the opinions of Praxeas.* 
And, to mention but one other example, there is no ground 
for supposing, that Tertullian himself, after becoming a Mon- 
tanist, was rejected from the communion of the catholic 
Church ; though it is true, that the Montanists were soon 
regarded as a heresy separated from it. 

The state of Christians, then, during the second century, 
presents a very remarkable appearance. By the side of the 
great body of Gentile Christians, among whom such freedom 
of speculation prevailed, we find another smaller body of 
Gentile Christians, the Gnostics, agreeing with the former in 
acknowledging Christ as a divine teacher, but separated from 
them by an impassable gulf, as holding doctrines which 
rendered the amalgamation of the two parties impossible. 
Notwithstanding some striking analogies between their specu 
lations, there was no gradual transition from one system to 
the other. The separation was abrupt and broad. It con 
sisted in the fundamental doctrine of the Gnostics, that the 
Creator, or the principal Creator, of the universe, the god of 
the Jews, was not the Supreme Divinity and the God 
of Christians. 

The scheme of the Gnostics is, without doubt, to be re 
garded, in part, as a crude attempt to solve the existence of 
evil in the world ; a subject which engaged their attention in 

* Advers. Praxcam, c. 3, p. 502. 



188 GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 

common with that of other religious theorists of their age. 
But the desire to solve this problem was not, I conceive, the 
principal occasion of the existence of Gnosticism. This, I 
think, is to be found in the hereditary aversion of Gentiles to 
Judaism ; in the traditionary views of the Old Testament, 
communicated by the Jews from whom it was received ; and 
in the impossibility which the Gnostics found of reconciling 
the conceptions of God that it presents, with their moral feel 
ings, and with those conceptions of him which they had 
derived from Christianity. Nor in this respect did they 
stand alone. A large portion, we know not how large, of the 
catholic Christians, including some of the most eminent and 
intellectual of their number, equally regarded much in the 
Jewish Law and history as irreconcilable with correct morality 
and just notions of God, if understood in its obvious sense. 
They, however, as we shall hereafter see, took a very different 
course from that of the Gnostics, in escaping from the diffi 
culty with which they were pressed. 

Regarding the aversion of the Gentiles to Judaism as the 
principal occasion of Gnosticism, we may readily understand 
why the whole body of early heretics among the Gentile con 
verts became Gnostics. As soon as men s attention was 
distinctly fixed upon the subject, nothing but a thorough and 
strongly operative faith in Christianity could enable a Gentile 
Christian to subdue the prejudices, and overcome the diffi 
culties, which stood in the way of his acknowledging the 
Old Testament to have the divine authority that was claimed 
for it. 

To the opinions of the Gnostics respecting Judaism we 
shall recur hereafter. But other topics must be first attend 
ed to. 



CHAPTER III. 

ON THE EXTERNAL HISTORY OP THE GNOSTICS, AND THE 
SOURCES OF INFORMATION CONCERNING THEM. 

IRENES us pretends, that all the Gnostics derived their ex 
istence from Simon, the magician of Samaria, who is men 
tioned in the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. He 
says, that "all heresies had their origin in him," that he 
was " the father of all heretics." * All those, he says, who in 
any way corrupt the truth, or mar the preaching of the 
Church, are disciples and successors of Simon, the Samaritan 
magician ; although, as he honestly adds, " they do not ac 
knowledge him as their master." f The same representation 
of Simon appears in other, succeeding fathers. But the in 
formation of Irenaeus and his contemporaries, concerning 
particular personages and events in the history of Christianity 
during the first century, except so far as it was derived from 
the New Testament, was very imperfect and uncertain ; and 
their accounts of Simon are not to be implicitly received. 

But there is no doubt, that there was, in the first century, 
a Simon, a Samaritan, a pretender to divine authority and 
supernatural powers, who for a time had many followers, 

twho stood in a certain relation to Christianity, and who may 
lave held some opinions more or less similar to those of the 



* Cont. Haeres., lib. i. c. 23, 2, p. 99 ; lib. iii. Prsef. p. 173 ; lib. ii. Praef 
p. 115. 

t Lib. i. c. 27, 4, p. 106. 



190 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Gnostics. Justin Martyr mentions him and his followers 
several times, but gives no account of his doctrines. He only 
states, that he deceived men by magical arts, and that almost 
all the Samaritans (the countrymen of Justin) " acknowledged 
and worshipped him as the first God," " over all rule, authority 
and power ; " and affirmed, that a woman, whom he carried 
about with him, named Helena, was the first (hypostatized) 
conception of his, that is, of the divine mind.* These opinions 
seem to imply an annihilation of common sense in his fol 
lowers ; but they admit, as we shall see, of some explanation, 
that may serve to reconcile them to our apprehensions. 
Justin does not identify the Simon of whom he speaks with 
the Simon mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles ; f and, in 
modern times, some of the learned have contended that they 
were different individuals. But Luke describes the Simon 
whom he mentions as practising magical arts, so as to deprive 
the Samaritan nation of their senses, and as declaring himself 
to be some great personage ; and he adds, that all, high and 
low, affirmed him to be the Power of God, called Great. J 
When we compare Luke s account with that of Justin, it 
appears incredible that the two writers should be speaking of 
two different individuals, who bore the same name, who were 
conspicuous in the same country, Samaria, and who likewise 
were contemporaries ; for Justin says of the Simon whom he 
mentions, that he was at Rome during the reign of Claudius. 
Believing the accounts of both, therefore, to relate to the 
same person, we may observe, that Simon, according to Luke, 
suffered himself to be regarded as a manifestation of what was 
probably considered as the highest power of God. From this, 
it was an easy transition for his followers to speak of him as 

* I. Apolog., p. 38, seqq., p. 84; II. Apolog., p. 134; Dial, cum Tryph., 
p. 397, ed. Thirlby. 
t Chap. viii. 9-24. 

{ Acts viii. 9, 10. In the tenth verse, I adopt the reading, Qvr ic kcriv { 
rov Qeov r 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 191 

a manifestation of God, or as God made manifest to men, and 
thus to represent him as God himself. I have here supposed 
this account to have been given of him by his followers. 
Some of the fathers subsequent to Justin affirm, that Simon 
himself claimed to be God. But this was not unlikely to be 
said, if his adherents so regarded him ; for the later opinions 
of a sect were not uncommonly ascribed to its founder. But, 
if Simon did use such language concerning himself, it may 
still be explained in a similar manner. In the assertions 
which he or his followers made concerning Helena, there was, 
I conceive, a like vague use of words ; but through the 
strange accounts given of her, which it is not worth while to 
detail, we may perhaps discern that she was regarded as the 
symbol, or the manifestation, of that portion of spirituality 
which (according to a common conception of the Gnostics) 
had become entangled in matter, and for the liberation of 
which the interposition of the Deity was required. 

From all the notices of Simon, it does not seem likely that 
he much affected the character of a speculative philosopher 
or theologist, or was solicitous to establish any system of 
doctrines. He appears to have been a bold, artful, vainglo 
rious, dishonest adventurer, claiming to possess supernatural 
powers, and having much skill in obtaining control over, the 
minds of others. In Josephus, there is mention of a Simon, 
pretending to be a magician, who, somewhere about twenty 
years after the events recorded in the eighth chapter of the 
Acts of the Apostles, was employed by Felix, then Procurator 
of Judaea, to persuade Drusilla, the wife of Azizus, King of 
Emesa, to forsake her husband, and marry Felix ; which 
Drusilla was prevailed on to do.* It is not improbable that 
this was the same Simon who is spoken of by St. Luke. 
Whether he were so or not, the Simon connected with the 



* Josephi Antiq., lib. xx. c. 7, 2. Drusilla is mentioned, Acts sxiv, 
24 



192 EVIDENCES OP THE 

early history of Christianity may be classed with certain im 
postors and fanatics, not uncommon in the age in which he 
lived, who, proceeding on the doctrines of the Pythagorean 
Platouists (as they may be called), pretended, through mysti 
cal exercises of mind, to have attained a communion with the 
invisible world, and to possess a power, which they denomi 
nated theurgy, of performing supernatural works by divine 
assistance. He may be compared with his contemporary, 
Apollonius of Tyana, whose works Hierocles, an early enemy 
of Christianity, represented as equalling or excelling those of 
our Lord ; or with a somewhat later impostor, Alexander, 
the Paphlagonian prophet, on whom Lucian poured out his 
invective. Like pretensions to magical power were common 
among the other extravagances of the later Platonists. Plo- 
tinus, the most eminent of the sect, was, according to the 
account of his disciple Porphyry (famous for his work against 
Christianity), a great theurgist; and Proclus, than whom 
none of these philosophers had more alacrity in diving into 
the deepest and darkest mysteries, is said by his friend and 
biographer, Marinus, to have been able to bring rain from 
heaven, to stop earthquakes, and to expel diseases. Simon 
had learned in a similar school ; and though he was, probably, 
more of an impostor than a fanatic, yet a religious impostor 
can hardly be very successful without a mixture of fanaticism. 
If he succeed in deceiving others, he commonly succeeds, 
partially at least, in deceiving himself. The false opinion 
which he creates in those about him re-acts on his own mind. 
Simon, we may suppose, like the generality of men in his age, 
was a believer in the power of magic, or theurgy ; arid, when 
he saw the miracles performed by Philip, was filled with as 
tonishment, and regarded him as operating through magical 
powers unknown to himself. Giving credit, at the same 
time, to the accounts of the miracles of Jesus, he probably 
thought him to have been a great theurgist, and wished to 
become possessed of the secrets which he imagined him 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 193 

to have communicated to his disciples. Being confirmed in 
this state of mind by witnessing the effects produced by the 
imposition of the hands of the apostles, he did what naturally 
occurred to him : he offered money to purchase their disclosure. 
He was at first humbled and terrified by the severe rebuke 
of Peter : but no evil immediately followed ; and it appears, 
from the further accounts of him, that he resumed confidence, 
pursued his former course of life, and was excited to set him 
self up as a rival of our Lord. 

Of the particular events of his subsequent life, little is 
known. It is not probable that he left any writings behind 
him.* Justin Martyr says, that he visited Rome, and there 
displayed his pretended magical powers.f Irenoeus relates, 
that he was honored by many as a god, and that images of 
him and Helena the former fashioned as Jupiter, and the 
latter as Minerva were worshipped by his followers ; J and 
Justin says, that there was at Rome a statue dedicated to him 
as a god. 

The history of Simon is an object of interest from the 
mention of him by St. Luke, and from his early connection 
with Christianity. The accounts of him, however, afford 110 

* About the end of the fourth century, Jerome, in a single passage (Opp. 
iv. p. i. col. 114), speaks of books written by Simon : " Qui se magnain 
dicebat esse Dei virtutem; haec quoque inter csetera in suis voluminibus 
ecripta dimittens : Ego sum sermo Dei ; ego sum speciosus, ego Paracletus, 
ego omnipotens, ego omnia Dei. " Except as a mystical expression of Pan 
theism, the passage is somewhat too blasphemous for one readily to believe 
it to have been written by any man in his senses. In regard to books 
ascribed to Simon, if such really existed in Jerome s time, he is far too late 
an authority to afford any proof of their genuineness; and such books are 
mentioned by no preceding writer. Beausobre (Histoire du Manicheisme, 
i. 269, 260) maintains, what I doubt not is true, that Jerome did not take his 
pretended quotation from any work of Simon, nor any work which had been 
commonly believed to be Simon s ; though, in doing so, he has destroyed the 
only evidence for the opinion, which he himself expresses, that Simon vrote 
books explanatory of his doctrine (ibid., p. 259). 

f I. Apolog., p. 39. 

J Cont. Hares., lib. i. c. 23, 1, 4, pp. 99, 100. 
13 



EVIDENCES OP THE 

means of determining, with any particularity and assurance, 
what opinions he put forward ; but, whatever he taught or 
affirmed, he did not rest his doctrine on the authority of 
Christ. Him he emulated : he was not his disciple. The 
only ground on which his followers might be confounded 
with Christians is indicated in an account of Irenaeus, that 
Simon "taught that it was he himself who had appeared 
among the Jews as the Son, had descended as the Father in 
Samaria, and had visited other nations as the Holy Spirit." * 
Conformably to what has been before remarked, that the 
later opinions of a sect were often ascribed to its founder, I 
suppose this, or something like this, to have been said, not 
by Simon, but by some of his followers. Representing him 
as the Great Power of God, manifested in all divine com 
munications to men, and reckoning Christianity among these 
communications, they thus brought themselves into some 
relation to it. 

But I imagine them to have been held together as a 
sect, rather by the admiration of his supposed powers, by 
the worship of him as a divinity, or the Divinity, and by the 
study and practice of magical arts, than by the profession 
of any system of doctrines. However numerous they may 
at one time have been, they soon dwindled away. Origen 
charges Celsus with error for speaking of the Simonians 
as a Christian sect. That writer "was not aware," he 
says, "that they are far from acknowledging Jesus as the 
Son of God ; but affirm that Simon was the Power of God. 
They relate various marvels of their master, who thought, 
that, if he could acquire such powers as he believed Jesus to 
possess, he should have as great influence over men." f In 
another place, he expresses the opinion, that in his time there 
were not more than thirty Simonians in the world. He 



* Cont. Haeres., lib. i. c. 23, 1, p. 99. 

t Cont. Cels., lib. v. n. 62; Opp. i. 625, 626. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 195 

says, that a very few were living in Palestine (the successors, 
we may presume, of his first Samaritan followers) ; but that 
generally, wherever the name of Simon was known, it was 
through the mention of him in the Acts of the Apostles.* 
Elsewhere, he speaks of the sect as having ceased to exist. 
" There are no Simonians," he says, " remaining in the 
world ; though Simon, in order to draw after him a greater 
number of followers, relieved them from the danger of death, 
to which Christians were taught to expose themselves, 
by teaching them to regard the worship of idols as a matter 
of indifference." t They worshipped, as we have seen, 
images of Simon and Helena. Irenaeus says, what is alto 
gether probable, that they were men of loose lives, devoted 
to the study of magic ;$ and their magical discipline was 
connected, according to Tertullian, with paying religious 
service to angels. 

Such, I believe, is the amount of all that can be known, 
or probably conjectured, concerning Simon and his followers. 
But, beside the historical notices of him, he is introduced as 
a principal personage into an ancient work of fiction, called 
the Clementine Homilies. This work throws some light on 
the history and character of Gnosticism ; but no one would 
pretend, that it is of any authority as regards the history of 
Simon, or even as regards any doctrines he may have held. 

Our information being so imperfect and uncertain concern 
ing Simon, the most noted among all who have been repre 
sented as Gnostics, either antichristian or heretical, of the 
first century, we may be prepared for the obscurity and 
doubt which cloud over the history of other individuals 
and of supposed heretical sects during the same period. 

* Cont. Gels., lib. i. n. 57, pp. 372, 373. 
f Ibid., lib. vi. n. 11, p. 638. 
t Cont. Haeres., lib. i. c. 23, 4, p. 100. 
De Prescript. Haeret., c. 33, p. 214. 



196 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Menander, another Samaritan, is said to have been the suc 
cessor of Simon, and to have claimed, like him, to be one of 
the Powers of God, manifested for the salvation of men ; * 
and some stories remain of an individual called Dositheus, 
who, Origen says, pretended to be the Jewish Messiah.f We 
may conclude, perhaps, from these accounts, that, about the 
time of Simon, there were other less noted impostors of a 
similar character. These, together with him, may be con 
sidered as antichristian, not heretical. 

Among the reputed heretics of the first century, using the 
word heretic in its modern sense, there is none of whom 
the notices are adapted to excite any considerable degree of 
interest or curiosity, except Cerinthus. Cerinthus is repre 
sented by Irenseus, who first mentions him, as a Gnostic 
leader, contemporary with St. John. He taught, according 
to Irenaeus, that the world was not formed by the Supreme 
God, but by a certain Power, widely separated from him, and 
ignorant of his existence. He supposed Jesus not to have 
been born of a virgin, but of Joseph and Mary. He regarded 
him as having been distinguished from other men by superior 
wisdom and virtue. Into him, at his baptism, he believed 
that Christ descended, from " that Principality which is over 
all" (the Pleroma), in the form of a dove ; and that then he 
announced the Unknown Father, and performed miracles. 
At the crucifixion, Christ, who was spiritual and impassible, 
re-ascended from Jesus, and Jesus suffered alone. He alone 
died, and rose from the dead.$ Irenasus also relates an idle 

* Irenseus, lib. i. c. 23, 5, p. 100. 

f Cont. Cels., lib. i. n. 57; Opp. i. 372. Dositheus is elsewhere spoken 
of by Origen, in several places; but is not mentioned by Irenaeus, Clement 
of Alexandria, or Tertullian. It may here be observed, that the short ac 
count of heresies published in the editions of Tertullian, at the end of his 
book, De Prsescriptione Hgereticorum, is not the work of that father. In this 
account, Disitheus is spoken of. 

\ Cont H*res , lib. i. c. 26, 1, p. 106. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 197 

tale, which he says some had heard from Polycarp, that 
John, while residing at Ephesus, on going to bathe, found 
Cerimlms in the building, and rushed out, exclaiming, " Let 
us fly, lest the bath should fall upon us ; Cerinthus, the ene 
my of truth, being within." * He further supposes, that one 
purpose of John in writing his Gospel was to confute the 
errors of Cerinthus.t 

In the account given by Irena3us of the doctrines of Cerin 
thus, there is nothing, perhaps, intrinsically improbable ; and, 
from this account, it would appear that Cerinthus held the 
characteristic doctrines of the Gnostics. But the Roman 
presbyter, Caius, contemporary with Irenoeus, represents him 
as a believer in a millennium, in which sensual pleasures 
were to be enjoyed, and affirms him to have been the author 
of a certain book, which Caius so describes as to leave, I 
think, little doubt that he intended the Apocalypse. He 
speaks of Cerinthus as one "who, in Revelations, written 
under the name of a great apostle, introduced forged accounts 
of marvels, which he pretended had been shown him by 
angels ; and taught, that, after the resurrection, there was to 
be an earthly reign of Christ, and that men, dwelling in 
Jerusalem, would again become slaves to the lusts and pleas 
ures of the flesh." $ In the last half of the third century, 
Dionysius of Alexandria, referring probably to this passage, 
says that some of those before him had ascribed the Apoca-. 
lypse to Cerinthus, regarding it as an unintelligible and inco 
herent book; and he himself assigns to Cerinthus the same 
Jewish notions concerning the millennium which Caius had 
represented him as holding. In the account of Irenasus, 
Cerinthus appears as an early Gnostic; but the expectation 

* Cont. Hseres., lib. Hi. c. 3, 4, p. 177. The same story is told by 
Epiphanius, not of Cerinthus, but of Ebion. Haeres., xxx. 23, pp. 148, 
149. 

t Lib. iii. c. 11, 1, p. 188. 

J Apud Eusst. Hist. Eccles., lib. iii. c. 28. Ibid., et lib. viii. c. 25. 



198 EVIDENCES OF THE 

of a millennial reign of Christ had its origin in the belief of 
the Jews, antecedent to Christianity, concerning the temporal 
reign of their Messiah. The doctrine was Jewish in its origin 
and character, and altogether foreign from the conceptions of 
the Gnostics. They could not but revolt at the idea of 
assigning to their Christ a glorious reign on this earth, which, 
in their view, was the dwelling-place of imperfection and evil, 
over followers reclothed in what they regarded as the pollu 
tion of flesh. But, according to Irenaeus, Cerinthus coincided 
with the Gnostics in holding their essential doctrines of an 
Unknown God, of an ignorant and imperfect Creator, and 
of the necessity of a divine interposition through Christ, 
descending from the pure world of spirits. But the strongly 
marked character of the Apocalypse is such as to render it 
impossible that it should have been written by a Gnostic, or 
by one holding the doctrines that Irenaeus attributes to 
Cerinthus. The supposition would have been too glaring 
an absurdity to have been made by Caius, or countenanced 
by Dionysius. They, therefore, did not regard him as hold 
ing those doctrines. On the other hand, they not improbably 
considered him as an Ebionite, according to one part of the 
representation which, as we shall see, was given by Epipha- 
nius concerning him. 

Cerinthus is not named (and the fact is of importance in 
forming a judgment concerning his history) by Justin Martyr, 
Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, or Origen. From this we 
may conclude, that he was not particularly conspicuous in the 
first century ; that he left no reputation which had made 
a deep impression on the minds of men ; that there was no 
considerable body of heretics bearing his name in the second 
and third centuries ; and that no writings of his were extant, 
of any celebrity. Probably there were none whatever ; for 
except a story of Epiphanius about a pretended gospel, which 
we shall elsewhere have occasion to examine, none are re 
ferred to by any writer. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 199 

Justin Martyr, as has been mentioned, does not name 
Corinth us. On the contrary, he implies his ignorance of any 
individuals who separated the man Jesus and the JEon Christ 
in the manner in which Cerinthus and his followers are said 
to have done by Irena3us. In a passage in which he is speak 
ing of the Gnostics generally, and in which he particularly 
mentions the names of the leading sects, he describes them as 
" not teaching the doctrines of Christ, but those of the spirits 
of delusion ; " yet " professing themselves to be Christians, 
and professing that Jesus who was crucified was the Lord 
and Christ." * According to the account of Irenaeus, Cerin 
thus and his followers could have made no such profession. 
The distinction that was in fact supposed by the theosophic 
Gnostics between the ^Eon Christ and the man Jesus, Justin, 
if it existed in his day, overlooked ; and it could hardly, there 
fore, have been a doctrine that had its origin in the first 
century, when Cerinthus is said to have lived. 

Of this reputed heretic we have further notices in Epipha- 
nius ; f but, with that writer, we enter the region of fable. 
After repeating, in effect, the brief account of Irenaeus, he 
subjoins, that Cerinthus was a zealot for the Mosaic Law ; $ 
though, with a disregard of probability common enough in his 
stories, he states, at the same time, that Cerinthus " affirmed 
that the giver of the Law was not good." Epiphanius, 
among other fictions, pretends that he was a leader of those 
Jewish Christians, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, who 
contended that the Gentile converts must be circumcised. 
He thus ascribes to him the two opposite heresies of the 
Gnostics and the Ebionites. It may be noted also, as re- 



* Dial, cum Tryph., p. 207. 

t Hseres., xxviii.; Opp. i. 110, seqq. $ Ibid., pp. 110-113. 

Ibid., p. 111. Such a representation, says Massuet, the Benedictine 
editor of Irenseus, hardly obtains credit with men in their senses, vix fidem 
apud sobrios obtlnet. See his Dissertatio Prima in Libb. Irenaei, De Cerintho, 
n. 127, p. 53. 



200 EVIDENCES OF THE 

markable even among the blunders of Epiphariius, that he 
follows Irenasus in stating the belief of Cerintlms to have 
been, that Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ returned 
to the Pleroma ; * and shortly after asserts, that Cerinthus 
" dared to affirm that Christ suffered and was crucified, and 
was not yet raised, but would rise in the general resurrec 
tion." f He concludes by expressing his uncertainty whether 
Cerinthus and Merinthus were the same, or two different her 
etics. 

From the contradictory accounts of Cerinthus; from the 
silence respecting him of the four Christian writers of highest 
eminence during the period in which they lived, Justin 
Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen ; from 
the implication of Justin, that he knew of no heretics holding 
such opinions as Irenseus ascribes to Cerinthus ; and from 
the fables which Epiphanius has connected with his name, 
we may infer that very little was certainly known concerning 
him. Of the stories relating to him, it may seem the most 
probable solution, that there was a heretic of that name in 
the first century, of whom little or no information had been 
preserved, except that he was a heretic; and that, it not 
being certainly known in what his error consisted, Cerinthus 
had hence the ill-fortune to have ascribed to him divers con 
tradictory heresies, which different writers supposed to have 
had their origin in that early period, and was sometimes 
made a Gnostic, sometimes an Ebionite, and sometimes a 
millenarian, and the forger of the Apocalypse. 

From the fathers we can derive no information concerning 
Jae existence of Gnostics in the first century, more satisfac 
tory than what has been stated. It has been thought, how 
ever, that there are references to them in the New Testament 
itself; and this is a subject that has been much discussed. 

* Hseres., xxvih p. 111. f Ibid., p. 113. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 201 

It may be, that they are referred to in what has been called 
the Second Epistle of Peter, and in the Epistle ascribed to 
Jude. But these writings were not generally acknowledged 
by the early Christians as the works of those apostles ; and 
we have no reason to assign them an earlier date than the 
first half of the second century. There seems to me no good 
reason for believing that Gnostics are taken notice of in any 
genuine writing of an apostle; nor, I may here add, do I 
think it probable that any Gnostic system had been formed, 
or any Gnostic sect was in existence, before the end of the 
first century. 

In the Epistles of St. Paul, the false teachers and the false 
doctrines that he refers to were for the most part evidently 
of Jewish origin. Nor do I perceive in them an allusion 
to any peculiar doctrine of the Gnostics. When we keep in 
mind what those peculiar doctrines were, the introduction 
of an Unknown God ; the ascribing of the creation, and of 
the origin of the Jewish religion, to an imperfect being or 
beings ; the representing of Christ as a manifestation of the 
Unknown God, or a messenger from him, who merely used 
Jesus as an organ for his communications, or had only the 
unsubstantial semblance of a human body ; and the specula 
tions of the theosophic Gnostics, founded on hypostatizing the 
ideas and attributes of God, when we recollect what were 
the characteristic doctrines of the Gnostics, we shall perceive, 
I think, that there is no reference to them in those passages 
in which St. Paul has been supposed by some to have 
had them in view. The strong, general language in which he 
sometimes speaks of the false teachers of his day, though 
often sufficiently applicable to a portion of the Gnostics, as it 
is to false teachers of later times, contains nothing by which 
those heretics are particularly designated. Had St. Paul 
been acquainted with any professed expounders of Christian 
ity, who were attempting to introduce the fundamental doc 
trine of the Gnostics, the doctrine of an Unknown God, 



202 EVIDENCES OF THE 

different from the God of the Jews, his Epistles would have 
left no shadow of uncertainty respecting the fact. On this 
ground I think it may be determined from them, that no 
heretics of such a character existed in his time. 

Nor does it appear probable, that the Gnostics are referred 
to by St. John, in the introduction to his Gospel. The 
passage has been explained as if the apostle alluded to a 
scheme, like that of Valentinus, concerning the derivation of 
uEons from the Supreme Being. But there seems no reason 
to suppose that such a scheme existed in the time of the 
apostle. Valentinus, who did not appear till somewhere 
about thirty years later, is represented as the author of the 
scheme taught by him, with which the language of St. John 
has been compared. The names which Valentinus gave to 
some of his thirty jEons correspond to names found in the 
introduction of St. John s Gospel ; but it is more probable 
that they were suggested to him by this introduction, than that 
the apostle referred to them as already employed by Gnos 
tics. The Valentinians made use of the passage in question, 
and accommodated it to their opinions, as they did the rest 
of the New Testament, as far as was in their power. 

It has been especially thought, that St. John, in his first 
Epistle, animadverts either on the opinion existing in the 
second century among the theosophic Gnostics, that the man 
Jesus was to be distinguished from the JEon Christ, as a dis 
tinct agent, which was connected with the doctrine, that 
Jesus had not a proper human body of flesh and blood ; or 
on the opinion of the Docetae, that the apparent body of 
Jesus was a mere phantom. He has been supposed to do so 
in the passage in which he says, " Every spirit [that is, every 
teacher] professing that Jesus is the Messiah [or Christ] 
come in the flesh is from God ; and every spirit which pro 
fesses not Jesus is not from God."* But it seems to me 

* 1 John iv. 2, 3. I omit, with Griesbach and other critics, the words in 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 203 

most probable, that the apostle merely had in view individu 
als who denied that Jesus was the Messiah, and objected that 
the Messiah would not have come, as Jesus had done, to lead 
a life of hardship, and die a cruel and ignominious death ; 
that he would not have " come in the flesh," that is, exposed 
to all the accidents and sufferings of humanity. Perhaps, 
however, by the Messiah s " coming in the flesh," St. John 
meant nothing more than that he had appeared in the 
world," that he had " appeared among men." That the 
words were not essential to the main idea which he wished 
to express is evident from his omitting them in a correspond 
ing passage, where he likewise refers to the false teachers 
to whom Christians were exposed, and where he simply 
describes them as "denying that Jesus is the Messiah."! 
In this latter passage, if in either, one might suppose him to 
have had Christian heretics in view ; for he says that those 
of whom he speaks had separated themselves from the body 
of Christians : $ but it is clear that he did not here refer to 
individuals as holding any Gnostic doctrine, but to proper 
apostates and unbelievers. 

It may appear, therefore, that little or nothing can be in 
ferred from any authentic source to* prove the existence of 
Gnostic systems or sects during the first century. The 

the last clause, answering to those italicized in what follows: "And every 
spirit which professes not that Jesus has come in the flesh is not from God." 

t 1 John ii. 22. 

\ "They have gone out from us." Ibid. ii. 19. 

In treating of the heretics of the first century, I, of course, make no use 
of the pretended Epistles of Ignatius, of which I shall speak in sect. vi. of 
Note C, pp. 560-566. Jerome (Advers. Luciferianos, Opp. iv. pars. ii. coL 
804), in a declamatory passage, full, as I conceive, of misstatements, asserts 
that, " while the apostles were still living, while the blood of Christ was still 
recent in Judaea, it was maintained that the body of Christ was a phantom." 
But the authority of such a writer, at the end of the fourth century, is of no 
weight. Gibbon, however, twice imitates the passage of Jerome, and repeat* 
his assertion. ( History of the Roman Empire, chaps, xxi. and xlvii ) 



204 EVIDENCES OF THE 

accounts of supposed Gnostics given by Irenaeus and others 
will not bear the test of examination, as we have seen in the 
ase of Cerinthus ; or they relate, as in the case of Simon 
Magus and Menander, not to Christian heretics, but to anti- 
christian impostors. But we are now about to quit the 
uncertain ground over which we have hitherto made our 
way, and enter on a somewhat more open road. In the 
earlier part of the second century, light breaks in upon us, 
and individuals and systems distinctly appear. We likewise 
find evidence to confirm the conclusion to which we have 
arrived, that the Gnostics did not before this time make their 
appearance. 

There is no dispute that the leading sects of the Gnostics 
that is to say, the Valentinians and the Marcionites, with 
whom the Basilidians may perhaps be classed had their 
origin after the close of the first century. 

* Subsequently to the teaching of the apostles," says Clement 
)f Alexandria, "about the reign of Adrian [A.D. 117-138], 
appeared those who devised heretical opinions, and they continued 
to live till that of the elder Antoninus [A.D. 138-161]. Of this 
number was Basilides, though, as his followers boast, he claimed 
Glaucias, the interpreter of Peter, for his teacher; as it is likewise 
reported, that Valentinus was a hearer of Theodas, who was famil 
iar with Paul. As for Marcion, who was their contemporary, he 
continued to remain as an old man with his juniors." * 

The account of Clement respecting Valentinus and Mar 
cion corresponds with what is said by Irenaeus, who states 
that Valentinus " came to Rome while Hyginus was bishop, 
flourished during the time of Pius, and remained till that of 
Anicetus. Marcion was at his height under Anicetus."f 
The particular dates assigned to these three bishops of Rome 
are so various and uncertain as to make it not worth while 



* Stroinat., vii. 17, pp. 898, 899. 

t Cont. Haeres., lib. iii. c. 4, 3, pp. 178, 179. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 205 

to give them ; but the first died some time before, and the 
last survived, the middle of the second century. Justin 
Martyr, who wrote his first Apology about the year 150, 
twice speaks in it of Marcion as then living ; * and Tertul- 
lian refers both Marcion and Valentinus to the times of 
Antoninus Pius.f 

The Valentinians, Marcionites, and Basilidians are all 
mentioned in the remaining works of Justin Martyr. In his 
Dialogue with Trypho, he says, that the existence of men 
who, though Christians in profession, teach not the doctrines 
of Christ, but those of the spirits of delusion, serves to con 
firm the faith of the true believer, because it is a fulfilment 
of the prophecies of Christ. He had declared that falso 
teachers should come in his name, having the skins of sheep, 
but being ravening wolves within. " And accordingly," says 
Justin, " there are and have been many coming in the name 
of Jesus, who have taught men to say and do impious and 
blasphemous things." " Some in one way, and some in 
another, teach men to blaspheme the Maker of all, and 
the Messiah who was prophesied as coming from him, 
and the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob." In these 
words, Justin refers to the fundamental doctrines of the 
Gnostics, that the maker of the material universe, or 
the chief of those by whom it was made, was not the 
Supreme God, but a being imperfect in power, wisdom, 
and goodness ; that the same being was the god of the 
Jews ; and that the expected Jewish Messiah, who had been 
foretold as coming from him, had been superseded by an 
other, an unexpected messenger of a far higher charac 
ter and office, coming from and revealing the true God. 
Some of the heretics mentioned, Justin proceeds to say, 



* I. Apolog., p. 43, p. 85. 

t Advers. Marcion., lib. i. c. 19, p. 374. De Prescript. Hseret., c. 30 
p. 212 



206 EVIDENCES OF THE 

" are called Marcionites, some Valentinians, some Basilidians, 
some Saturuilians, and others by different names, after their 
leaders." * The Saturnilians or followers of Saturnilus, or 
Saturninus, as he is more commonly called, were an obscure 
sect which requires no particular notice. 

The M&rcionites are twice mentioned by Justin elsewhere. 
"Marcion of Pontus," he says, "under the impulse of evil 
demons, is even now teaching men to deny the God who is 
the Maker of all things celestial and terrestrial, and the 
Messiah bis Son, who was foretold by the prophets, and 
proclaiming a certain other God beside the Maker of all 
things, and likewise another Son." f 

Beside these notices of them in his remaining works, 
Justin composed, as he himself informs us, j a treatise against 
all heresies ; but this is not extant. Irenaeus quotes a book 
of Justin against Marcion, which was perhaps a portion of 
the work just mentioned, but which, whether it were so or 
not, is also lost. 

Such being the case, the most important authority respect 
ing the history of the early heretics, except the Marcionites, 
is Justin s contemporary, Irenaeus. The large work of Ire- 
nasus which remains to us (principally in an ancient Latin 
translation) is occupied by the statement and refutation of 
their opinions. Though he gives accounts of other heresies, 
he writes with particular reference to the Valentinians, 
whom he regarded as the chief of the Gnostic sects. || " The 
doctrine of the Valentinians," says Irenasus, " is a summary 
of all heresies, and he who confutes those heretics confutes 
every other." 1T He explains at length their theory as it 



* Dial, cum Tryph., pp. 207-209. 

t I- Apolog., p. 85 ; vide etiam p. 43. $ I. Apolog., p. 44. 

Cont. Hajres., lib. iv. c. 6, 2, p 233. 
|| Ibid., lib. i. Prarf. 2, p. 3. 
T Ibid., lib. iv. Prsef 2, p. 227 : conf. lib. ii. c. 31, 1, p. 163. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 207 

existed in his day, not indeed in its original form, as it pro 
ceeded from Valentinus, but as it had been subsequently 
modified by one of his most distinguished followers, Ptolemy. 
Afterwards, he gives an account of the original scheme of 
Valentinus, which does not appear to have differed in any 
essential particular from the modification of it by Ptol 
emy.* 

The statements of Irenaeus respecting the Valentinians are 
confirmed by Tertullian in a work written expressly against 
that sect,f which so closely resembles the account of Irenaeua 
as to leave little doubt that he took this for the basis of his 
own ; though there is no reason for supposing, that his 
acquaintance with the doctrines of the Valentinians was de 
rived only from the writings of that earlier father. Many 
notices of them are found in his other works, and in those of 
Clement of Alexandria, and of Origen. These notices con 
firm generally what is stated by Irenaeus, and add something 
to the information which he affords. 

We have also some remains of the writings of Valentinians 
themselves. The most important of them is a letter by 
Ptolemy, preserved by P^piphariius.J It is addressed to a 
lady, whose name was Flora, and contains an account of his 
opinions concerning the origin and character of the Jewish 
Law, and the god of the Jews, whom he identifies with the 
Maker of the world. However erroneous may be the opin 
ions of Ptolemy, he expresses himself with good sense, and 
his manner is unobjectionable. 

Epiphanius has likewise given an extract from the work 
of some one, whom he calls a Valentinian, but whose name 
he does not mention. It relates to the derivation of the 
^Eons. The writer commences by professing his intention to 

* Lib. i. c. 11, p. 52, seqq. t Adversus Valentinianos. 

J Haeres., xxxiii. p. 216, seqq. The letter of Ptole:aiy is also printed in 
the Appendix to Massuet s edition of Irenaeus. 

Haeres., xxxi. p. 168, seqq. Apud Irensei Opp., ed. Massuet, p. 855 



208 EVIDENCES OF THE 

speak of " things nameless and supercelestial, which cannot 
be fully comprehended by principalities nor powers, nor 
those in subjection, nor by any one, but are manifest only 
to the thought of the Unchangeable ; " and he proceeds in 
a manner conformable to this annunciation, so discouraging 
to a common reader. It is a very offensive specimen of 
the extravagances of some of the Gnostics. Epiphanius, 
as has been mentioned, ascribes it to a Valentinian. But, 
from its want of correspondence with the preceding accounts 
of the different systems held by Valentinus and his followers, 
it affords additional proof, either that the speculations of the 
Valentinians were continually changing their form, or that 
the names of ancient sects were very loosely applied in the 
time of Epiphanius.* 

There is also a work consisting, in great part, of extracts 
from one or more writers of the school of Valentinus.f But 
it is of less value than might be expected. It presents no 
connected system. Its language is very obscure ; its text 
appears to have been but ill preserved ; and there is a diffi 
culty in distinguishing between the words and sentiments of 
the compiler and those which he quotes. 

Beside the writings mentioned, Origen has preserved vari 
ous passages from a commentary on the Gospel of John by 
Heracleon, a distinguished Valentinian of the second cen 
tury ; and Clement of Alexandria affords us another extract 



* In the passage quoted by Epiphanius, there are allusions of the grossest 
kind in reference to the production of the ^Eons. Such language, as Clement 
of Alexandria informs us, was used, in his time, by the followers of an indi 
vidual, named Prodicus ; but Clement, in speaking of them, exculpates the 
Valentinians from the imputation of such impurity- Stromat, iii. 4, 
pp. 524, 525. 

t The title of this compilation is, " From the Writings of Theodotus. The 
Heads of the Oriental Doctrine, so called, as it existed in the Age of Valen 
tinus," I shall quote the work under the name of "Doctrina Orientalis." 
It may be found in Potter s edition of the Works of Clement of Alexandria, 
p. 966, seqq. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 209 

from Heracleon, and a few extracts from the works of Valen- 
tinus himself.* 

Of the opinions of Marcion and his followers, our informa 
tion is nearly or quite as ample. Irenaeus, indeed, gives but 
a short account of them ; it having been his intention, as 
he states, to refute that heretic in a separate treatise. This 
work, if he ever accomplished it, which is not probable, is 
now lost. The reasons which he assigns for discussing Mar- 
cion s system by itself deserve attention. He says, " Because 
Marcion alone has dared openly to mutilate the Scriptures, 
and has gone beyond all others in shamelessly disparaging the 
character of God [the Creator], I shall oppose him by himself, 
confuting him from his own writings ; and, with the help of 
God, effect his overthrow by means of those discourses of our 
Lord and his apostle [St. Paul] which are respected by him, 
and which he himself uses." f In speaking of Marcion s dis 
paraging the character of God, Irenaeus refers, as will be 
readily understood, not to Marcion s opinions concerning the 
Supreme Being, but to his opinions concerning that inferior 
agent whom the Gnostics conceived of as the Maker of the 
world. In the view of Irenaeus, the Supreme God and 
the Maker of the world being the same, what was said 
unworthily of the latter he regarded as virtually said of 
the former. 

The information respecting the Marcionites which we miss 
in Irenaeus is abundantly supplied by Tertullian in his long 
and elaborate treatise, " Against Marcion ; " a composition 
that so clearly exhibits the workings of a powerful mind, 
in which striking thoughts are presented with such condensa 
tion of language, expressions stand out in such bold relief, 



* These fragments of Heracleon and Valentinus are collected in the 
Appendix to Massuet s edition of Irenaeus. 
t Cont. Hseres., lib. i. c. 27, 4, p. 106. 

14 



210 EVIDENCES OF THE 

and arguments are sometimes so rapidly developed, as, not 
withstanding a difficult style and a corrupt text, to fix the 
attention, and create an interest in the exposition and confu 
tation of obsolete errors. Of Marcion and his followers we 
find mention, likewise, in other works of Tertullian, and in 
those of Clement and of Origen ; and, in addition to what 
is given by Tertullian, Epiphanius affords some further infor 
mation, which there is no particular reason to distrust, re 
specting Marcion s mutilations of the New Testament. 

As regards other Gnostic sects existing in the second cen 
tury, our principal information must be derived from the ear 
lier fathers who have been mentioned, Irenaeus, Tertullian, 
Clement, and Origen.* For the most part, the later fathers 
who have written concerning the Gnostics either copy their 
predecessors, or present us, instead of facts, with misconcep 
tions, fictions, and calumnies ; or perhaps report, under some 
ancient name, the doctrines and practices ascribed to supposed 
individuals of their own day, who, if such individuals really 
existed, had little in common with those by whom the name 
given to them had been formerly borne. If we would have 
any just conceptions of Christian antiquity, we must never 
lose sight of the distinction between the earlier and the later 
fathers, between those who wrote before, and those who 
wrote after, the establishment of Christianity as the religion 
of the empire. It has been greatly neglected. It admits of 
particular exceptions and much qualification in favor of indi 
viduals. But, generally, a wide separation is to be mado 
between the patient or stern sufferers of the ages of persecu- 



* I have already had occasion to mention the addition by another writer 
to Tertullian s work, De Praescriptione. (See p. 196, note f.) The date of its 
composition is uncertain. It is a brief summary of some of the common 
accounts of the heretical sects, evidently made with little investigation, and, 
consequently, of little value. An undue weight is sometimes given it, by its 
being quoted as if written by Tertullian 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 211 

tion, whose religion was the principle of their lives, and the 
courtier bishops who frequented the imperial palace, the fac 
tious and virulent party -leaders who rent the Church with 
their dissensions, and the fiery ascetics to whom monastic 
superstition gave birth. 

Of the later writers concerning the Gnostics, the first to be 
mentioned is Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus during 
the latter part of the fourth century, and the author of a large 
work " Against Eighty Heresies." He was a zealot of a 
mean mind and persecuting temper. He had a childish love 
of multiplying the sects and names of the heretics, and was 
unsparing in loading them with opprobrium. He was, un 
doubtedly, credulous, and has sometimes told in good faith 
what cannot be believed ; but the stories that he relates on 
his own authority show that his want of truth was equal to 
his want of good sense. In some of those charges which he 
is ever ready to bring against the heretics, he discovers a 
mind familiar with the most loathsome conceptions of impu 
rity. His work, at the same time, is full of blunders and 
contradictory statements, arising from ignorance, negligence, 
and want of capacity. Still something may be learnt from it ; 
and the testimony of Epiphanius may deserve attention, when 
his reports are intrinsically probable, when they coincide with 
and complete the information of some more credible writer, 
when they are in opposition to his own prejudices, or in cases 
in which there was no temptation to falsehood and small 
liability to mistake. Sometimes, also, we may form a prob 
able conjecture, by considering on what facts a particular 
misrepresentation, coming from a writer of such a character, 
was likely to be founded. Even where his accounts in their 
gross state are false, it has been found possible, by combining 
them with the information received from others, by subject 
ing them to an analysis and applying the proper tests, to 
detect and separate a portion of truth. 



212 EVIDENCES OP THE 

We pass to a work on heresies, entitled " A Dialogue 
concerning the Right Faith in God," De Recta in Deum 
Fide?* This has sometimes been regarded as a work of Ori- 
gen : but it is the production of a later writer, who lived after 
the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the empire, 
and appears to have borne, like Origen, the name of Adaman- 
tius ; it being now ascribed in its title to an author of that 
name. In determining the opinions of the ancient heretics, 
too much credit has been given to this work, which deserves 
little or no consideration when its accounts are inconsistent 
with those of the earlier fathers. It is the production of one 
who was very imperfectly acquainted with the real doctrines 
of the Gnostics, if he meant to represent them correctly, and 
who has, in consequence, improperly assigned to different 
sects opinions which it was his purpose to confute. 

In the latter half of the fourth century, a work on heresies 
was composed by Philaster, Bishop of Brescia in Italy, a 
writer of the lowest order. It is full of almost pitiable weak 
nesses. His reputation, for some reputation he had, serves 
to show how low the human intellect had sunk in his age 
within the limits of the Western Empire. 

His work is, however, quoted as a main source of informa 
tion on the subject by Augustin, who has left a name indel 
ibly impressed on the history of the world, and who, in the 
first half of the fifth century, likewise wrote on heretics. But 
his " Catalogue of Heresies," as it is entitled, is merely a 
synopsis, apparently a hasty production, composed without 
any critical inquiry. It is of no authority, containing little 
which is not taken from Epiphanius or Philaster ; and it 
even appears that he was ignorant of the existence of the 
whole work of Epiphanius. His description of the book 

* It is published in the first volume of De la Rue s edition f Origen. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 213 

which he used is applicable only to an epitome of it.* He 
probably consulted some manuscript which contained in a 
Latin translation (for he was ignorant of Greek) only the 
synopses that Epiphanius has prefixed to the different divis 
ions of his work. It is evident that he did not write from 
any personal knowledge of Gnostics as existing in his time. 

In the fifth century, likewise, Theodoret, who holds a high 
rank among the later Greek fathers, composed a treatise on 
the heretics, in five books.f The first three books relate to 
those whom he calls ancient heretics, the Gnostics and the 
Manichaeans ; the Ebionites, and those who believed with 
them that Christ was only a man; and some others, whom 
he ranks with neither class. Concerning these ancient here 
tics, he professes to have compiled his information from older 
writers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, 
Origen, Eusebius the ecclesiastical historian, Eusebius of 
Emesa, Adamantius (the author of the Dialogue De Recta 
fide), and others of less note, whose works are lost. It is 
perhaps a proof of his good sense, that he does not name 
Epiphanius as an authority. He speaks of the ancient sects, 
preceding the time of Arius, as being for the most part ex 
tinct ; and apprehends that he may be blamed by some for 
having " brought them again from the darkness of oblivion 
into the light of memory." $ He says, that God, permitting 
the evil seed to be sown, had turned the greater part of the 
tares into wheat, so that most places were free from the Gnos 
tic heresies ; the remaining disciples of Valentinus and of 
Marcion, and likewise the Manichaeans, being few, easily 
numbered, and thinly scattered in certain cities. In various 



* Opp. (Basil, 1569) vi. col. 10. 

t Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium, in the fourth volume of Sir- 
ond s edition of his works. 

J Epist. Praefat. ad Sporacium, pp. 188, 189. 
\ Haeret Fab., lib. ii. Praefat. p. 218. 



214 EVIDENCES OP THE 

places he expresses himself to the same effect. The ancient 
heresies, he informs us, had passed out of notice ; they had 
either been " rooted up, or remained, like half-withered trees, 
in a few cities and villages." * 



* Lib. iii. Prsefat. p. 226; lib. iii. (adfinem\ p. 132; lib. iv. Prsefat. p. 232. 
Certain assertions, however, in the Epistles of Theodoret may appear, at 
first sight, irreconcilable with those quoted above. In one place (Epist. 
Jxxxi., Opp. iii. pars. ii. p. 954), he says he had converted the inhabitants of 
eight villages, together with those of the neighboring country, from the 
heresy of Marcion, and brought them over willingly to the truth ; in another 
(Epist. cxiii. pp. 986, 987), that, during the twenty-six years he had been 
bishop, he had u delivered more than a thousand souls from the disease of 
Marcion," adding, that all heresy was thoroughly extirpated from the 
churches under his charge; and in a third (Epist. cxlv. p. 1026), that, by 
his controversial writings against them, he had made orthodox Christians of 
more than a myriad of Marcionites, which, of course, may be considered as 
an extravagant rhetorical amplification. It is an obvious remark, that a sect 
must have been already falling to pieces, from which converts were made so 
readily. It is probable, likewise, that Theodoret, who, in these Epistles, is 
defending himself against his enemies, and enumerating his services and 
labors as bishop, not only exaggerated in the estimate of numbers, but 
applied the name Marcionite very loosely. The remains of the Marcionites, 
however, from the more simple doctrines and stricter morality and discipline 
of the sect, were likely to survive those of the other Gnostics. 

Another passage of one of Theodoret s Epistles has been referred to 
(Priestley s History of Early Opinions, vol. i. p. 148), as proving that the 
Gnostics were reviving in his time. But the passage has been misunder 
stood. Theodoret says, " Those who, at the present time, have renewed the 
heresy of Marcion and Valentinus and Manes, and the other Docetae, being 
angry with me for publicly exposing their heresy, have endeavored to de 
ceive the emperor " (Epist. Ixxxii. p. 955). He is here speaking, not of any 
proper Gnostics, but of his enemies, the Eutychians, at that time the domi 
nant party in the Church. With reference to their opinions respecting tlm 
person of Christ, he elsewhere describes them as endeavoring to plant anew 
the heresy of Valentinus and Bardesanes, which had been rooted out (Epist. 
cxlv. p. 1024). In his work on Heresies, likewise, he says, that Satan, by 
means of " the miserable Eutyches, had caused the heresy of Valentinus, 
withered long ago, to flower again" (Hseret. Fab., lib. iv. n. 13; Opp. iv. 
246. 

These passages illustrate the loose manner in which the names of ancient 
Gnostic sects were applied in later times, and serve to show that they were 
sometimes used as mere terms of reproach toward those who were regarded 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 215 

Beside the writers who have been mentioned, and of whose 
respective authority it has been my purpose to give some 
estimate, there are notices of the Gnostics, though not of much 
value, in Eusebius s Ecclesiastical History ; and some informa 
tion concerning them is scattered, here and there, in the 
wiitings of other later fathers. But, in general, it is little to 
be relied on. 

In addition, likewise, to what is said of them by Christian 
writers, we find some notices of them in the works of the 
heathen opponents of Christianity. Celsus brought forward, 
as objections to Christianity, their real or pretended doctrines, 
in his work which was answered by Origen. In one place, 
as quoted by Origen,* he says, " Let no one think me ignorant, 
that some of the Christians agree that their God is the same 
with the God of the Jews, while others maintain one opposite 
to him, from whom they say that the Son came." 

In the third century, Gnostics, and individuals holding some 
of the fundamental doctrines of the Gnostics, were made a 
subject of remark by the later Platonists, Plotinus and 
Porphyry. After the death of Plotinus, Porphyry reduced 
into some form, and gave some finish to, the crude mass of his 
writings, which he had left unpublished, and prefixed to them 
an account of his life. In this account, he says that there 
were in the time of Plotinus many Christians, and other 
sectaries, drawn away from the ancient philosophy, the fol 
lowers of Adelphius and Acylinus, two individuals of whom 
we have no further knowledge. These sectaries used the 
works of writers whose names Porphyry gives, but of whom 
nothing now remains except their names. They likewise, he 
states, had books entitled Revelations, ascribed to Zoroaster f 

as coinciding with the Gnostics in Rome one of their opinions. A similar use 
of opprobrious appellations has at all times been common. 

* Cont. Gels., lib. v. n. 61 ; Opp. i. 624. 

t Many spurious works were about this time ascribed to Zoroaster. Of 



216 EVIDENCES OP THE 

and others. "Being," he says, "deceived themselves, they 
deceived many, pretending that Plato had not penetrated to 
the depth of the essence of intelligiUes" Plotinus, he informs 
us, had written a treatise concerning them, which he, in his 
arrangement of Plotinus s works, had entitled " Against the 
Gnostics."* But in the manuscripts of this treatise there is 
found another title, more precise and appropriate, which de 
scribes it as " Against those who affirm that the World and its 
Maker are Bad." Porphyry says, that he had himself proved 
at length, that the work ascribed to Zoroaster was spurious, 
having been lately fabricated by those sectaries. f It may be 
remarked, that Clement of Alexandria says, that the followers 
of Prodicus, a most immoral sect of pseudo- Gnostics, boasted 
of possessing the secret writings of Zoroaster. $ 

Plotinus, in the tract referred to, represents those against 
whom he is writing as believing that the sensible universe 
was badly formed by an imperfect and erring power, sinking 
downward, as it were, with failing wings. He himself taught 
that it was eternal, without beginning or end. He refers 
particularly to doctrines concerning its formation, coincident 
with those ascribed to the Valentinians by Irenaeus, || which 
will be hereafter explained. In reference to the doctrine of 
the Gnostics concerning JEons, or hypostatized attributes and 
ideas, emanent from God, and belonging to the totality of his 
nature, he objects, that, under pretence of investigating more 
accurately, they so divided the intelligible nature into this 
multitude of beings as to make it like the sensible. The 

these, his " Oracles " alone are, in part, extant. They may be found at the 
end of Stanley s "History of Philosophy." But they are not the work 
referred to above. They contain nothing peculiarly Gnostic, but are con 
formed to the doctrine of the later Platonists, and are quoted with admiration 
by Proclus, and other writers of that school. 

* Now forming the ninth book of the second Ennead of his Works, 
p. 199, seqq. 

t Plotini Vita, ubi sup. j. Stromat., i. 15, p. 357. 

Cont. Gnost, 4, p. 202, passim. \\ Ibid., 4, p. 202, 10, p. 209. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 21"| 

division, he says, should be as small as possible, into not more 
than three* (the trinity of the later Platoriists). He dwells 
upon their blaming the constitution and government of the 
world.f He speaks of their hating the body. | He says that 
they used magical arts. And he represents their doctrines 
its strongly tending to produce bad morals. || 

In all this, so far as it goes, there is sufficient agreement 
with the representations of the fathers concerning the Gnos 
tics. But there is no evidence that Plotiuus was writing 
against Christian heretics. Nothing is said by him concerning 
that essential part of the scheme of the Gnostics which was 
founded on Christianity. The doctrines attacked by him 
might have been, and probably were, all held by heathen 
speculatists ; and to such there seems little doubt that he 
primarily referred. He nowhere uses the name of Gnostic 
or Christian in this discussion. He nowhere, throughout his 
writings, makes any direct and open attack on Christians, or 
expressly recognizes their existence. Thus leaving the great 
body of Christians unassailed, it is not likely that he would 
have entered into a labored controversy with heretics, dis 
avowed by them, though claiming the Christian name, and not 
recognized as proper heathen philosophers, who consequently 
could hardly have been thought by him worthy of so much 
attention. There are doubtless in his tract "Against the 
Gnostics " positions asserted contrary to Christian truth, or to 
what was then the common belief of Christians ; as, for in 
stance, he in one place expressly defends polytheism, If and 
in another argues against ascribing diseases to the agency of 
demons : ** but this does not prove that the writer had Chris 
tian heretics particularly in view. In supporting his own 

* Ibid., 6, p. 204. f Ibid., 12, p. 211; 15, p. 213, passim. 

} Ibid., 17, p. 215, seqq. Ibid., 14, p. 212. 

|| Ibid., 15 ; p. 213. Tf Ibid., 9, p. 207. 
** Ibid., 14, pp. 212, 213. 



218 EVIDENCES OF THE 

philosophy, he could not but advance what was opposite to 
Christianity, and to the opinions of Christians. He speaks 
of those holding the doctrines against which he particularly 
wrote, as being, some of them, friends of his own, who had 
adopted those opinions before they became his friends.* If 
any Christian heretics had become friends of Plotinus, a cir 
cumstance very improbable, we can hardly doubt, that in 
controverting their peculiar doctrines, bearing throughout a 
relation to Christianity, he would have distinctly brought into 
view the fact of their being Christians. Porphyry says, that 
those against whom his master wrote were followers of 
Adelphius and Acylinus. Neither of these names, nor any 
that may plausibly be substituted for the latter of the two if 
it be an error of transcription, as has been supposed, is found 
anywhere in the writings of the fathers as that of the founder 
of a Gnostic sect. Nor is the use of any of the books, men 
tioned by Porphyry as current among the sectaries of whom 
he speaks, ascribed by the fathers to any of the Gnostics; 
unless the Revelations of Zoroaster should be supposed an 
exception to this remark, on the ground of the statement of 
Clement, that the secret writings of Zoroaster were used by 
the followers of Prodicus. But the followers of Prodicus 
were not, I conceive, Christians. 

Thus we have seen from what writers our information con 
cerning the history of the Gnostics is to be derived, and how 
their respective authority is to be estimated. If the views 
that have been taken are correct, it is clear that these writers 
are not to be adduced indiscriminately. We cannot gain a 
correct knowledge of the Gnostics from a modern account, in 
which the statements of Epiphanius, Philaster, Augustin, 
and Theodoret are blended, as of equal value, with those of 
Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian, and Origen. 

* Cont. Gnost., 10, p. 209 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 219 

From what has been said, we conclude that there are no 
distinct traces of the existence of Gnostic sects or systems 
during the first century. But, before the middle of the second 
century, the Gnostics became a well-recognized body, their 
most distinguished leaders appeared, and their opinions were 
formed into different systems. From the writers of this cen 
tury and the next, to Origen inclusive, our principal authentic 
information concerning them is to be derived. At the same 
time, it is only with the opinions of the Gnostics of the first 
three centuries concerning the genuineness of the Gospels 
that we are concerned. Those of the Gnostics of a later 
period require no particular investigation, and throw no light 
on the subject. In the latter part of the third century, the 
sect of the Manichseans arose, nearly allied to that of the Gnos 
tics, but presenting a bolder and broader theory of the 
universe, which cast into the shade the system of their prede 
cessors. The names of ancient Gnostic sects, however, still 
remained in the fourth century, sometimes, we may believe, 
voluntarily assumed, and sometimes imposed as names of 
obloquy ; but it may be doubted, whether the tenets of the 
sects originally denoted by those names had not, in many 
cases, undergone great modifications among their reputed 
successors. By the writers of this century, the Gnostics are, 
I think, generally treated of in a manner that implies rather 
their past existence than their actual prevalence. Their 
history became full of mistakes and falsehoods. From the 
third to the fifth century, they were probably dwindling away ; 
and in the fifth century, in the time of Theodore t, they seem, 
with the exception of some remaining Marcionites, nearly to 
have disappeared. Indeed, according to Gregory Naziarizen, 
they had ceased to disturb the Church before the Arian con 
troversy arose, in the beginning of the fourth century. 
Speaking of the period immediately preceding, he says, 3 * 

Oral, xxiii.; Opp. i 414, ed. Morelli. 



220 EVIDENCES OP THE 

" There was a time when we had rest from heresies ; when 
the Simonians and Marcionites, the Valentinians, the Basili- 
dians, and the followers of Cordo, the Cerinthians and Carpo- 
cratians, with all their idle and monstrous doctrines, their 
complete division of the God of All, and opposing of the 
Good God to the Creator, were swallowed up in their own 
ABYSS, and given over to SILENCE." In the last clause, there 
is a play upon words ; Bvdog, the Depth, or the Abyss, being 
the name given by the Valentinians to the Supreme Being, 
who was represented by them as having dwelt from eternity 
with the .2Eon, Silence.* After the quotation just made, 
Gregory speaks of the decline of other heresies extant in the 
third century ; and then says, " After a short interval, a new 
tempest rose against the Church," the Arian heresy. He 
does not represent the old heresies as ever reviving. The 
passage from which I have quoted is undoubtedly rhetorical 
and inexact ; but we can hardly infer less from it than that 
the Gnostic heresy was dwindling away during the fourth 
century. In the Code of Justinian, however, among the 
edicts against heretics,f the names of ancient Gnostic sects 
occur ; but how far those to whom they were applied resem 
bled the Gnostics of the second and third centuries, may 
appear, from what has been before said, to be very ques 
tionable. 

Respecting the number of the Gnostics at the time when 
they were most numerous, we have no means of approximating 
to any precise computation ; but many considerations show 
that it must have .borne but a small proportion to that of the 
catholic Christians. The doctrines of the theosophic Gnostics 
were of such a nature, that they were little likely to be em 
braced except by men of a peculiar turn of mind, somewhat 

* The same play upon words expressive of the same fact is in Theodoret: 
Haeret. Fab., lib. iv. Prsefat. p. 232. f Lib. i. tit. 5. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 221 

accustomed to the philosophical speculations of the age ; 
especially as the character of that age, and the external cir 
cumstances of Christians, did not favor the affectation of 
mysticism, or the pride of holding novel theories, among the 
unlearned. Ptolemy, the Valentinian, in the beginning of his 
letter to Flora, before mentioned, says that u not many have 
a right apprehension of the Law given by Moses," meaning, 
that not many adopted the Gnostic opinions concerning it. 
The followers of Basilides affirmed, according to Irenaeus, that 
" few could understand their mysteries, one only in a thou 
sand, and two in ten thousand ; " and added, " that the Jews 
had ceased to be, but Christians were not as yet." * In the 
Doctrina Orientalist Theodotus, or some other Gnostic, 
referring to a division of men into three classes, made by 
the Valentinians, says, that "the earthy are numerous, the 
rational^ [which class included common Christians] are not 
numerous, and the spiritual [the Gnostics] are rare." 
These statements correspond to the common representation 
of the theosophic Gnostics, that their peculiar doctrines were 
the esoteric doctrines of Christianity, which had been privately 
handed down to those capable of receiving them. 

What has been said applies more particularly to the theo 
sophic Gnostics. As regards the Marcionites, they were 
distinguished for their abstinence from worldly pleasures. 
Marriage was not tolerated among them. Those united by it 
were obliged to separate, on becoming members of their com 
munity. || Their bold doctrines were opposed without dis 
guise to the common belief, and to the plain language of the 
Gospels, and were little likely to be received except by indi 
viduals possessed of more than usual hardihood of mind. In 

* Contra Haeres., lib. i. c. 24, 6, p. 102. f See before, p. 90S note f. 
\ Oi TpvxiKoi. Doctrina Orientalis, 56, p. 9S3 

|| Clement. Al. Stromat., iii. 3, p. 515, seq., 4, p. 522, 5, p. 529, 6, 
p. 531, seqq, Tertullian. advers. Marcion., lib. i. c. 29, pp. 380, 381; lib. iv, 
C. 11, p. 422, c. 23, p. 438, c. 34, p. 450; lib. v. c. 7, p 469, c. 15, p. 480. 



222 EVIDENCES OF THE 

the practice of their self-denying virtues or extravagances, 
they were not encouraged, as others have been, by popular 
admiration. On the contrary, they were objects of odium. 
They had no support but from among themselves. They 
were rejected by the catholic Christians as heretics, and by 
the Heathens they were persecuted as Christians. They 
were very conscientious, but very erroneous believers. Such 
a sect we must suppose to have been small, compared with 
the catholic Christians ; though there is some ground for be 
lieving, that its number was nearly or quite equal to that of 
all the other Gnostics. 

The fact that the different sects of Gnostics insensibly 
melted away at so early a period, and the further fact that 
their doctrines had so little influence upon the belief of sub- 
Bequent Christians, likewise afford proof that they formed only 
a small part of the whole Christian body. The same infer 
ence may be drawn from the manner in which they were 
treated by the early fathers, who manifest no alarm at their 
growth, nor fear of their prevalence, but who write concern 
ing them in a tone of undoubting superiority. It may be 
further observed, that the early fathers, in the passages in 
which they speak of the multitude of Christians who had 
spread through the world, neither except nor include the 
Gnostics, but appear not to have had them in mind, though 
they certainly did not consider them as belonging to the 
Church, or, in other words, to the great body of proper 
Christians. In the passages, likewise, in which they speak of 
the unity of faith in the Church, their modes of expression 
imply that the Gnostics bore but a small proportion to the 
catholic Christians. 

"The Church," says Irenaeus, "though scattered over the 
whole world, carefully preserves the faith derived from the apostles 

and their disciples, as if it were but a single family in one house 

It speaks as with one mouth. For, various as are the languages 
of the world, the essential doctrine is one and the same. No 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 223 

different belie! has been held or taught by the churches founded in 
Germany, nor by those in Spain, nor in Gaul, nor in the East, nor 
in Egypt, nor in Libya, nor by those founded in the middle of the 
world [Judaea]. But as the sun, the creature of God, in every 
part of the world is one and the same ; so the preaching of the 
truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all who are desirous of 
knowing the truth." * 

Language such as this could hardly have been used, if there 
had been a large body of professed Christians who rejected 
the doctrines of the Church. 

Here, then, we conclude what may be called the external 
history of the Gnostics. In the next chapter, we shall speak 
of their moral characteristics, in connection with their imper 
fect knowledge of Christianity. 

Cent. Hares., lib. i. c. 10, 2, p. 49: conf. 1, p. 48. 






CHAPTER IY. 

ON THE MORALS OP THE GNOSTICS, AND THEIR IMPER 
FECT CONCEPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

WHEN, in the second century, after an interval of obscurity 
following the times of the apostles, the catholic Christians 
appear distinctly in view, we find them distinguished, as a 
body, by their abhorrence of the vices of the heathen world, 
by a high and stern morality, by the strictness of the disci 
pline which respective churches exercised over their members, 
by a general tendency to the virtues of the ascetic and the 
martyr, and by Christian faith, the conviction of the reality 
of the unseen and the future controlling the sense of present 
pleasures and sufferings. In this character the Marcionites 
appear to have shared; but what was the state of morals 
among the theosophic Gnostics is a question less easy to 
decide. 

Clement of Alexandria divides the heretics into two 
classes. " They either teach men," he says, " to lead a loose 
life, or, with overstrained severity, they preach continence 
through impiety and enmity ; " * that is, as Clement meant, 
enmity towards the Creator. In his view, the latter class in 
cluded the Marcionites, and some ascetics among the other 
Gnostics, to all of whom the name of Encratites f was given. 



* Stromat., iii. 5, p. 529, seqq.: conf. 3, 4, p. 515, seqq. 

f From the Greek y/cpai%, "practising self-command," "continent. 






GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 225 

They taught that it was not right to marry, and bring children 
into this imperfect and unhappy world; and, regarding the 
body as evil, considered the pleasures of the senses as sinful. 
In consequence, Clement ascribes their principles to enmity 
to the Creator. "Through opposition to the Creator," ho 
says, " Marcion rejected the use of the things of this world."* 
A similar account of the self-denial of the Encratites, and of 
its cause, is given by Irenaeus. f To the strict morals of the 
Marcionites, Tertullian bears indirect but decisive testimony. 
He is speaking of their doctrine, that while the Creator was 
just, and inflicted punishment, the Supreme God, their God, 
was good, and not to be feared. " Come now," he says, with 
his usual force of expression, though the sentiment is incorrect, 
"you who do not fear God, because he is good, why do you 
not indulge in every lust, the chief gratification of life, as far 
as I know, to all who do not fear God ? Why not frequent 
the customary pleasures of the raging circus, the savage arena, 
and the lascivious theatre ? Why, in times of persecution, do 
you not at once take the proffered censer,J and save your 
life by denying your faith ? Far be it from me ! you say ; 
* far be it from me ! You fear to offend, then, and thus you 
prove that you fear Him who forbids the offence." Con 
formably to this, Origen speaks of the good morals of some of 
the heretics, as one means of drawing men over to their doc 
trines ; and he states hypothetically the case of such a heretic, 
" either a Marcionite," he says, " or a disciple of Valentinus, 
or of any other sect." || 

But generally, the accounts of the morals of the theosophio 
Gnostics are very unfavorable. According to the statements 



* Stromat, iii. 4, p. 522. 
t Cont. Haires., lib. i. c. 28, 1, pp. 106, 107. 

J The censer was proffered, that the person accused of Christianity might 
offer incense to some idol, and thus refute the charge. 
Advers. Marcion., lib. i. c. 27, pp. 379, 380. 
Homil. in EzechieL, vii. 3; Opp. iii. 382. 
15 



226 EVIDENCES OF THE 

of Irenaeus, the Valentinians, affirming themselves to be dis 
tinguished from others by their spiritual nature, which made 
a part of their original conformation, maintained that it was 
impossible they should not be saved, whatever they might 
do. They regarded the spiritual principle identified with 
them as incapable of pollution ; and compared themselves to 
gold, which receives no injury from defilement. Hence the 
perfect among them, he affirms, practised without fear all that 
is forbidden. They ate idol-sacrifices, and celebrated the 
heathen festivals ; some of them did not abstain from the 
shows of gladiators and the fights with wild beasts, " spec 
tacles," says Irenaeus, with the new feeling of a Christian con 
cerning them, " hated by God and men ; " and others were 
grossly licentious in their lives, seducing and corrupting 
women, by teaching them their principles.* 

The erroneous doctrine, mentioned by Irenaeus, concerning 
their spiritual nature, appears, in its essential features, to 
have been common to the Valentinians generally, and also 
to the other theosophic Gnostics,! but not the moral offences 
with which he charges them as its consequence, as may 
appear in part from the limiting words, " some" and " others," 
and " the perfect among them " (used perhaps ironically), 
which he introduces into his account. Of the Valentinians 
and other theosophic Gnostics, it is to be recollected, on the 
one hand, that they were Christians, and, on the other, that 
they were not rational Christians. As a sect, they enter 
tained very erroneous views of our religion, and probably 
many of them had been very ill informed concerning it. 
Repelled, as they were, from the great body of believers, 
there is no reason to doubt that there were among them 
those whom the power of Christianity was not sufficient to 



* Cont. Haeres., lib. i. c. 6, p. 28, seqq. 

1 In addition to wl at has been quoted from Irenaeus, see Clement. AL 
Stromat., ii. 3, pp. 433 434, 20, p. 489; v. 1, p. 645. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 227 

withdraw from the evil influences of the pagan world, by 
which they were surrounded ; whose ties to it were far from 
being altogether broken ; who still remained entangled among 
its corruptions. With some softening, perhaps, of such 
charges as those of Irenseus, we have no ground for ques- 
i ion ing their applicability to a portion of the theosophic 
Gnostics ; but, at the same time, we have evidence, to which 
we will now advert, that they were true only of a portion. 

Clement of Alexandria, discoursing on self-restraint, quotes, 
almost as an authority, a passage from Valentinus. It begins 
thus : " There is One who is good, who has openly manifested 
himself through his Son ; and through him alone can the heart 
be made pure, every evil spirit being driven out of it." Val 
entinus compares the heart polluted by the indwelling of evil 
spirits to a caravansary injured and defiled by the strangers 
who lodge in it. " But," he says, " when the only good 
Father takes charge of it, it is made holy and enlightened ; 
and thus he who has such a heart is blessed, for he shall see 
God" * Tatian, who was distinguished for his asceticism, was, 
says Clement, of the school of Valentinus.f Heracleon, a 
distinguished Valentinian, is quoted by Clement, as teaching 
that the profession of faith required by Christ of his follow 
ers is not that made in words only, but that " made by works 
answering to faith in him." $ And Ptolemy, who remodelled 
the system of his master, taught that the fasting enjoined by 
our Saviour was not bodily abstinence, but abstinence from 
all sin. 

Basilides and his followers formed another branch of the 



* Stromat, ii. 20, pp 488, 489. Valentinus, it will be perceived, alludes 
to the words of Christ, " Blessed are the pure in heart ; for they shall see 
God." The whole passage, as Clement remarks, does not seem easily recon 
cilable with the doctrine, that the spiritual are so by natural constitution, and 
are, in consequence, assured of salvation. 

t Ibid., iii. 13, p. 653. J Ibid., iv. 9, p. 595. 

Epist. ad Floram ; apud Irensei Opp. p. 360 



228 EVIDENCES OF THE 

theosophic Gnostics, nearly allied to the V^lentinians ; and 
Irenasus brings similar charges of immorality against them.* 
But Clement begins the third book of his Stromata with 
quoting two passages, one from Basilides, and the other from 
his son Isidore ; and then proceeds to say, " I have adduced 
these words for the reproof of those Basilidians who live not 
as they ought, as if through their perfectness they were free 
to sin, or as if, though they should now sin, they would be 
saved by nature through their innate election ; for the found 
ers cf their doctrines give them no license so to act." | Thus 
Clement, writing with less prejudice, corrects, and at the 
same time confirms in part, the accounts of Irenacus. 

But against certain sects and individuals Clement himself 
brings the gravest charges of immorality, so deep-seated as 
thoroughly to corrupt their principles. "I have fallen in 
with a sect," he says, " whose leader affirmed that we must 
fight with pleasure by the use of pleasure ; this genuine 
Gnostic, for he called himself a Gnostic, thus deserting to 
pleasure under the pretence of warring against it."$ He 
then mentions others, who perverted (one can hardly think 
seriously) the ascetic maxim, " that the body must be abused," 
and employed it to justify themselves in the most licentious 
indulgences. In another place, he speaks of an individual 
named Prodicus, and of his followers. " They affirm," says 
Clement, " that by nature they are sons of the First God ; 
that, using the privilege of their birth and freedom, they live 
as they choose, and that they choose to live in pleasure. 
They think that they are under no control, as lords of the 
Sabbath, and born superior to every other race, royal chil 
dren ; for a king, they say, is circumscribed by no law." || 

* Cont. Hjeres., lib. i. c. 24, 5, p. 102, c. 28, 2, p. 107. 
t Stromat, iii. 1, p. 510. } Ibid., ii. 20, p. 490. 

Ibid., ii. 20, pp. 490, 491: conf. iii. 4, pp. 522, 523. 
|| Ibid., iii. 4, p. 525. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 229 

They taught that there was no obligation to pray.* Speak 
ing of sectaries of a like kind, Clement also says, that there 
were " some who called intercourse with common women a 
mystical communion ; doing outrage to the name." " They 
consecrate such licentiousness," he says, "and think that it 
conducts them to the kingdom of God."t The charge of 
teaching that gross licentiousness was a necessary means 
of liberating the soul from its entanglement in matter, 
and consequently was a religious duty, is likewise brought 
by Irenaeus against the Carpocratians, a sect to be hereafter 
mentioned. 

Clement also speaks of individuals, called Antitacta 
(Opponents), whom he describes as maintaining that "the 
God of all is our Father by nature, and that all which he 
made is good ; but that one of those produced by him sowed 
tares, and gave birth to evils, in which he involved us, oppos 
ing us to the Father ; whence, to avenge the Father, we, 
they say, oppose him, doing contrary to his will. Since, 
therefore, he said, Thou shalt not commit adultery, we 
commit adultery to break his command." t The giver of the 
law, it seems, was, in their view, the Devil. Ptolemy, the 
Valentinian, likewise speaks of some who referred the origin 
of the Jewish Law to the Devil ; but he says that they also 
ascribed to him the creation of the world ; which does not 
appear to have been true of the persons mentioned by Clem 
ent. These, it would seem, pretended to be in some sort 
Christians ; for Clement, in reasoning against them, im 
plies that they affirmed, that " the Saviour only was to be 
obeyed ; " || the comparison evidently being between him and 
the giver of the Law. 

There is a passage of the later Platonist, Porphyry, de- 



Stromat., vii. 7, p. 854. f Ibid., iii. 4, pp. 523, 524. 

\ Ibid., iii. 4, pp. 626, 527. Epist. ad Floram, pp. 357, 358. 

|| Stromat, iii. 4 p. 527 



230 EVIDENCES OP THE 

scriptive of individuals resembling some of those spoken of 
by Clement, in their pretensions and in their licentious 
principles. It is in his work in which he defends the Pytha 
gorean doctrine of abstinence from animal food. " The 
opinion," he says, " that one yielding to the affections of the 
senses can employ his powers about the objects of intellect, 
has been the ruin of many of the barbarians;" by which term 
he means those whose religion and philosophy were not 
Grecian. " They have arrogantly," he continues, " indulged 
in every form of pleasure, saying that he who is conversant 
with other things may grant such license to the irrational 
part of his nature." They compared themselves to the ocean, 
which is undefiled by the pollutions that rivers are con 
tinually carrying into it. " All things," they said, " must be 
subjected to us. A small body of water is easily made turbid 
by any impurity ; and so it is in regard to food (the particular 
subject of discussion) with men of little minds. But, where 
there is a depth of power, men receive all things, and are 
defiled by nothing." " Thus deceiving themselves," says 
Porphyry, " they act conformably to their error ; and, instead 
of enjoying liberty, throw themselves into a gulf of misery 
in which they perish."* 

The individuals spoken of by Porphyry were, it appears, 
ready to admit that men of little minds were corrupted by 
sensual indulgences. So the theosophic Gnostics, according 



* De Abstinentia ab Animalibus necandis, lib. i. 42. It may be ob- 
foprved, that this work is addressed to an acquaintance, who had fallen away 
ft om the Pythagorean doctrine, and that, in appealing to him, Porphyry has 
the following allusion to Christians: " I would not intimate, that your nature 
is inferior to that of some ignorant persons, who, embracing rules of conduct 
contrary to those of their former life, submit to be cut limb from limb 
(ro^of re popiuv VTrofievovot) ; and abhor, more than human flesh, certain 
kinds of animal food in which before they indulged" (lib. i. 2). He refers, 
I suppose, to the abstinence of Christians from the flesh of idol-sacrifices, 
and the other kinds of food prohibited by the council at Jerusalem (Acts xv 
28, 29). 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 231 

to Irenaeus, affirmed, that, while they were altogether secure 
of salvation as being naturally spiritual, common Christians, 
who were not so, must attain salvation through good works 
and a simple faith, simple faith, in contradistinction to that 
perfect knowledge of spiritual things which they themselves 



There can be no doubt, I think, that the doctrine, held 
by the theosophic Gnostics, concerning the spiritual and in 
corruptible nature of a favored portion of mankind, was 
abused by certain individuals, and connected with the gross 
est immorality, as is represented by Clement and Porphyry. 
But I do not conceive that the individuals of whom they 
speak were Christian heretics. The supposition of any seri 
ous or intelligent belief of the divine mission of Christ is 
wholly inconsistent with the extreme licentiousness of their 
principles and practice. So far as they were at all connected 
with Christianity, we may suppose that they had learnt some 
thing concerning it, perhaps through the medium of the Gnos 
tics ; and that such was the character of their minds, that they 
were very ready to break through their old restraints, to 
treat with contempt the Pagan mythology, to regard them 
selves as specially illuminated, and to form their crude 
conceptions into principles that might sanction their licentious 
ness, as the privilege of their new liberty and their spiritual 
nature. Sects and individuals of this class may be denom 
inated pseudo- Christian ; a name to be understood as distin 
guishing them, on the one hand, from the Christian heretics, 
and, on the other, from those heathen Gnostics on whom the 
influence of Christianity, if any, was more remote. Each of 
the three classes, however, probably passed into that nearest 
to it by insensible gradations. Of the pseudo-Christian sects 
I shall speak in the next chapter ; and will only here ob 
serve, that, taking the name heathen, not in the distinguishing 

* Cont. Hseres., lib. i. c. 6, 2, p. 29, 4, p. 31. 



232 EVIDENCES OF THE 

sense just mentioned, but in the extent of its meaning, these 
pseudo-Christians may properly be called Heathens. 

As regards the theosophic Gnostics, we have seen that a 
portion of them were ascetics, as well as the Marcionites; 
and that immorality was far from being taught or counte 
nanced by the more distinguished of their number. But 
many of them, a portion so large as, in the minds of some 
writers, to give, whether fairly or not, a character to the 
whole, were but partially separated from the heathen world. 
They joined in its idol-sacrifices, and shared in its licentious 
ness. The charges brought against them by Irenaeus are 
confirmed, as we have seen, by Clement, as regards one of 
the two classes into which he divides the heretics. They 
correspond to the representations of Tertullian. And, at 
a still earlier period, Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with 
Trypho, introduces Trypho as saying, that "he had learnt 
that many of those who said that they professed Jesus, and 
who were called Christians, ate idol-sacrifices," that is, joined 
in the rites of Pagan worship, " saying that they were nothing 
hurt by it." * They justified themselves in their practices by 
doctrines common to the theosophic Gnostics, which admitted 
of an easy perversion to the purpose. It is probable, how 
ever, that some of them laid little or no stress on the incor 
ruptibility of their spiritual nature; but merely said, as 
Irenaeus states in ons passage, that " God did not care much 
for those things." f 

But any approach to idolatry is so contrary to the funda 
mental doctrine of our religion, and the grosser sensual vices 
stand in such manifest opposition to the spirituality required 
by it, and to its express prohibitions, that they would seem to 
be among the last offences that one believing himself a Chris- 



* Dial, cam Tryph., p. 207. 

t . . . . "non valde hac curare dicentes Deum." Lib. i. c. 28, 2, 
p. 107. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 233 

tian might imagine to be countenanced or permitted by 
Christianity. The case of those Gnostics we have been con 
sidering presents, therefore, a remarkable phenomenon. But 
it is one which may be explained, and its existence, conse 
quently, be confirmed, by considerations drawn from the ante 
cedent history of Christianity, and the state of the ancient 
world. To these we will now attend. 

From the New Testament we learn how imperfectly some 
of the first Gentile converts comprehended the undivided 
worship to be paid to the Supreme Being, and the purity of 
life which Christianity requires. They, like the looser Gnos 
tics of later times, were guilty of licentiousness and of joining 
in idolatrous rites. " Some," says St. Paul to the Corin 
thians, " being accustomed to the idol, eat even till now as of 
an idol-sacrifice ; " * and he thus exhorts them, referring to 
the ancient Israelites : " Be not ye idolaters, as were some 
of them, as is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, 
and rose up to sport. Nor let us commit fornication, as did 
some of them, of whom three and twenty thousand fell in one 
day." f The latter exhortation seems to have been thus inti 
mately connected with the former, because debauchery was so 
common a part, or an accompaniment, of the religious festi 
vals and rites of the Heathens. As regards idol-sacrifices, it 
appears that some of the Corinthians thought, that, as " an 
idol was nothing in the world," they might, therefore, " sit at 
meat in an idol s temple ; " that is, that they might join their 
former heathen associates in being present at a sacrifice there 
offered, and at the entertainment following it, when those 
portions of the victim which belonged to the offerer were 
eaten, that they might, as St. Paul expresses it, "have 

* 1 Cor. viii. 7. I read avvrjOeip, not (as in the Received Text) aweidqaet. 
But which is the true reading is doubtful, and, to the present purpose, unim 
portant. 

t 1 Cor. x. 7. 8, 



234 EVIDENCES OF THE 

communion with demons," and " partake both of the Lord s 
table and the table of demons." * 

The early history of Christianity affords another remarkable 
indication of such errors as have been mentioned existing 
among its converts. When it was determined by the apos 
tles and elders at Jerusalem to admit the Gentile converts as 
Christians to their communion, without their being previously 
circumcised, that is, without their first professing themselves 
proselytes to Judaism, they were specially enjoined to abstain 
from idol-sacrifices and from fornication. "It has seemed 
good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to impose upon you no 
greater burden than these necessary things : To abstain from 
idol-sacrifices, and from the eating of blood and of things 
strangled, and from fornication." f Nothing at first view 
may strike a modern reader more strangely than that the 
eating of idol-sacrifices and unchastity should be coupled in 
the same prohibition with actions morally indifferent in their 
nature. But I have referred to this decree (as it has been 
called), because it affords much light on the state of the early 
Christian community, in reference to the present subject. 
We will attend to both parts of it, as their connection re 
quires, though only that relating to idolatry and licentious 
ness is to our immediate purpose. 

To explain it, then, two considerations are to be attended 
to, the prejudices of the Jewish, and the erroneous senti 
ments and habits of the Gentile, converts. The result of 
the deliberations of the council was "after much discus 
sion," $ in which those who opposed the admission of the 
Gentile converts into the Church, unless they first became 
proselytes to Judaism and assumed the observance of the 
whole Jewish Law, had, we may presume, particularly 
urged against them the commission of the acts specially 



See 1 Cor. viii. 4, 10; x. 20, 21. f Acts xv. 28, 

Acts xv. 7. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 235 

prohibited. Why the eating of blood and of things stran 
gled should have given strong offence to those who were 
zealous for the Law may appear from the fact, that the 
command to abstain from them is expressly extended in the 
Law to strangers sojourning among the Israelites.* It is 
also represented in Genesis as a universal precept, given by 
God to Noah and his descendants ; f and may, therefore, have 
been regarded, even by many of those Jews who were most 
liberally disposed, as binding upon all men. It is next to be 
remarked, that many of the Gentile converts, as it appears, 
had no correct moral feeling of the offence, either of joining a 
feast in honor of an idol, or of unchastity. At such feasts 
they had been accustomed to be present ; and seeing that they 
knew, as the Corinthians boasted, " that an idol was nothing 
in the world," $ they saw no harm to themselves or others in 
continuing to enjoy the gratification. As for simple unchas 
tity, it had not been considered by the generality of Heathens 
as a matter of reproach, except in the female sex. Amid the 
prevalence of more odious vices, and the general disrespect 
for woman, it was lightly thought of by the wisest and best 
among them, and was either permitted by their moralists and 
philosophers, or scarcely came within their view as any thing 
to be reprehended. Thus, while, on the one hand, the strong 
conscientious prejudices of probably far the greater part of 
the Jewish believers required the prohibition of eating " flesh 
with the life thereof, which is its blood ; " so, on the other 
hand, the imperfect notions of religion and morality which 

* Lev. xvii. 10-13. t Gen. ix. 4. 

J St. Paul (1 Cor. viii. 1, seqq.) refers to such a boast ironically, with 
reference to the misapplication which the Corinthians had made of their 
knowledge: "Concerning idol-sacrifices we know, for we all have knowl 
edge; knowledge puffs up, but love edifies; he who thinks he knows some 
thing knows nothing yet as it ought to be known; but he who loves God has 
been taught by him, concerning the eating of idol-sacrifices, then, we 
know that an idol is nothing in the world, and there is no other God but 
one." Gen. ix. 4 



236 EVIDENCES OP THE 

the Gentile converts brought with them made it necessary to 
insist particularly on the graver offences specified, and ex 
plicitly to announce that they were forbidden by Christianity. 
But the same influences that corrupted the imperfect faith of 
some of the earliest Gentile converts continued to operate in 
the second century on the imperfect faith of many of the 
theosophic Gnostics ; nor is there, as some have suggested, 
any reason to regard those charges as unjust or improbable, 
when made against a considerable portion of their number, 
which we know to be true as respects a portion of the pro 
fessed converts of the apostolic age. 

4 

But the influence of heathen principles and practice was 
not the only source of moral error. Even Christian truths, 
viewed in relation to the circumstances of the times, were 
liable to be grossly misrepresented and abused ; and some 
times the strong words in which they are expressed by St. 
Paul were so perverted as to make them contradict the whole 
tenor of his doctrine. " Where the spirit of the Lord is, 
there is liberty," * said the apostle, in one of the noblest 
declarations ever uttered. " The creation itself will be deliv 
ered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty 
of the sons of God." f " Stand fast in the liberty with which 
Christ has made you free." $ The liberty of which St. Paul 
speaks was that enlargement of mind produced by Christian 
ity, through new conceptions of duty and of God; liberty 
from the narrow and bitter prejudices of the Jews, and from 
the burdensome ritual of their Law, which, according to a 
remarkable expression of St. Peter, was " a yoke that neither 
they nor their fathers had been able to bear ;" and liberty, 
on the other hand, from heathen superstition, its sanctified 
follies, its idle terrors, its abominable rites, and its slavery to 



2 Cor. iii. 17. f Rom. viii. 21. 

Gal. v. 1. Acts xv. 10. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 237 

gods whose characters were only a source of moral pollution ; 
that system from which Lucretius thought atheism a happy 
deliverance : 

" Humana ante oculos foede quom vita jaceret 
In terris oppressa gravi sub religione." 

The liberty of which the apostle spoke was freedom from 
all those hard and degrading observances and supposititious 
duties, " that servitude to the weak and beggarly principles 
of the world," * through which men have sought the favor of 
the being or beings whom they have worshipped, in the neg 
lect of moral goodness. It was freedom from " that; spirit of 
bondage and fear " with which the Jews regarded God, and 
the reception of the Christian spirit, which " bears witness to 
our spirits that we are children of God." f In a word, it was 
freedom from superstition and sin. 

This state of mind, this liberty, was to be attained through 
faith, by becoming a Christian ; that is, through the hearty and 
practical reception of Christian truth. The favor of God was 
not, as the unbelieving Jews maintained, to be secured by 
" the works of the Law ; " that is, by the observance of the 
Jewish Law, according to their notions of what constituted 
its observance, namely, a strict regard to all its peculiar 
requirements and religious rites. Such observance was so 
far from being the duty of a Christian, as some of the Jewish 
believers maintained, that the new convert would wholly 
mistake the character of his religion, if he suffered himself to 
be persuaded that it was an essential means of obtaining 
God s favor.ij: It would be seeking " for completion in the 
flesh, after having begun in the spirit." ** I tell you," says 
the apostle, " ye who seek for righteousness by the Law have 
done with Christ ; ye have fallen away from the dispensation 



Gal. iv. 3, 9. f Rom. viii. 14, 15. 

See the Epistle to the Galatians. Gal. iii. 3. 



238 EVIDENCES OF THE 

of favor." * To have faith, to be a Christian, was all that 
was required ; and " the works of the Law," in the sense in 
which that term was used by the unbelieving Jews and 
bigoted Jewish converts, were not required. 

But, further than this, the blessings which believers enjoyed 
were not conferred in consequence of any previous merit 
of theirs, of any works which they had performed, nor of any 
claim upon God, such as the Jews believed themselves to 
have established by keeping their Law. They were his free 
gift to a world lying in sin. They were offered equally to 
the tax-gatherer and to the harlot, and to him who was, or 
fancied himself, righteous. It was not the goodness of men 
which had entitled them to this new dispensation of favor : it 
was their sinfulness and misery which had called for this 
interposition of mercy ; " and now to him," says the apostle, 
" performing no works " (that is, to him who had performed 
no works), "but having faith in God, who receives the sinner 
to his favor, his faith is accounted righteousness." f His sins 
were forgiven upon his becoming a Christian; for the first 
duty of a Christian was reformation, and reformation is the 
only ground of the forgiveness of sin. 

Such were the truths maintained by St. Paul. But the 
bold, brief, unlimited, unguarded language, in which they 
were occasionally expressed by him, admitted of being misin 
terpreted in a manner contradictory to the whole spirit of his 
teaching, and to the fundamental requirements of Christianity. 
We perceive that he sometimes apprehended that his doctrine 
might be so perverted. " Brethren," he says to the Galatians, 
"ye have been called to liberty, only use not your liberty 
as a pretence for the flesh ; " that is, as a pretence for the 
indulgence of sinful appetites and passions. $ St. Peter, like- 



* Gal. v. 4. t Rom. iv. 5. 

J Gal. v. 13 : comp. ver. 19-21, where the apostle enumerates the work* 
f the flesh. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 239 

wise, exhorts that Christians should conduct themselves as 
" free, and not using their freedom as a cloak for wickedness, 
but as servants of God." * After strongly stating that the 
pardon of sin was tendered to all by Christianity, St. Paul 
asks, with reference probably both to the misrepresentations 
of the unbelieving Jews, and the loose notions of some Chris 
tian converts, " What then shall we say ? Shall we con 
tinue in sin that the favor may superabound ? " f and 
earnestly rejects this false inference. How St. Paul s doc 
trine concerning " works " was abused, we learn from the 
Epistle ascribed to St. James. $ It is evident that there were 
those who thought that to become a Christian, in a loose 
sense of the word, was all that was required ; who had false 
notions of Christian liberty and of the pardon of sin ; and who 
comprehended the moral duties among the works from which 
their faith absolved them. 

Great changes in the religious opinions and sentiments ot 
men can hardly be effected without producing also extrava 
gances of speculation, moral irregularities, and scepticism. 
The belief of the larger part of men has rested, and must 
ever rest, on authority. They are but sharers in the common 
belief of the community or sect to which they belong ; 
though this belief, and especially its practical effects, may be 
greatly modified in different individuals by personal qualities, 
good or bad. The knowledge of the wisest man is but the 
result of the action of his mind on the accumulated wis 
dom and judgments of those who have preceded him, 
and on what he believes, from testimony, to have been the 
experience of the past. There are no independent thinkers, 
in the absolute sense of the words. Independent and judi 
cious thinkers, in the more popular sense, are rare. In our 
intellectual as well as our moral nature, we are parts of each 

1 Pet. ii. 16. f Rom. vi. 1. J James ii. 14, seqq. 



240 EVIDENCES OP THE 

other, and cannot, without a severe struggle, release ourselves 
from the traditionary opinions of those with whom we are 
connected. One generation inculcates its faith on another; 
and this is received and incorporated into the mind at a 
period too early for examination or doubt, and is thus perpet 
uated from age to age. When, therefore, the authority of 
the past gives way, the minds of many are liable to be greatly 
unsettled. To some, the rejection of errors that have been 
long maintained seems equivalent to the denial of the best 
established truths ; for the grounds of their belief in the one 
and the other are the same, both having been admitted by 
them on authority.* They either obstinately defend all they 
have been taught, or, through a tendency to scepticism, impa 
tience of doubt, and an inability to estimate moral evidence, 
and consequently to discriminate what may be proved true, 
and what false, reject the whole together. Others, again, 
join at once in the new movement ; and, feeling themselves 
released from the ordinary restraints of speculation, confident, 
like the Corinthians, that they have knowledge, and elated 
by their victory over what wiser men have reverenced, pro- 

* However obvious is the general truth of the remarks above made, it 
may be thought by some that they are not applicable to the revolution of 
opinion produced by Christianity ; but that, on the contrary, the folly of the 
pagan religions was such, that they could have had no strong hold on the 
belief of men through the influence of authority. But, setting aside all other 
evidence, the proper fanaticism displayed by the Pagans in their contest 
with Christianity would alone be sufficient to disprove the error. 

Some time after writing what is in the text, I was struck by accidentally 
meeting with the following passage of Lactantius, which I had read long 
before, but had forgotten. It speaks of the state of things when Christianity 
had been preached for two centuries and a half. After remarking on the 
pagan religions, Lactantius says: "These are the religions which, handed 
down to them from their ancestors, they persevere in most obstinately main 
taining and defending. Nor do they consider of what character they are ; 
but are confident that they are good and true, because they have been trans 
mitted from the ancients. So great is the authority of antiquity, that to 
inquire into it is pronounced impiety. It is trusted to everywhere with the 
same confidence as is felt in ascertained truth " (Institut, lib. ii. 6). 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 241 

mulgate, often in a new dialect, their crude and inconsequent 
doctrines, perhaps as the anticipated wisdom of a coming 
age. 

In the breaking-up of old opinions, the true and only 
appeal is to reason. But the process is difficult, and there 
are not many capable of carrying it through. When we 
personify abstract reason, we must acknowledge that her 
decisions are final. But in a large portion of individual 
minds the actual power of reasoning is small ; or rather, if 
we take into view the whole human race, as spread over the 
earth, we shall perceive that there is a very large majority in 
whom the power of determining by themselves any contro 
versy concerning the higher objects of thought cannot be said 
to exist. In revolutions of religious opinion, therefore, it has 
been common to substitute for reason an imaginary faculty, 
an intuitive perception of the highest truths. Men claim 
to know that their opinions are true, on the ground that they 
directly perceive them to be true without the intervention of 
reasoning. This claim to inward illumination, to an imme 
diate revelation to individual men, has commonly, as in the 
case of the Gnostics, been asserted by particular sects as 
their peculiar privilege ; but in our times the privilege 
has been extended, with magnificent absurdity, to the whole 
human race. 

One other fact may be remarked. In all reforms, it is 
common for men to discern the truth imperfectly, under one 
aspect alone ; to mistake general for unlimited propositions ; 
and to affirm what is true in a certain sense, and with certain 
modifications, as universally true. They seize, perhaps, on 
some doctrine recommended to them by its being opposite to 
an old error ; and without defining it in their own minds, or 
reconciling it with admitted truths, or viewing it in its extent 
and relations, insist on its absolute, unqualified reception. 

But, in the interregnum and partial anarchy that take 
place between the overthrow of one system and the establish- 

16 



242 EVIDENCES OF THE 

merit of another, moral disorders commonly break out. The 
passions throw off the^r restraints, as well as the understand 
ing. Men s notions of duty change with their religious be 
lief; and they regard as indifferent actions which they before 
thought obligatory or criminal, or they even ascribe to the 
same actions an opposite moral character. The limits of 
right and wrong are for a time obscured; and there are 
those who will take advantage of this uncertainty to trans 
gress. The reception of the new system constitutes a 
distinction which, in the minds of some, supersedes the 
necessity and merit of common virtues. There is a wild 
growth of error ; and all religious errors, being mistakes con 
cerning the nature, relations, and duties of man, tend to moral 
evil. Thus all great and apparently sudden revolutions of 
religious opinion, which are commonly, in some sense, re 
forms, as being a re-action against abuses and errors, are 
accompanied in their turn by new errors and excesses. 

It was, I conceive, in contemplation of the demoralizing 
effects commonly attending sudden changes of religious opin 
ion, however beneficial in their final or immediate result, that 
our Saviour, at the commencement of his ministry, thus 
addressed his hearers : " Think not that I have come to 
annul the Law or the Prophets : I have not come to annul, 
but to perfect. For I tell you in truth, not till heaven and 
earth pass away shall the smallest letter or stroke pass away 
from the Law; no, not till all things are ended."* His 
meaning was, Think not that I have come to set aside 
those religious and moral principles, the true Law of God, 
which your faith inculcates. I have come to explain them 
more fully, and to enforce them more solemnly. They re 
main for ever unchangeable. And thus he goes on to say : 
"Whoever shall break one of these least commandments 
"that is, one of the least of those which he was about to give] 

* Matt. v. 17, 18. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 243 

ghall be least in the kingdom of heaven. . . . For, unless 
your goodness exceed that of the teachers of the Law and the 
Pharisees, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." * 

It was among the Gentile converts that the Gnostics 
appeared ; and we shall perceive, that even under the teach 
ing of St. Paul, and those associated with him, the notions 
of many of the Gentile converts concerning our religion 
must have been imperfect and erroneous, when we consider 
what opportunities they enjoyed for attaining a knowledge 
of it, for correcting their former prejudices, and for deter 
mining its bearing upon the mass of their old conceptions 
and opinions. They had not the help of the New Testa 
ment. With the exception of his own Epistles, the oral 
teaching of St. Paul and his associates was probably the main 
source of instruction to a majority of his converts. But 
the apostle, earnest to spread as widely as possible a knowl 
edge of Christ, and driven hither and thither by persecution, 
often rested but a short time in the places which he visited. 
Many, we may believe, after witnessing his miraculous 
power, and hearing from him the fundamental facts and 
doctrines of Christianity, professed themselves converts, 
though they had only a brief opportunity of listening to his 
expositions of truth and duty. Some doubtless embraced 
the religion under a temporary excitement of feeling, without 
a just notion of its character, or a correct sense of the obli 
gations it imposed. We cannot question, that, by the apostle 
as well as by our Saviour, the seed was often scattered where 
it sprung up to be choked by weeds. He would encourage 
every motion toward good. He would not repel any one 
who professed a desire to turn from sin to righteousness, 
however crude and unformed were his conceptions of the 
new religion. He would receive as a disciple whoever re- 

* Matt. v. 19, 20. 



244 EVIDENCES OP THE 

garded it with favor. He would act in the spirit of the 
words of his Master, " Forbid him not ; for he that is not 
against you is for you." 

Such being the state of things, great errors, schisms, oppos 
ing parties, and moral irregularities, existed, in consequence, 
among the earliest Gentile converts. They are often referred 
to in the Epistles of St. Paul. Into what gross misconcep 
tions of Christianity individuals who professed themselves 
converts to it might fall, may appear from the fact, that some 
among the Corinthians denied its fundamental doctrine of a 
future life. " How say some among you," asks the apostle, 
" that there is no resurrection of the dead ? " * The ten 
dency to these evils was aggravated by a spirit of opposition 
to St. Paul. This originated among the bigoted Jews, 
zealous for the observance of the Levitical Law by the Gen 
tile converts ; and, there can be little doubt, spread from 
them to others. In his second Epistle to the Corinthians, 
there is much referring to opponents who spoke of him dis 
respectfully and reproachfully. Thus, under the operation 
of the various circumstances that we have adverted to, indi 
viduals were led to form systems for themselves, different 
from the religion taught by the apostles; and a way was 
opened for speculations as extravagant as those of the Gnos 
tics, for moral principles as loose as were those of some of 
their number, and for the existence of sects which, deriving 
their origin from the preaching of Christianity, had yet no 
title to the Christian name. 

But we must also recollect, that a knowledge of Chris 
tianity was spread by others than the apostles, and their 
immediate associates, and those whose teaching they sanc 
tioned. Of such as were or thought themselves converts, 
many would be zealous to communicate the new doctrine to 

* 1 Cor. xv. 12. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 245 

others. From them it would often pass, more or less muti 
lated by their ignorance, or adulterated by their prejudices, 
or blended with their former errors. Of such teachers from 
among the Jewish converts, who insisted on the observance 
of the Levitical Law, we have abundant evidence in St. Paul s 
Epistles. Beside them, we cannot doubt that there were, 
from the body of Gentile Christians, others with very differ 
ent conceptions. It is easy to conceive what crude and false 
notions of our religion may thus have been spread among its 
remoter and less-informed professors, and how far it may 
have been divested of that solemn authority with which it 
impressed the mind of an intelligent believer. 

Great errors might be consistent with honest zeal in those 
who thus communicated their imperfect conceptions of Chris 
tianity. But there also appeared among Christians pretended 
teachers of our religion, to whom honest zeal cannot be 
ascribed. They are spoken of by St. Paul, in writing to the 
Corinthians, as " false apostles, fraudulent workmen, trans 
forming themselves into apostles of Christ," but in truth 
" ministers of Satan." * They are described by him as " the 
many who adulterate, for the sake of gain, the doctrine of 
God." f The heathen sophists taught for money ; and, 
undoubtedly, often sought to distinguish themselves, for the 
sake of procuring hearers, by novel, paradoxical, and licen 
tious opinions. When Christianity opened a wholly new 
field for speculation, producing a strong excitement and 
action of mind wherever preached, men of a similar character 
would be ready to take advantage of this state of things. 
Thus we find that among the Corinthians there soon appeared 
false teachers, whose object was to procure a maintenance, 
and who defrauded and oppressed their disciples. It is in 
reference to them, or to some one of their number, that St. 

* 2 Cor. xi. 13, 15. t Ibid., ii. 17. 



246 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Paul says, " Ye bear it patiently, if a man make slaves of 
you, if he devour you, if he take your property, if he treat 
you insolently, if he strike you on the face. I speak it with 
shanie ; for it is as if we ourselves suffered." * Some, prob 
ably most or all, of these men, it appears, were Jews ; for, 
speaking of his opponents, he says, " Are they Hebrews ? 
So am I ; " t an( i these Jews might have learned from their 
own Rabbis to receive fees from their disciples. With the 
conduct of such false teachers St. Paul contrasts his own in 
taking nothing from the Corinthians ; partly because he 
would " afford no pretence to those who wished for a pre 
tence." $ And, what is remarkable, the very circumstance 
of his preaching gratuitously was made use of by his oppo 
nents to depreciate his character ; and he found himself 
called upon to defend his conduct in this respect. " Have I," 
he says indignantly, "humbling myself that you might be 
exalted, done wrong in preaching to you the gospel of God 
gratuitously ? " The Corinthians were so familiar with the 
custom of paying the highest fees to those professed teachers 
of wisdom who were in the most repute, that some of them 
were disposed to regard as of little value a teacher who did 
not demand money for his instructions. 

He alludes to the subject again, late in life, in his Epistle 
to Titus. "There are many," he says, "especially among 
those of the circumcision, who are disorderly, vain talkers, 
deluding men s minds, whose mouths must be stopped, who 
subvert whole families, teaching what should not be taught 
for the sake of shameful gain." || And he also refers to them 
in his first Epistle to Timothy, written about the same time 
with that to Titus. " If any one," he says, " teach another 
doctrine, and hold not to the sound words of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and to the doctrine of piety, he is puffed up, under- 



* 2 Cor. xi. 20, 21. f Ibid., xi. 22. J Ibid., xi. 12. 

Ibid., xi. 7. |! Chap i. 10, 11. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 247 

standing nothing, but having a diseased craving for discus 
sions and strifes of words, from which proceed ill-will, 
quarrelling, reviling, malicious surmises, perverse disputa 
tions of men of corrupt minds, destitute of the truth, thinking 
to make a gain of piety. From such keep away. Piety, 
indeed, with contentment, is a great gain. We have brought 
nothing into the world ; it is clear that we can carry nothing 
out of it: having, then, food and clothing, with these we 
shall be satisfied. But they, whose purpose it is to be rich,* 
fall into temptation, and a snare, and many senseless and 
pernicious lusts, which plunge men into destruction and ruin. 
The root of all these evils f is the love of money, through 
their craving after which some have strayed from the truth, 
and have pierced themselves through with many pangs." i 

This class of false teachers existed among the Gnostics : 
and probably most of their professors of wisdom, like the 
heathen sophists, gave instruction only to those disciples who 
were able to purchase it. Speaking of some of their doc 
trines, Irenaeus says ironically, " It seems to me reasonable 
that they should not be willing to teach them openly to all, 
but only to those who are able to pay a great price for such 
mysteries ; for these doctrines are not like those concerning 
which our Lord said, Freely ye have received, freely give ; 
but are remote from common apprehension, marvellous and 
profound mysteries, to be attained with much toil by the lovers 
of falsehood. Who, indeed, would not spend his whole sub 
stance to learn them ? " Such teachers existing, it can be 
no matter of surprise, that some of them taught systems as 
unlike Christianity as those of any of the Gnostic sects, 



* Referring, I conceive, to those before spoken of as " men of corrupt 
minds." 

t Not "the root of all evil," as in the common version. The original is, 
Pifc yap TTUVTUV TUV nanuv. 

J Chap. vi. 3-10. 

Lib. i. c. 4, 3, p. 20 : conf. lib. iv. c. 26, 2, p. 262. 



248 EVIDENCES OP THE 

and that others merely borrowed certain conceptions from our 
religion, without pretending to embrace it. 

Had it, indeed, been other than a revelation from God, ex 
pressing its divine origin in its whole history and character ; 
had it been only a new form of barbaric philosophy, that had 
sprung up among the Jews in Galilee, then, instead of bear 
ing down through the heathen world, a broad and ever 
widening stream, it would have been choked by corruptions 
and errors, through which it could not force its way; it 
would have been wasted and lost, like those rivers of Africa 
and the East that disappear in deserts of sand. One incom 
municable attribute alone, its divine authority, gave it per 
manence. Whatever might be the mistakes of its disciples 
concerning it, yet in its own nature it allowed of no amalga 
mation with human opinions, as sharing its paramount claims. 
It admitted of no change or addition. This opposed an in 
superable barrier to all innovations, which did not at least 
claim, however falsely, to be original doctrines of Christianity. 
It controlled the operation of those causes of error which 
have been pointed out. It is the redeeming principle, which 
we may hope will yet restore the religion of Christians to the 
native purity of Christianity. Had it not possessed this 
character ; had it been merely a new system of Jewish philos 
ophy, having a fabulous origin, a system of assertions with 
out proof, for such Christianity is, if it be not a divine 
revelation, a multitude of sects would have appeared among 
its Gentile followers, not hovering, like the Gnostics, on the 
outskirts of our faith, but seizing on the whole ground, form 
ing theories of equal authority with the original doctrine, the 
records of which they could but imperfectly understand ; and 
at the present day, instead of seeing Christianity the professed 
religion of the civilized world, we should know as little of 
disciples of Jesus, existing as a distinct body, as we krio\? 
of disciples of Socrates. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 249 

It lias appeared, that, with the first propagation of our 
religion among the Gentiles, causes of error were operating 
to produce resistance to the authority of St. Paul and the 
other apostles, schisms, moral irregularities, false doctrines, 
and apostasy. It was with a foresight of this state of things 
that Jesus said, " He who perseveres to the end will be 
saved ; " and, at the same time, predicted that many would 
fall away, " They will deliver up one another, and hate 
one another ; and many false teachers will arise, and deceive 
many ; and iniquity will so abound, that the love of many 
will grow cold."* Notwithstanding the vast power which 
our religion displayed in changing the characters of men, such 
disorders and evils were to attend its progress. " But know 
this," says St. Paul to Timothy, in his last Epistle, when an 
ticipating his own martyrdom, ** that hereafter there will be 
evil times ; for those men [a class of men of whom he had 
before spoken] will be selfish, avaricious, boastful, haughty, 
given to evil-speaking, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, 
unholy, without natural affection, without faith, slanderers, 
of unrestrained passions, without humanity, without love for 
what is good, treacherous, violent, puffed up with pride, lovers 
of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a show of piety, 
but renouncing its power. From such turn away. Of their 
number are those who creep into houses, and make captive 
weak women, laden with sins, carried away by divers evil 
desires, always learning and never able to gain a knowledge 
of the truth. But as James and Jambres contended against 
Moses, so they contend against the truth ; men whose minds 
are corrupt, and whose faith is unsound. But they will not 
proceed far ; for their folly will be manifest to all, as was that 
of James and Jambres." f 

Who " those men " were, of whom St. Paul thus speaks, 
appears from what precedes in the Epistle. " Put men in 

* Matt. xxiv. 10-12. f 2 Tim. iii. 1-9. 



250 EVIDENCES OF THE 

mind of these things," he says (that is, of certain fundamental 
truths of Christianity, which he had just expressed), " adjur 
ing them before the Lord not to engage in idle disputes, 
which profit nothing, but subvert the hearers. . . . Avoid those 
profane babblings ; for these men will go on to greater im 
piety, and their doctrine will eat into them like a gangrene. 
Of their number are Hymena3us and Philetus, who have erred 
from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken 
place, and who are subverting the faith of some. ... In a 
great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but 
also of wood and clay, and some for honorable and others for 
mean uses. If, then, one keep himself clear from those things, 
he shall be a vessel for honor. . . . Avoid those foolish and 
unlearned discussions, knowing that they produce strife."* 
The great body of catholic Christians was continually throw 
ing off these disorders, and separating itself from them. But 
there can be no reason to doubt the existence of such dis 
orders among the heretical as well as pseudo-Christian sects 
of the second and subsequent centuries. 

There is no historical evidence which justifies us in believ 
ing, that what assumes to be a second Epistle of Peter, and 
that which has been ascribed to the apostle Jude, were the 
works of those authors ; and the character and contents of 
the writings are unfavorable to the supposition. The ancient 
Christians are not responsible for any error concerning their 
authorship ; for it does not appear that they were generally 
considered as genuine during the first three centuries. It 
Beems to me most probable, that they were composed in the 
first half of the second century, under the names of those 
apostles ; and that the writer of each assumed a character not 
his own, rather by way of rhetorical artifice, than with inten 
tional fraud. In both, individuals of depraved morals are 

* 2 Tim. ii. 14-23. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 251 

described as existing among Christians, in language wh eh, if 
not that of the apostles, we may consider as declamatory and 
exaggerated, but cannot look upon as without foundation. It 
appears that those spoken of were not yet wholly separated 
from the communion of catholic Christians. "They are 
hidden rocks in your love-feasts,"* it is said. But they 
are spoken of as those " who are making a separation ; " | and 
the feelings expressed toward them in these Epistles are such 
as must have produced their severance from the catholic body. 
They were not only immoral in their lives, but " false teachers, 
secretly bringing in destructive heresies ; " J and the language 
used may suggest the inference, that these were Gnostic 
heresies. Thus it is said, that they "denied the Sovereign 
Lord who bought them, and our Lord Jesus Christ ; " mean 
ing, we may suppose, that they denied that the Creator was 
the Supreme God, and held opinions concerning Christ so 
contradictory to the truth, as to amount to a denial of his 
real character. To the pretension of the Gnostics, that they 
alone were spiritual, and possessed of true knowledge, the 
writers may be supposed to refer indignantly and contemptu 
ously, when they describe those of whom they speak, as 
"animal, not having the spirit," || as "speaking evil of what 
they understand not," and as "brute beasts, governed by 
instinct, made to be taken and destroy ed."H " They promised 
men freedom," it is said, " while they themselves were slaves 
of corruption ; " ** language corresponding to the representa 
tions of the early fathers concerning the pretensions and 
character of many among the Gnostics. It may be added, 
that they taught for money. " Through covetousness," it is 

* JucU 12 : comp. 2 Pet. ii. 13, where ayu.Ka.i seems probably the true 
reading. 

t Jude 19, oi uirodiopifrvTec. The word iavTOVf, which follows it the 
Received Text, does not appear to be genuine. 

t 2 Pet. ii. 1. 2 Pet. ii. 1. Jude 4. || Jude 19. 

T 2 Pet. ii. 12. Jude 10. ** 2 Pet. ii. 19. 



252 EVIDENCES OF THE 

said, " they will make a gain of you by fraudulent dis 
courses ; " * and they are compared to Balaam, who " loved 
the wages of unrighteousness," t having been tempted by the 
bribes of Balak. " Woe for them," says the author of 
the Epistle ascribed to Jude ; " for they have walked in the 
way of Cain, and given themselves up to deceive, like Balaam, 
for pay, and brought destruction on themselves through 
rebellion, like Korah." $ It is not, perhaps, improbable, 
that these Epistles were written about the time that Gnos 
ticism was first making its appearance, and before it had yet 
acquired any reputable or able leaders. 

The date of the Apocalypse is uncertain ; but it is, I think, 
to be referred either to the latter part of the first, or the 
earlier part of the second century. In the addresses to 
the seven churches of Asia, we find mention of the same 
vices, as existing among professed Christians, which we have 
before remarked ; and, in speaking of them, Balaam is intro 
duced under a point of view different from that in which he 
appears in the Epistles ascribed to Peter and Jude. Thus, 
in the address to the church at Pergamus, it is said, " But I 
have a few things against thee, for thou hast those who follow 
the teaching of Balaam, who instructed Balak how to cause 
the Israelites to offend, by eating idol-sacrifices and com 
mitting fornication ; so hast thou, too, those who thus follow 
the teaching of the Nicola itans," that is, thou, too, hast 
those who eat idol-sacrifices and commit fornication. The 
Nicola itans are also mentioned once before ; || and this appel 
lation appears to be used as equivalent to "followers of 
Balaam," the significance of " Balaam " in Hebrew, and 
" Nicolaiis " in Greek, being the same. The name Nicola itans 
was subsequently applied to Gnostics who led licentious lives, 



* 2 Pet. ii. 3. f 2 Pet. ii. 16 J Jude 11 

Rev. ii. 14, 15. || Rev. ii. 6. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 258 

till at last it came to be considered as the name of a sect.* 
This sect was then supposed to derive its origin from Nicolaiis t 
(Nicholas), one of the seven deacons appointed by the 
apostles. $ The fable for such it is to be considered is 
rejected by Clement of Alexandria, who gives an account of 
Nicolaiis, perhaps equally unfounded, in which he is repre 
sented as an ascetic. The Nicola itans are the sect before 
referred to, || as, according to Clement, perverting the maxim, 
that "the body must be abused," which he ascribes to 
Nicolaiis. 

It appears, then, that, from the times of the apostles, im 
moral doctrines and practices had existed among professed 
Christians, and that, due allowance being made for the 
language of controversial enmity, and for charges brought 
against Christian Gnostics, which, so far as they were true, 
were true only of sects not Christian, there is still no reason 
to doubt that the principles of a portion of the Gnostics did 
not secure them from the common vices of the pagan world ; 
and that there were those among them who perverted their 
doctrines to defend themselves in criminal irregularities. 
The character of the great body of Christians, founded on the 
requirements of our religion ; the supervision exercised by 
their respective churches over the morals of individual mem 
bers ; their rejection from their number of those whose lives 
or whose principles were essentially unchristian, these 
causes, in connection with the persecution which they suffered 
from without, were continually operating to produce a separa 
tion between them and such individuals as have been de 
scribed. But there was nothing to prevent such individuals 
from forming, or from joining, a looser class of heretics, and 

* Irenseus, lib. i. c. 26, 3, p. 105: conf. lib. iii. c. 11, 1, p. 188. 

t Ibid. J Acts vi. 5. 

Stromat, ii. 20, pp. 490, 491 ; iii. 4, pp. 522, 523. 

|| See p. 228. 



254 EVIDENCES OF THE 

announcing themselves as Gnostics, or, in other words, as 
peculiarly enlightened. 

Many of the first converts to Christianity must, as we have 
seen, have had but very imperfect information concerning it. 
Former prejudices still retained a strong hold on their minds. 
In the effervescence of the times, false teachers soon arose. 
The doctrine of the apostles was resisted on the one hand, and 
perverted on the other. Such being the state of things in 
the first century, the way was prepared for the existence, 
in the second century, of doctrines as remote from Christianity 
as those of the Gnostics. They were the fruit of errors that 
had sprung up when the Gospel was planted, and had accom 
panied its growth. 

During the second century, all those distinctly recognized 
as heretics among the Gentile converts were, or were repre 
sented to be, Gnostics. As has been before observed, it was 
natural, that an ill-informed convert, possessed with the com 
mon prejudices of the Gentiles, should adopt the Gnostic 
doctrine concerning the Old Testament and the God of the 
Jews. It was equally natural, that one who had become 
separated from the great body of Christians by an immoral 
life, if he did not renounce his religion altogether, should join 
a body of heretics whose extraordinary pretensions at once 
afforded a cover for his vices and a gratification to his vanity. 
He would pass over to the looser class of theosophic Gnostics. 
Thus it may be conceived, that, in the second century, those 
irregularities and vices settled down among them, which, in the 
first century, appear diffused through the body of Christians. 

We have had occasion to bring into view the disorders 
among Christians, that unquestionably existed during the 
apostolic age. But we must be careful not to have an exag 
gerated idea of their nature or extent. They were such as 
could not but attend so wonderful a change of thought and 
feeling as our religion produced, and the formation of a body 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 255 

of Christians in the midst of such a world as lay around them. 
In the latter half of the second century, the catholic Christians 
were, as I have said, pre-eminently distinguished by their 
religious character and high morality ; and are liable as a 
community to no graver charge, than that their virtues bor 
dered on asceticism, austerity, and enthusiasm. The commo 
tion in men s minds produced by the first preaching of our 
religion had subsided. It was better understood. The books 
of the New Testament, and especially the Gospels, were now 
open to the examination of all, and afforded means for study 
ing its history and character. The great body of Christians, 
who were united in a common faith, had been purified by 
severe sufferings and persecution, and by the discipline which 
they maintained among themselves. They were a new class 
of men, standing in contrast with their heathen contempo 
raries; and the grosser vices of the world found either no 
entrance or no toleration among them. But it is not strange 
if the overwhelming licentiousness of the times forced itself 
in, where the weaker faith and the erroneous doctrines of the 
Gnostics presented a feebler resistance, or opened a way for 
its admission. 

But this subject requires some further explanation. "We 
may readily understand why, at the present day, individuals 
without Christian faith, or without Christian morals, should 
claim to be called Christians, or why the generality of men in 
a Christian country, whatever may be the strength of their 
faith or its practical influence, should acquiesce in being 
numbered as believers ; but the inquiry may well arise, how 
it was, that, when to be a Christian was to expose one s self 
to hatred arid persecution, any should take that name, except 
from such sincere conviction and such conscientious motives 
as would preserve them from indulging in the vices of the 
heathen world, and especially from justifying such indulgence 
on principle. 



256 EVIDENCES OF THE 

The solution of the fact is, that the looser heretics did not 
expose themselves to persecution. The hatred of the Hea 
thens to the Christians manifested itself by irregular out 
breaks. It would be a great mistake to suppose, that the 
proceedings against them, at least before the latter part of 
the third century, resembled the systematized persecution 
of infidels and heretics in those Roman- Catholic countries 
where the Inquisition has been established. The steady 
action of law was unknown throughout the Roman Empire. 
Its machinery was wholly out of order. Its workings were 
irregular and interrupted. After the time of Nero till that of 
Diocletian, the emperors, for the most part, appear rather to 
have yielded to the spirit of persecution, than to have excited 
it. The sufferings of the Christians were occasioned far le~s 
by their edicts, than by the superstition and enmity of the 
lower classes, the cruelty of some of the provincial governors, 
and the license and rapacity of the -soldiery. Such persecu 
tors would, in general, select their victims from the most 
conscientious and zealous among the number of those who, 
from their circumstances in life, might be most easily op 
pressed, or who, being conspicuous among Christians, had, at 
the same time, incurred some particular odium. The more 
licentious among the heretics had little to fear. They prob 
ably called themselves Gnostics, or enlightened men, rather 
than Christians ; for the latter name might not only have 
exposed them to obloquy and danger, but would have con 
founded them with the great body of believers, whom they 
looked down upon with contempt. They were connected 
with the heathen world in its vices and in its idol-worship. 
Moreover, a man devoid of conscientiousness and self-devo 
tion need apprehend no danger, even if, by some accident, he 
might be accused as a Christian. The judicial trials of 
Christians were very unlike those of heretics in later times 
The accused had his condemnation or acquittal in his own 
power. He might save himself by renouncing his faith, or 






GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 257 

by denying it. All that was required of him was to profess 
himself not a Christian, and to burn incense before the judge 
in honor of an idol, or to swear by the genius of the 
emperor. 

It appears, indeed, that many of the theosophic Gnostics 
withdrew themselves from that severe discipline of persecu 
tion to which the catholic Christians were exposed, and 
which tended essentially to preserve their moral energy, their 
spiritual character, and their high tone of virtue. Tertullian 
has a discourse, written with all his usual vehemence, against 
such as dissuaded from martyrdom. It is entitled Scorpiace, 
that is, " An Antidote against Scorpions ; " for to scorpions 
he compares those whom he considered as endeavoring to 
instil poison into others, which would cause their spiritual 
death. " When the faith," he says, " is vexed with fire, and 
the Church is in the midst of flames, like the burning bush, 
then the Gnostics break out, then the Valentinians creep 
forth, then all the opposers of martyrdom are made active by 
the heat to strike, to dart their stings, and to kill." * They 
taught, that to profess the faith at the cost of life was not 
required by God, who desires the death of no man, but was 
an act of folly. The true profession they maintained to be 
the holding of the true doctrine in the sight of God, not a 
profession made openly before men. Similar principles and 
a corresponding practice are charged upon the heretics gener 
ally by Irenseus, though he admits that there had been 
martyrs from their number. The Gnostics, according to him, 
maintained that it was not necessary to submit to martyrdom. 
Their doctrine was the true attestation of their faith.f 
" Some," he says, " have had the hardihood to despise mar 
tyrs, and to cast censure on those who are put to death for 
the profession of the Lord." J The same account is given 



* Scorpiace, c. 1, p. 487. t Cont. Haeres., lib. iv. c. 33, 9, p. 272. 
t Ibid., lib. iii. c. 18, 5, p. 210. 

17 



258 EVIDENCES OF THE 

of one portion of the heretics by Clement of Alexandria. 
Through an irreligious and cowardly love of life, he says, 
they represented martyrdom as self-murder ; maintaining the 
true Christian testimony was not a martyr s testimony, but 
their own higher knowledge of Him who is really God. 
Clement, however, says, that other heretics (referring, doubt 
less, to the Marcionites) were, through enmity to the Creator, 
eager to expose themselves to martyrdom. * A writer quoted 
by Eusebius observes, that some heretical sects had furnished 
many martyrs, and particularly mentions the Marcionites as 
claiming this distinction, f 

Among the theosophic Gnostics, the ascetics, we may pre 
sume, were equally ready with the Marcionites to suffer 
when their faith required it. Of the practice and the doc 
trine of others of that class of Gnostics, but especially of the 
principles of their leaders, we may judge in some degree from 
a passage of the Valentinian, Heracleon, preserved by Clem 
ent of Alexandria,:}: a part of which has been already quoted. 
It, at once, serves to explain, and to give credibility to, what 
is said concerning them by their catholic opponents. In 
commenting on the words of Jesus, in which he speaks of 
that profession of him which his disciples were required to 
make before men, and especially before those in authority, 
Heracleon says, that there is a profession which is made by 
faith and conduct, and another by words ; that the latter, 
which is made before those in authority, is erroneously con 
sidered by most as the only profession ; but that it may 
be made by hypocrites, and that it has not been made by all 
those who have been saved, and, among them, not by several 
of the apostles. It is only partial, not complete : complete 
profession is made by works and deeds, corresponding to 
faith in Christ. He who makes this profession will make the 



Stromat., iv. 4, p. 571. f Hist. Eccles., lib. v. c. 16. 

Stromat, iv. 9, pp. 595, 596. See before, p. 227. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 259 

other, should it become a duty, and reason require it. He 
will rightly profess Christ in words who has previously pro 
fessed him in his dispositions. Heracleon adds more to the 
same effect, but nothing which alters the complexion of the 
passage. In his comments upon it, Clement says, that here 
and elsewhere Heracleon, whom he calls the most approved 
of the Valentinians, appears to agree in opinion with catholic 
Christians. He conceives, however, that he has disregarded 
the fact, that a martyr s profession is alone sufficient proof of 
sincere faith ; and observes on the unreasonableness of sup 
posing that it might be made by a hypocrite. " To profess 
our faith," he goes on to say, " is the duty of all, for this 
is in our power : to defend it is not the duty of all, for it may 
not be in our power," * words that may remind one of 
Latimer, when, broken by age and suffering, he declared to 
his judges, that he could not argue for his religion, but that 
he could die for it. 

However unobjectionable, in themselves considered, were 
the leading sentiments of Heracleon, they were, when thus 
nakedly stated, not altogether apposite to the times. It is 
not too much to say, that he discovers some tendency to 
depreciate that bold profession of Christ, by which, when 
made before a persecuting judge, a Christian sealed his con 
demnation to torture and death. It is easy to perceive how 
his view of the subject might degenerate into that which 
Tertullian, in his " Scorpiace," says was presented by the 
Valentinians. 

There is, indeed, a very striking contrast between the pas 
sage of Heracleon, and two treatises which remain to us, one 
by Tertullian, and the other by Origen. That of Tertullian 
is entitled " Concerning Flight in Persecution." It is a 
strong exhortation not to avoid persecution, either by flight, 
or by buying off those who threatened to become informers* 

* Stromat., iv. 9, p. 596. 



260 EVIDENCES OF THE 

It is written with the intense earnestness of one who, if he 
had not been a Christian, might have raised a warrior s voice, 
of power 

" To cheer in the mid battle, ay, to turn the flying." 

There can be little doubt, that often, under the circumstances 
of those times, the course of conduct to which he exhorted 
was that most honorable to Christians, most likely to com- 
mand the respect of their enemies, and best adapted to extend 
the knowledge and influence of our religion. In more than 
one instance, persecution appears to have been checked by 
the number and intrepidity of those who were ready to sub 
mit to martyrdom. There may be errors of reasoning in his 
work, but the deepest sincerity is evident throughout ; and, 
compared with his other writings, it has a subdued tone of 
expression suited to the subject. It is characterized, at the 
same time, by an unshrinking consistency, in which its sever* 
purpose is never for a moment lost sight of, and by a sus 
tained energy of wholly unworldly feeling. Tertullian con 
cludes it with the following words : 

* This doctrine, brother, perhaps seems to you hard and intol 
erable. But recollect what God said, Let him who can receiv\ 
it receive it ; that is, Let him who cannot receive it depart. H 
who fears to suffer does not belong to Him who suffered. But h 
who does not fear to suffer is perfect in love, the love of God ; foi 
perfect love casts out fear. Thus it is, that many are called, bui 
few are chosen. He is not sought for, who is ready to follow the 
broad way, but he who will take the narrow path. And thui 
the Paraclete is necessary, the leader into all truth, the en- 
courager to endure all things ; and they who have received him 
neither fly persecution, nor buy it off; we having Lira on our 
side, both to speak for us when interrogated, and to aid us when 
Buffering." 

Tertullian, when he wrote this tract, had become a Mon- 
tanist ; and the Holy Spirit, which the Montanists believed tc 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 2f>l 

have spoken by Montanus, they commonly denominated the 
Paraclete. 

There is as great a difference between the treatise of 
Origen and that of Tertullian as may well exist between two 
works of able writers, relating to the same subject, and 
having nearly the same purpose. That of Origen is of par 
ticular interest. It was addressed, during a time of persecu 
tion, to two friends, with one of whom he appears to have 
been particularly connected, to exhort them to meet suffering 
and death with Christian fortitude. When we can bring 
before our minds all that is implied in one friend s writing to 
another to encourage him to martyrdom, we may, in one 
respect, have a distinct conception of the state and character 
of the early catholic Christians. The address of Origen is 
affectionate, considerate, and respectful, but with no expres 
sion of temporary excitement. On the contrary, it has some 
thing of his usual languor and diffuseness of style, and 
oversubtilty of thought. It is characterized by the calmness 
of one who was thoroughly penetrated by the spirit of our 
religion, whose earthly passions had been subdued, whose 
hopes were fixed on heaven ; and who had thus learned to 
look on life and death indifferently, and to contemplate 
Buffering as one prepared for it. 

"I would," says Origen, " that you may be able through the 
whole of this present conflict to bear in mind the great reward 
which is laid up in heaven for those who are persecuted and reviled 
for righteousness sake, and for the sake of the Son of man ; so as 
to rejoice and exult, and leap for joy, as the apostles in former 
days rejoiced, when they were deemed worthy to suffer contumely 
for him. . . . Would, indeed, that your souls may not be at all 
perturbed, but that, when standing before the tribunal, and when 
the nake:l sword hangs over your throats, you may be strengthened 
by the peace of God which passes all understanding, and made 
calm by the thought that they who are absent from the body are 
present with the Lord of all ! But, if we are not able always to 
preserve our firmness, I would at least that our trouble may not 



262 EVIDENCES OF THE 

appear, and show itself to those who are alien from our 
faith." * 

" Whether our profession of Christ be complete or not, we may 
thus determine. If, through the whole time of the inquisition and 
temptation, we yield no place in our hearts to the Devil, who 
would corrupt us with evil thoughts of denying our faith, or cause 
us to hesitate, or pervert us by some sophistry to what is at enmity 
with a martyr s testimony and our perfection ; if, with this, we 
bring no stain upon ourselves by any word foreign from our pro 
fession ; if we endure all the reproach and mockery and laughter 
and reviling of our adversaries, and the pity which they seem to 
have for us, regarding us as in error and foolish, and speaking to 
us as deluded ; and, still more, if the strong love of children, or 
their mother, or any of those dearest to us in this world, do not 
violently draw us back to their enjoyment or to this life, but, 
turning from them all, we can devote ourselves wholly to God, 
and to that life which is with him, as about to be associated with 
his only Son and with his followers, then we may say that we 
have fully perfected our profession." f 

The tone of mind expressed by Tertullian and Origen is 
very different from that of Heracleon. It is to men possessed 
with their spirit that we are indebted, through the providence 
of God, for the preservation of Christianity. Wholly relieved, 
as we are, from the necessity of practising those high and 
hard duties which were appointed to them, we may IDC unable, 
without an effort, to enter into their principles and feelings. 
Looking, under very different circumstances, to the severo 
sufferings to which they were summoned, and not having 
been strengthened to meet them by that preparatory discipline 
which they had gone through, we may even shrink from 
sympathy, and feel rather with those who fled, or bought off 
their accusers, in times of persecution. But let us at least be 
just, and give honor where honor is due ; and not suffer our 



* Exhortatio ad Martyrium, 4; Origen. Opp. i. 276. 
t Ibid., 11, p. 281. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 263 

attention to be engrossed by the extravagance that sometimes 
marked the strength of those virtues which the early Chris 
tians displayed, and almost necessarily accompanied them in 
such minds as Tertullian s.* 

I have spoken of the Gnostics as they existed in the 
second century, and of the charges brought against them by 
the early fathers, the fathers of the second and third centuries. 
After this time, there is, as I have before remarked, little 
reason to believe that any proper Gnostic sects survived in 
much vigor. Their doctrines were such as strike with the 
glare of novelty, and are thrown aside when that becomes 
tarnished. They were superseded by the kindred sect of the 
Manichaeans. Through the union of Christianity with the im 
perial power, a flood of corruption poured in among Chris 
tians ; and, in the fourth century, a variety of new, bitter, 
worldly controversies arose, which diverted men s attention 
from the old errors of the Gnostics, except as a matter of 
history, and a means of blackening the name of heretic by 
odious representations of those who had borne it. There is 
no reason to doubt that the Gnostics who still remained 
shared in the degeneracy of that evil age, when darkness was 

* Gibbon (chap. xvi. note 100) says, that the treatise of Tertullian is 
" filled with the wildest fanaticism and the most incoherent declamation." 
That a work such as I have described should appear to a writer like Gibbon 
expressive of the wildest fanaticism may easily be supposed. But the asser 
tion that it is full of incoherent declamation is utterly unfounded. No writer 
ever kept his purpose more steadily in view than does Tertullian in this 
treatise. 

Very probably, Gibbon had never read it ; but he had perhaps seen what 
is said by Jortin: "In the persecution under Severus, many fled to avoid it, 
or gave money to redeem themselves. Tertullian, like a frantic Montanist, 
condemned these expedients" (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History (Loud. 
1805), vol. ii p. 90). Jortin \vas a scholar of some elegance and some acute- 
ness, but of little compass of mind, and wanting almost every requisite 
essential in treating of the history of the early Christians. In aiming at 
smartness of style, he sometimes falls into flippancy. 



264 EVIDENCES OF THE 

beginning to close over men, and they were about to enter on 
that long series of centuries which marks the history of the 
world with its mental and moral desolation. But the specific 
charges urged against the Gnostics by the orthodox historians 
of heresy in the fourth and fifth centuries, with Epiphanius 
at their head, are so obviously in great part calumnies, as to 
afford no safe ground for determining what was, or what had 
been, the character of those against whom they are brought. 

It appears, then, from what precedes, that there was great 
diversity of moral character among the Gnostics. Some were 
distinguished for their severe asceticism, and others for their 
principled licentiousness. The inveterate prejudices of the 
Gentiles against the Jews and Judaism; the traditionary 
errors of the Jews concerning their religion ; the form, conse 
quently, in which it was presented to the minds of the new 
converts ; and their inability to comprehend the subject cor 
rectly, and to solve in a satisfactory manner the difficulties 
with which it was and is embarrassed, caused a portion of the 
Gentile converts to separate the Mosaic dispensation from 
the Christian, and to regard the latter alone as coming from the 
Supreme Being. These were the Gnostics. But the arbi 
trary hypothesis of a Supreme God and an inferior god, by 
which the Gnostics made a forced separation of Judaism from 
Christianity, and the inconsistency of their scheme with the 
plain language of Christ and his apostles, spread confusion 
and indistinctness through all their conceptions of our religion. 
Notwithstanding this, the Marcionites, influenced more by 
moral and Christian feeling than by any other cause in 
rejecting the representations of the Old Testament as appli 
cable to the true God, did not fall behind the catholic Chris 
tians in the strictness or strength of their self-denying virtues. 
On the contrary, there seems to have been much of fanaticism 
mixed with their renunciation of the pleasures of this life. 
But the theosophic Gnostics were less detached from the 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 205 

heathen world. They drew their vague speculations from 
its philosophy. There was a tendency in their minds to sub 
stitute for the realities of God s revelation a baseless, abstract 
faith, the evidence of which was the testimony of their own 
spiritual nature. They seem to have regarded Christianity 
too much as a system of philosophy, and too little as a divine 
revelation. They thus stood as a sort of intermediate class 
between the catholic Christians and the Heathens. Many of 
them, doubtless, received our religion in good faith, according 
to their modification of it, and conformed their lives to the 
moral purity which it requires ; but it does not appear that 
any considerable number felt it to be a means of the moral 
renovation of mankind, or regarded themselves as called upon 
to seal their testimony to it with their blood. It is clear that 
they had not that zeal in avowing and defending and propa 
gating their faith, as of inestimable value to their fellow-men, 
which exposed the catholic Christians to persecution. Some 
of them, pretending, perhaps, as men of enlightened minds, to 
hold in disregard outward forms of religion, joined, of their 
own accord, in idol-sacrifices ; while others, like the ancient 
heathen philosophers, were probably ready to escape odium 
and vexation by whatever compliances were necessary with 
the popular superstitions. It appears, further, that there were 
some, perhaps many, of their number, who, though not coun 
tenanced by their principal leaders, or the more respectable 
portion of the theosophic Gnostics, seized on the doctrine of 
the incorruptible purity of their spiritual nature, as a pretence 
for indulging in gross vices. The existence of such a class 
of men, not altogether destitute of belief in the divine mission 
of our Saviour, is, as we have seen, accounted for by causes 
that had been in operation from the time when St. Paul first 
gathered converts from the Gentiles. They were early 
thrown off from the body of catholic Christians, and became 
apostates or heretics. It may readily be believed that they 
had no attachment to Judaism which would prevent them 



266 GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 

from becoming Gnostics, and, in the pride of their new 
spiritual superiority, looking down upon the unenlightened 
and over-scrupulous body of Christians by whom they were 
rejected. In taking this course, they met with no obstacle ; 
for, among the generality of theosophic Gnostics, there was no 
combination or discipline which might have repelled or ex 
cluded the unworthy from being associated with them. 

Nor was there any thing precisely to define the limits 
between the theosophic Gnostics and individuals holding 
Gnostic opinions, and more or less affected by the widely 
spreading influence of Christianity, who yet had no title to 
the name of Christians. But, though the limits were unde 
fined, there was the well-marked general distinction between 
those who decidedly belonged to one class or the other, that 
the former believed, and the latter did not believe, the divine 
mission of Christ. In respect, also, to one noted pseudo- 
Christian sect which has been mistaken for a branch of the 
Gnostics, I mean the Carpocratians, it will appear, I think, 
from what is about to be said, that its members did not even 
hold Gnostic doctrines. We must therefore separate, as far 
as possible, the pseudo-Christians from the Gnostics ; and to 
this subject we will next attend. 



CHAPTER V. 



ON SOME PSEUDO-CHRISTIAN SECTS AND INDIVIDUALS WHO 
HAVE BEEN IMPROPERLY CONFOUNDED WITH THE GNOS 
TICS. 

WE have seen that Simon Magus is represented by the 
fathers as the parent of all the heretical sects ; while, at the 
same time, he is described, not as a disciple of Christ, but as 
opposing himself to Christ as a rival. His followers, the 
Simonians, therefore, were not Christians. These facts may 
induce us readily to give credit to the supposition, that among 
those who may seem to be, or who are, enumerated as Chris 
tian heretics, by some one or more of the fathers, there were 
other sects or individuals who had no title to the name of 
Christian ; though many of them may have held the Gnostic 
doctrine, that the material universe is the work of a being 
or beings imperfect or evil. This confusion, if it exist, of 
Christian and pseudo- Christian sects must be removed, before 
we can form a correct notion of the Gnostics ; and the inves 
tigation of the subject may also serve to make us acquainted 
with the character of the times, and the effects produced by 
the promulgation of Christianity. 

Among the sects referred to, the Carpocratians may be 
first mentioned. They had their origin in Alexandria, and 
became conspicuous about the middle of the second century. 



268 EVIDENCES OF THE 

By Irengeus they are classed with the Gnostics ; and, accord 
ing to him, they affirmed that the world was made by angels. 
But a comparison of his whole account * with the information 
afforded by Clement of Alexandria f may lead us to the con 
clusion, that the Carpocratians were neither Christians nor 
heathen Gnostics, but a corrupt sect of Platonists, who pre 
tended to regard Christ as a very eminent philosopher among 
the barbarians, as Confucius was at one time celebrated by 
European men of letters. This may appear from what fol 
lows. 

With Carpocrates was connected, as a founder of the sect, 
his son Epipbanes, the author of a work " Concerning Just 
ice," from which Clement quotes a series of passages.! The 
purpose of them is to maintain that no property should exist, 
but that all things should be common to all. " The justice 
of God," Epiphanes says, " is a certain equal distribution." 
Following out his principles, he maintains, as Plato had 
taught in his Republic, that there should be a community of 
women ; women in Egypt and Greece, as in the East, being 
regarded much in the light of property. For his doctrine of 
equality he argues from the natural order of things ; accord 
ing to which, for example, God gives the light of the sun 
equally to all ; and a common nature, and food in common, to 
all the individuals of the different species of animals. This 
order he vindicates as good ; he regards it as a manifestation 
of the great moral law of all beings, and ascribes it to the 
u Maker and Father of all," that is, to the Supreme God. 

It appears, therefore, that Epiphanes regarded the order 
of nature as good, and as proceeding from the Supreme 
Being. He differed, therefore, from the Gnostics in their 
fundamental doctrine. They considered the order of nature 

* Cont. Hasres., lib. i. c. 25, pp. 103-105, c. 28, 2, p. 107; lib. ii. cc. 
81-33, pp. 164-168. 

f Stromat., iii. 2, pp. 511-515. J Stromat., iii., ubi supi a. 

p. 512. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 269 



as full of defects and evils, and ascribed it, in consequence, to 
an imperfect Creator. But Epiphanes, it is clear, had no 
such being in view. He ascribes the constitution of things in 
the material universe to the Supreme God, whom alone he 
regards as the Creator. He was, moreover, so far from hold 
ing the doctrine of the Gnostics, which identified the Creator 
with the God of the Jews, that, as quoted by Clement, he 
considered the command, " Thou shalt not covet," as ridicu 
lous, and more especially the command, " Thou shalt not 
covet thy neighbor s wife ; " they being, according to him, 
directly opposite to the ordinances of the Creator as mani 
fested in his works. Epiphanes, then, was not a Gnostic, 
nor was his father Carpocrates, from whom he derived his 
principles, nor the followers of both, by whom they were 
adopted. Nor had they, I conceive, more title to be consid 
ered as Christians. 

It is the obvious remark of Clement, that the doctrines 
alleged clearly subvert the Law and the Gospel. Upon 
their first aspect, they show themselves to be the doctrines 
of one who had no deference for the divine authority of 
Christ. Their advocate, Epiphanes, was, according to Clem 
ent, a youth of extraordinary precocity, who died at the age 
of seventeen, after having been educated by his father in the 
different branches of knowledge, particularly in the Platonic 
philosophy. Clement says that his mother was a native of 
Cephallenia, and that in Same, a city of that island, a temple 
was erected to him as a god, and divine honors were paid him 
after his death. There seems no reasonable ground for doubt 
ing this account. There is nothing in it inconsistent with the 
customs of the Heathens. Clement lived in the same century 
with Epiphanes, and in the same city in which he was born ; 
and the facts stated by him are of such a kind as hardly to 
admit the supposition of any essential mistake concerning 
them. But the followers of Epiphanes, who paid him divine 
honors, were evidently Heathens. In conformity with this, 



270 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Irenaeus tells us that the Carpocratians had images of Christ, 
together with those of heathen philosophers, as Pythagoras, 
Plato, and Aristotle, which they crowned with garlands, and 
honored after the fashion of the Gentiles.* It appears, there 
fore, that they placed Christ in the same rank with those 
philosophers. Some of them, he says, affirmed that they 
were like Jesus, and some that in certain respects they were 
stronger or better.| 

Respecting their other opinions, Irenaeus states, that they 
believed that "Jesus was the son of Joseph, and was like 
other men, except that his soul, being strong and pure, re 
membered what it had seen in its circumgyration with the 
unoriginated God." $ These conceptions were founded on 
the doctrine of Plato, who had taught, in his Phsedrus, the 
pre-existent immortality of all souls ; and that those of the 
better class had, before their immersion in matter, ascended 
to the outer orb of heaven, where they had been borne round 
in company with the gods, and had beheld the eternal Ideas, 
there presented to view, of which all true knowledge is only 
a reminiscence. 

Irenaeus, attributing Gnostic conceptions to the Carpocra 
tians, goes on to say, that, according to them, the soul of 



* Cont. Haeres., lib. i. c. 25, 6, p. 105. 

f Ibid., lib. i. c. 25, 2, p. 103; lib. ii. c. 32, 3, p. 165. 

J Ibid., lib. i. c. 25, 1, p. 103. 

Plato in Phtedro, p. 245, seqq. (I refer here, as elsewhere, to the pages 
of Henrv Stephens s edition (Paris, 1578), which are commonly numbered in 
the margin of later editions.) Plato puts the representations there given into 
the mouth of Socrates. They appear irreconcilable with those concerning the 
creation, and the pre-existent state, of souls, given in his Timgeus, p. 41, seqq. 
But his imaginations at different times were not unfrequently at variance 
with each other. The words of Plato, in his Phaedrus, in speaking of the 
vision of eternal Ideas presented to pre-existent souls, as borne round on 
the outer orb of heaven, are so characteristic of ancient philosophy as to be 
worth quoting. " This supercelestial place," he says, " no poet here on earth 
has ever celebrated, or will celebrate, worthily. But thus it is ; for one must 
dare to describe it truly, especially one who is discoursing of the truth" 1 " 1 (p. 247). 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 271 

Jesus being thus excellent, " powe~ was sent it by God to 
enable it to escape the Makers ol the world, arid passing 
through them all, and being wholly liberated, to ascend to 
him ; " and that the same would be the case with all souls 
who followed his course. This conception of Makers of the 
world, disposed to impede the ascent of the soul, is Gnostic ; 
but that Irenaeus was in error in ascribing it to the Carpo 
cratians may appear by what has been quoted from Epipha- 
nea. It seems to have been not uncommon to attribute 
incorrectly to one sect opinions held, or reputed to be held, 
by another. The mistake of Irenaeus may have arisen in this 
way alone, or it may be otherwise accounted for. Through 
the irregular action of Christianity upon their minds, and the 
consequent unsettling of their old faith, the Carpocratians 
may have advanced so far toward the opinions of the catholic 
Christians, as to regard the inferior gods of the later Plato- 
nists, the heathen divinities, as evil spirits ; and, if this were 
so, Irenaeus might easily confound those inferior gods with 
the creator-angels of the Gnostics. That such was the case 
may be conjectured from what he states to have been said by 
them ; namely, that the soul of Jesus had learned to despise 
the Makers of the world, in consequence of having been 
educated among the Jews.* No Gnostic would have repre 
sented Jesus as learning to despise the Makers of the world, 
among whom they commonly regarded the god of the Jews 
as the chief, in consequence of his being imbued with Jewish 
notions ; but the Carpocratians, if such as we have supposed 
them, might well have assigned this as a cause for hi* ton- 
tempt of the heathen divinities. It can hardly be, that the 
account of Irenaeus is not erroneous. 

The morals of the Carpocratians are portrayed in very 
dart colors by their contemporaries, Irenaeus and Clement. 
They represent the sect as having brought reproach on the 

Lib. i. c. 25, 1, p. 103. 



272 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Christian name, upon "us," says Irenseus, "who have no 
communion with them either in doctrine, or in morals, or in 
daily life."* The Heathens, doubtless, were very ready to 
impute to Christians the vices and licentiousness of those 
whose minds had merely been put in action by the new faith, 
of those bands of outlaws, who, not belonging to the num 
ber of the true followers of our religion, yet accompanied its 
march, and hovered round its outposts. Some modern writers 
have been disposed to regard the charges brought against the 
Carpocratians by their contemporaries as improbable, and in 
great part unfounded. But their principal argument is, that 
the Carpocratians were Christians, and that Christians could 
not have been guilty of such immoralities. If, on the con 
trary, we regard them as Heathens, on whom the indirect and 
irregular influence of Christianity had had no other effect 
than to* set them free from the restraints of common opinion, 
and who, in consequence, were inflated with a notion of their 
superiority to common prejudices, we shall perceive that they 
were in the very state in which moral disorders might be 
expected to break out among them. The charges against 
them are, to a great extent, confirmed by the principles of 
Epiphanes, whom they deified. These are advanced in tbs 
broadest manner in the extracts from him given by Clement. 
He maintained that all laws for the security of private prop 
erty were in violation of the universal law of God, which had 
given all things in common to all ; and that they alone created 
the offences which they punished.f This, indeed, may be con 
sidered as little more than a speculative principle, since society 
imposes such severe penalties on those who act in conformity 
to it, that none are likely to reduce it to practice from a mere 
conviction of its truth. But his doctrine respecting the pro 
miscuous intercourse of the sexes, which not only broke down 
all moral restraint, but represented it as an ordinance of God, 

* Lib. i. c. 25, 3, p. 103. f Stromat., iii. 2, pp. 512, 513. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 273 

is sufficient, especially when we consider the state of society 
in which it was promulgated, to remove any doubt concerning 
the reality of the licentiousness of which the Carpocratians 
were accused. They were heathen philosophers, and Chris 
tian chastity was not to be learned from heathen philosophy. 
They were, as we have supposed, of the school of Plato, and 
in two of his most noted Dialogues they might have found a 
mixture of philosophical jargon with nameless impurity.* 
Nor is there any reason to question what Irenaeus says of 
them,t that they, like the later Platonists, professed the 
science and practice of magic or theurgy, and used their 
pretended skill for the purpose of deception. 

I have reserved for a separate head the mention of one 
doctrine which Irenasus imputes to them ; because, so far as 
it may appear to have been held by any individuals, it con 
nects them in a class with other pseudo- Christians, main 
taining that the practice of scandalous immoralities was a 
religious duty. As followers of Plato, the Carpocratians 
believed the doctrine of the pre-existence and transmigration 
of souls ; and maintained, says Irenasus, that the soul would 
not obtain its final liberation from matter till it had beeu 
conversant with every kind of life and every mode of action ; 
that is, as he explains their meaning, till it had been con 
versant with every kind of impurity and vice.? A strong 
doubt may at once arise whether such a doctrine could hare 
been professed by any individuals; and the idea of acting 
upon it, to its full extent, appears altogether monstrous and 
incredible. Irenseus himself says, that he could not believe 
that their practice corresponded to their principles. What, 
indeed, were the principles or the practice of certain liber- 

* I refer to the Phsedrus and the Banquet. 

t Cont. Haeres., lib. i. c. 25, 3, p. 103; lib. ii. c. 31, 2, p. 164, c. 32, 3, 
p. 165. 

J Lib. i. c. 25, 4, pp. 103, 104; lib. ii. c. 32, 2, p. 165. 
18 



274 EVIDENCES OP THE 

tine individuals of the second century, called Carpocratians ; 
whether they were more immoral than some have supposed, 
or less immoral than their opponents represented, is a sub 
ject that may seem wholly uninteresting at the present day. 
Certainly it is so, as far as justice to their memory is con 
cerned. But, on the other hand, if they held the doctrine 
imputed to them by Irenaeus, or if they held any doc 
trine which, without being greatly misrepresented, might 
afford occasion for the statement which he makes, this is a 
phenomenon in human nature that may well deserve atten 
tion. 

That they did hold some doctrine of this kind, and that he 
did not essentially mistake their meaning, may appear from 
various considerations. Irenaeus affirms, that it was expressed 
in their writings ; and that they taught that Jesus had com 
municated it privately to his apostles and disciples, and had 
appointed them to communicate it to those who were worthy 
and obedient They would not have maintained that a doc 
trine concerning morals had been taught privately, if it had 
been such as was correspondent to the tenor of the Gospels. 
He says that they accommodated to their doctrine the words 
of our Saviour, " Agree with thine adversary quickly ; " 
representing the adversary as Satan, one of the angels of the 
world, who would not suffer the soul to obtain its freedom 
from imprisonment in some mortal body, till it had paid the 
uttermost farthing ; that is, according to his explanation, till 
it had been conversant in all the works of this world. His 
appeal to their writings, and the particulars which he gives 
relating to their doctrine, serve to show, that, if his account 
is not true to the letter, it still had an essential foundation in 
truth. It is repeated by other writers, particularly by Ter- 
tullian, who says,* that they represented " crimes as the 
tribute which life must pay ; " facinora tributa sunt vitce ; 

* De Aniina, c. 35, p. 291. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 275 

and notes the same perversion of Scripture that is mentioned 
by Irenaeus. 

The doctrine in question, stated in its least offensive form, 
we may, perhaps, conceive to have been, that the soul must 
have full experience of this life before passing into another 
Btate, and that, to this end, it must be conversant with pleas 
ures commonly considered criminal. To represent indulgence 
in such pleasures as a matter of religious obligation was con 
formable to the teaching of Epiphanes, that promiscuous 
intercourse of the sexes was an ordinance of God. Irenaeus 
concludes his account of the moral principles of the Carpo- 
cratians with saying, that they taught that men were " saved 
by faith and love, but that other things were indifferent; 
that, according to the opinions of men, some were accounted 
good and others bad, but that nothing was bad by nature." * 
By faith tkfly may have meant a firm adherence to their 
philosophy ; for to souls purified by philosophy Plato assigned 
the highest places after death. But in what they said of 
faith and love we may recognize, perhaps, a common tendency 
of those most licentious in their speculations or their practice 
to shelter themselves under a show of words expressive of 
common sentiments or belief. 

It may appear, then, that the Carpocratians belonged to 
the same class with those pseudo-Christians mentioned by 
Clement of Alexandria, as quoted in the last chapter.f The 
principle common to them all was, that the practice of scan 
dalous immoralities was a matter of religious obligation. It 
may be observed, in connection, that the charges brought 
against them, however general may be the terms in which 
they are sometimes expressed, evidently relate principally to 
the vices of sensuality and profligacy. 

The avowal of such a principle may strike us at first view 
as a moral absurdity scarcely credible. But it was in truth 

* Lib. i. c. 25, 6, p. 104. t See pp. 228-231. 



276 EVIDENCES OF THE 

a principle with which Paganism had made men familiar, and 
which it had thoroughly sanctioned. In the heathen wor 
ship, gross indecencies, and abominable extravagances and 
debaucheries, were represented as acceptable to many of 
their gods, to Bacchus, Venus, Cybele, and Flora ; not to 
mention other inferior divinities of a still baser character. 
The public celebration of many of the heathen rites was 
marked with deep stains of pollution. In Egypt, where 
brute animals were deified, heathen writers tell us (whether 
we can believe them or not), that abominations were com 
mitted in their worship, with which even those that Epipha- 
nius charges on the heretics whom he most vilifies are not 
to be compared. 

But, though we receive as essentially true the accounts of 
Irenaeus and Clement respecting the pseudo-Christians whom 
we have been considering, we cannot extend the same credit 
to the outrageous charges brought by writers of the fourth 
and fifth centuries, particularly by Epiphanius, against some 
of those whom they represented as heretics. There is a most 
offensive specimen of them in the account which that writer 
gives of a pretended sect, to which, with the confusion fre 
quent in his writings, he applies the name of " Gnostics" used 
not as a generic, but a specific name.* The origin of his 
appropriation of the term to a particular sect may be thus 
explained. 

Irenaeus speaks of the Gnostics whom he supposes to have 
existed antecedently to their being split into different sects 
and called after different leaders, simply under that generic 
name, and uses the same general name also concerning those 
whom he does not refer to any particular class. Especially 
at the conclusion of his first book, after having given an 
account of the principal Gnostic sects, distinguished by 

* Haeres., xxvi. ; Opp. i. 82. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 277 

particular names, as referred to their respective leaders, he 
says, that besido these a multitude of Gnostics arose, whose 
different doctrines he proceeds to mention, without denoting 
those who held them by any specific appellations.* Among 
them were those who were afterwards named Ophians and 
Cainites. Irena3us likewise says, that the Carpocratians 
called themselves Gnostics ; f by which appropriation of the 
name, they, of course, meant nothing more than that they 
were " enlightened men." 

The latter remark of Irenaeus has led Eusebius to affirm, 
after speaking of Simon Magus, Menander, Saturninus, and 
Basilides, that "Irenaeus writes, that Carpocrates was the 
father of another sect, called that of the Gnostics." J The 
passage is remarkable, as showing how confused were 
the notions of Eusebius concerning the earlier heretics, 
and may lead to the conclusion, that, in his time, they had 
almost sunk out of notice. In fact, he appears to have had 
little or no personal knowledge of them, and to have used 
Irenaeus as his principal authority in speaking of them. 
Him, it seems, he had consulted so negligently, that among 
the various sects of Gnostics he thus appropriates the name 
to one, the Carpocratians, as if it belonged to them exclu 
sively. 

Perhaps, Epiphanius, also, misapprehended IrenaBus, mis 
taking his use of the term " Gnostics " as a generic name, in 
the passages before mentioned, for its use as a specific appel 
lation ; and this mistake may have suggested to him the fabri 
cation of this sect of subordinate Gnostics. || But his real 

* Lib. i. cc. 26-31, p. 107, seqq. In the first sentence of chapter twenty- 
ninth, the word " Barbelo " appears to be an interpolation. 

t Lib. i. c. 25, 6. J Hist. Eccles., lib. iv. c. 7. 

In appropriating it to the Carpocratians, he differs from Epiphanius, 
who distinguishes between the Carpocratians ano his Gnostics; and who 
eays (Opp. i. pp. 77, 82), that the latter had their origin from the Nico- 
laltans. 

U Haeres., xxvi. ; Opp. i. 82, seqq. 



278 EVIDENCES OF THE 

purpose, I conceive, in his account of this pretended sect, was 
to cast odium upon all those heretics who bore the name 
of Gnostics. Accordingly, in his account he makes no dis 
tinction between this sect and the whole body of Gnostics, of 
which, if the sect existed, it could at most have been regarded 
only as a subdivision. His accusations stand against Gnos 
tics generally, without any limitation ; there being nothing in 
this part of his work from which it could be inferred that 
there were other heretics who bore the name besides those 
of whom he is speaking. 

In conformity with what may be presumed to have been 
his purpose, he has loaded this fictitious sect (as I conceive it 
to be) with charges of absurd doctrines, abominable crimes, 
and loathsome impurities. " Scruples are felt," says Beau- 
sobre, " about giving the lie to Epiphanius, who represents 
this sect as Christians ; but, for myself, I feel much stronger 
scruples against ranking among Christian heretics individuals 
who were the most profane of men, if what is said of them be 
true." * Certainly, such individuals as Epiphanius describes 
could not have been Christians ; but it may further be ob 
served, that his authority is not of a kind to afford ground 
for believing that such individuals ever existed, supposing 
their existence possible. Epiphanius is a writer as deficient 
in plausibility, as in decency and veracity. He has in an 
extraordinary manner implicated his own character in his 
account; for, after describing practices which no mind not 
thoroughly corrupt could regard as other than ineffably 
odious, he asserts that he had gained his knowledge from 
women belonging to the sect, who, in his youth, had endeav 
ored to corrupt his virtue and seduce him to join it ; f that he 
had been under strong temptation, but that God in his mercy 

* Histoire de Manichde et du Maniche"isme, torn. ii. p. 68. 

t According to his own account, he was acquainted with the private sign 
by which the members of the sect recognized each other (Hseres. xxvi. 4, 
op. 85, 86). 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 279 

had delivered him, in answer to his prayers and groans ; and 
that then he had denounced the members of the sect, whoso 
names had before been unknown, to the " bishops in that 
place " (what bishops, or what place, he does not specify), 
and that " the city " (a nameless city) had in consequence 
been purged by the banishment of about eighty individuals.* 

While, however, we reject in the gross the account of 
Epiphanius, as not true of any body of men, it does not follow 
that it is throughout a mere fabrication. There may have 
been in his age crazy and vicious fanatics, who afforded * a 
certain foundation for it. Some facts are also to be discov 
ered in what Epiphanius has brought together. He mentions 
and quotes a book of some interest, of which he affords the 
only account, and concerning which there seems no reason to 
suspect him of mistake or falsehood. It was called the 
" Gospel of Eve," as containing the wisdom which Eve had 
learned from the Serpent.f That it was so called is one 
among the many proofs which make evident what we shall 
hereafter have occasion to observe, that the title " Gospel " 
did not imply that a book to which it was given was a history 
of the ministry of Jesus. But this book is an object of curi 
osity for another reason. It appears from the single passage 
of it extant, quoted by Epiphanius, to have been founded on 
the Egyptian pantheism. Conformably to this, he says,J 
that those who used it believed that " the same soul is dis 
persed in animals and insects and fishes and serpents and 
men, and in herbs and trees and fruits." The passage from 
the Gospel of Eve is to the following effect. The writer, 
or the person represented as speaking, says, " I stood on a 
high mountain, and I saw a man of large stature, and another 
mutilated ; and I heard, as it were, a voice of thunder ; and I 



Hseres., xxvi. 17, pp. 99, 100. f Ibid., 2, p. 84. 

Ibid., 9, p. 90. Ibid., 3, p. 84. 



280 EVIDENCES OF THE 

drew near to hearken, and it spoke to me, and said, * 1 am 
thou, and thou art I ; and, wherever thou mayest be, there 
am I ; and I am dispersed in all things ; and, from whatever 
place thou wouldst collect me, in collecting me thou art 
collecting thyself. " 

What the two figures were intended to symbolize cannot, I 
think, be conjectured with any probability. But the words 
uttered appear evidently to be an expression of the pantheistic 
doctrine, according to which all individual beings are but 
parts of the one, sole, self-subsistent being, the Universe. 
There is, perhaps, in the passage, an allusion to the fable of 
the mutilation of the body of Osiris by Typhon, and the col 
lection of his members by Isis, which, when the absurdities 
of ancient mythology were transformed by the philosophers 
of later times into allegories, was mystically explained, as 
symbolizing the discerption and disappearance of Ideas, the 
essential forms of things, the body of Osiris, through the 
action of the destructive powers of nature, personified as 
Typhon, and their being collected anew and re-adapted to 
their purpose by the receptive and nutritive powers typified 
by Isis.* The analogy, also, is striking between the words 
said to be uttered and the inscription which Plutarch reports 
to have been engraved on the temple of Isis at Sais : " I 
am all that has been, is, or will be ; " f Isis being here per- 



* Plutarch, de leide et Osiride, 53. Moral., torn. ii. pp. 626, 527, ed. 
Wyttenbach. 

t Ibid., 9, p. 453. Plutarch concludes the inscription thus: "And my 
veil no mortal has ever lifted." Proclus gives it with a different ending. 
That it was actually to be found on or in the temple at Sals is very doubtful. 
But, as regards our present purpose, the question is unimportant, since the 
report of Plutarch sufficiently shows the existence of this conception of Isis 
long before Epiphanius s notice of the Gospel of Eve. See, respecting this 
inscription, Jablonski s Pantheon ./Egyptiorum, pars i. lib. i. c. 3, 7, and 
Mosheim s notes in his Latin translation of Cudworth s Intellectual System, 
torn. i. p. 610, seqq., and p. 522, ed. secund. In the last note, Mosheim gives 
the coirect reading of another remarkable inscription to Isis, of similar import. 






GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 281 

sonified as Universal Nature. It is to be observed, that 
there is great confusion in the Egyptian mythology, the same 
attributes being ascribed to different divinities. This confu 
sion probably originated from the fact that one god was the 
peculiar object of veneration in one place, and another in 
another, so that the highest attributes were in different places 
ascribed to different gods ; but it was at once both solved 
and aggravated by the mystical theology, which taught that 
they were all only manifestations of Universal Nature, 
each of them but different names for the " One and All," con 
sidered under different relations. 

From the title of the book mentioned by Epiphanius, that 
is, from its being called a " gospel ; " from the circumstance 
that he ascribes its use to an heretical sect; and from the 
account given by him of the pantheistic opinions of this sect, 
we may infer that there were individuals who blended con 
ceptions borrowed from Christianity with the Egyptian 
mythology and pantheism, and who have been improperly 
represented as Christian heretics. Pseudo-Christians of like 
character appear to have existed in Egypt at an early period. 

found at Capua, which is to this effect : " Aerrius Balbinus dedicates thee 
[that is, a part of the universe, a stone] to thyself, who art one and all things, 
the goddess Isis." 

It may here be observed, that Cudworth should be read with the notes ot 
Mosheim; unless, indeed, one be so acquainted with the philosophy and reli 
gion of the ancients, and so accustomed to reasoning, and to estimating the 
power and the ambiguity of language, as to be able to correct for himself his 
deceptive representations. He deserves the highest praise for integrity as a 
writer; his learning was superabundant, and his intellect vigorous enough to 
wield it to his purpose. But he transfers his own religious conceptions to the 
heathen philosophers and religionists; he infuses the sentiments of a modem 
theist into their words ; and he confounds together the doctrines of those who 
preceded Christianity, and of those who were powerfully acted upon by its 
influence. He thus spreads a luminous cloud over the ancient heathen the 
ology, which Mosheim has done something to dispel. Mosheim has likewise 
corrected many of the other errors of fact, or mistakes of judgment, which run 
through the mass of Cudworth s learning; and has added much to illustrate 
the topics of which he treats. 



282 EVIDENCES OF THE 

We have some information, such as it is, concerning this 
subject in a curious letter of Hadrian, preserved by the 
pagan historian Vopiscus.* The emperor says : " Egypt, 
my dear Servian, which you recommended to me, I have 
found to be light, vacillating, and borne about by every 
rumor. Those who worship Serapis are Christians, and 
those who call themselves Christian bishops are devoted to 
Serapis. There is no ruler of a Jewish synagogue, no Samar 
itan, no Christian priest, who is not an astrologer, a diviner, 
a leader of a sect.f The patriarch J himself, when he comes 
to Egypt, is forced by some to worship Serapis, and, by others, 
Christ." The emperor may not have had the best opportu 
nities for obtaining information respecting the state of reli 
gion among the Egyptians, and he may have trusted too much 
to the jeers of his courtiers ; but notwithstanding this, and 
notwithstanding the levity and obvious extravagance of his 
letter, we cannot suppose that what he says was wholly with 
out foundation. Some state of things existed in Egypt, in 
the first half of the second century, which gave occasion to 
his representation. The minds of many, it may be presumed, 
were affected by Christianity, who had but a very imperfect 
knowledge of what Christianity was, and some of whom com 
bined it very grossly with their former errors. 

* In his Life of Saturninus. 

t "A leader of a sect." The Latin word is aliptes, which means an 
anointer, one who anoints those who have bathed, or the combatants for the 
arena. But, as it is not easy to perceive any appropriateness in this mean 
ing, I have ventured to render the word in a sense of the Greek aheinTqe, 
which is used metaphorically to signify an inciter or leader. Perhaps the 
emperor wrote tne word in Greek letters. But after all. in using the expres 
sions wnicii ne does, mathematicus. /laruspex. aitptes. ne may have fiad m 
mind a line in Juvenal s description 01 a needv Greek adventurer (Sat. iii. 
76,, " Grammaticus. rnetor. geometres. pictor aliptes:" and mav thus, in 
employing the word aliptes, have intended omy an expression of contempt. 

f The patriarch of the Jews must be meant, as the title and dignity of 
patriarch were not known in the Christian Church till long after the time 
of Hadrian. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 283 

It seems probable that the book mentioned by Epiphanius, 
the Gospel of Eve, containing the wisdom which Eve learned 
from the Serpent, had its origin among certain reputed here 
tics, who, according to Origen, were not Christians. They 
were called Ophians or Ophites (we might render the name 
Serpentists), from the Greek word oqpt, a serpent ; because, 
as Origen says, they took the part of the Serpent who seduced 
Eve, and represented him as having given good counsel to 
our first parents.* Irenaeus, in one of the last chapters of 
his first book,| before referred to, $ gives an account of the 
doctrines of a certain sect not named by him, but which, as is 
evident from a comparison with Origen and other subsequent 
writers, was that of the Ophians. Nothing entitled to much 
credit is added by the later historians of the heretics to the 
notices of Irenaeus and Origen. 

Origen s mention of them is incidental. There is no reason 
to distrust its essential correctness, but he enters into no 
general exposition of their system. The account of Irenaeus 
is confused and improbable, and appears to have been put 
together from imperfect and inconsistent sources of informa 
tion. The statements respecting them by him and by the 
other writers who speak of them as heretics, as the author 
of the Addition to Tertullian, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, 
when taken in connection, present a system of absurdities so 
palpably irreconcilable, that no sect could have professed it 
for their creed. We may compare it to a machine composed 
of parts of various others, interfering among themselves in 
such a manner, that evidently it could never have been in 
operation. 

We can therefore admit, with any confidence, only some 
very general conclusions respecting the doctrines of the 
Ophians. Whether Christians or not, they appear to have 

* Origen. cont. Celsum, lib. vi. 28, Opp. i. pp. 651, 652. 

1 Cap. 30. J See p. 276. 

See the account of Irenaeus, as before referred to, lib. i. c. 30 ; and that 



284 EVIDENCES OP THE 

been of the class of theosophic Gnostics, holding very dispar 
aging opinions of the Creator, whom they regarded as the 
god of the Jews. They believed that he, with six other 
powers produced by him, informed and ruled seven spheres 
surrounding the earth (those of the sun and of the planets 
known to the ancients) ; and that through these spheres the 
soul had to pass after death in its ascent to the spiritual 
world. The way, which might otherwise be barred by those 
powers, was open to such as were initiated in their mysteries, 
and had learned the proper invocations which the soul must 
address to them in its ascent, to obtain its passage. Their 
doctrines have the appearance of being a caricature of the 
doctrines of the proper Gnostics. Maintaining the common 
opinion, that the Creator was not spiritual, and regarding him 
as being opposed to the manifestation and development of the 
spiritual principle in man, they honored the Serpent for hav 
ing thwarted his narrow purposes, withdrawn our first parents 
from their allegiance to him, induced them to eat the fruit of 
the tree of knowledge, and thus brought them the knowledge 
of " that Power which is over all." By a serpent, the 
Phoenicians and Egyptians are said to have symbolized the 
Agathodaemon, the benevolent power in nature (the god 
Cneph of the Egyptians) ; * and the Ophians, perhaps, re 
garded the Serpent under the same aspect. Clement of Alex 
andria once incidentally mentions the Ophians, in speaking of 
the origin of the names of different sects. Some, he says, 
are denominated " from their systems, and from the objects 
they honor, as the Caiinists and the Ophians." f The Cainists 
or Cainites (whom we shall have occasion to notice hereafter) 
are represented as magnifying Cain. The Ophians honored 
the Serpent. 

of Origen in his work, Against Celsus, lib. vi. Opp. i. pp. 648-661 ; lib. viL 
pp. 722, 723 ; lib. iii. p. 455. 

* Eusebii Prseparatio Evangelica, lib. i. c. 10. 

t Stromat, vii. 17, p. 900. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 285 

Nothing concerning the Ophians would seem to be better 
established than this fact. But it is not stated by Irenaeus. 
On the contrary, according to his account of their system, the 
Serpent was originally vicious, produced by the Creator in 
the dregs of matter, and treacherous to him. Afterwards, 
indeed, he appears employed by Sophia or Wisdom, the 
offspring of the Unknown God, the mother but adversary of 
the Creator, for the purpose of seducing our first parents to 
eat of the forbidden fruit ; by which they obtained a knowl 
edge of the Supreme Divinity. But the Creator, who was 
himself desirous of being regarded as the highest God, being, 
in consequence, angry with the Serpent, expelled him from 
heaven, where he had before dwelt, and cast him down to 
earth. After this fall, he is made to correspond to the ser 
pent of the Apocalypse, the Devil ; and is represented as 
producing six other evil powers (answering to the six subor 
dinate powers of the Creator), and as being, together with 
them, full of malice equally toward men and their Maker. 

But we have good reason to believe, that Irenaeus, our 
earliest and one of our two principal authorities, has fallen 
into great errors respecting the system of the Ophians, when 
we find him saying, notwithstanding what has been stated, 
that they affirmed the Serpent to be " the Nous (Intellect) 
himself ; " * for this was the name by which theosophic 
Gnostics designated their first emanation from the Su 
preme Being. Elsewhere he says, that some of the Ophians 
maintained that Wisdom herself became the Serpent.f 
And, in connection with this, we cannot but be struck 
with the intrinsic improbability of the scheme that he as 
cribes to the sect ; according to which, the Devil was em 
ployed for the purpose of communicating spiritual wisdom 
and a knowledge of the true God to our first parents. These, 



* Lib. i. c. 30, 5, p. 110. 
t Ibid., 15, p. 112. 



286 EVIDENCES OF THE 

however, are but some of the inconsistencies that present 
themselves in the system that he has depicted. 

That the Ophians held the Serpent in honor appears from 
the testimony of Clement and Origen, the indications fur 
nished by Irenaaus himself, the reports of later writers, and 
the evidence of their distinguishing name. Epiphanius says, 
that they glorified the Serpent as God, or as a god, and 
affirmed him to be Christ ; * though, at the same time, with 
the grossest inconsistency, of which he seems to have had 
some indistinct consciousness, he gives a mutilated variation 
of the account of Irenseus by winch the Serpent is identified 
with the Devil.f The same inconsistency exists in the 
relation of the author of the Addition to Tertullian, who fol 
lows Irenaeus in part, but affirms that the Ophians placed the 
Serpent above Christ. $ And Theodoret, who, I think, was 
embarrassed by the contradictions of his predecessors, says, 
that some of the Ophians worshipped the Serpent. 

Modern writers have, in consequence, conjectured, either 
that there were two sorts of Ophians, or that there were two 
Serpents in their system, one celestial and the other terres 
trial. But it would have been strange, if two classes of 
persons, one honoring the Serpent as a god, and the other 
regarding him as the Devil, had both been comprehended 
under the same name; and as for the conjecture of two 
Serpents, it is certain that Irenaeus, and the other ancient 
writers who mention the Ophians, speak only of one. A 
general solution of this and of other difficulties concerning 
them is to be found in the obscurity of the sect, in the conse 
quent ignorance and inaccuracy of the reporters of their doc 
trines, and in the great probability that these doctrines were 
little settled among themselves. 

* Indie, in torn, iii., lib. i. p. 229. Haeres., xxxvii. 1, 2, pp. 268, 269 
5, pp. 271, 272. 

1 Ibid., 4, 5, pp. 271, 272. J Apud Tertullian., Opp. 47, p. 220. 
Hseret. Fab., lib. i. n. 14, p. 205. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 287 

Our purpose does not require us to enter further into 
the detail of their system, and to force our way through the 
crude accounts of ancient, and the hypotheses of modern 
writers. The labor would in any case be unprofitable. It 
may be the duty of one exploring these difficult subjects to 
spend his own time in pursuing obscure paths, tangled with 
briers, till he is satisfied that they lead to nothing ; but it can 
seldom be worth while to conduct others over the same 
ground, that they may enjoy a like gratification. 

The accounts of the Ophians belong, for the most part, to 
the fabulous history of the Gnostics. Nor should I have dwelt 
even so long upon this obscure and insignificant sect (for such 
we shall perceive it to have been), were it not for its having 
been magnified into importance by the discussions concerning 
it in modern times, and, still more, if it were not for the rela 
tion in which Origen says the Ophians stood to Christianity. 

He speaks of them in his work against Celsus. Celsus 
had charged Christians with calling the Creator " an accursed 
god," * upon the ground, as appears, that this was done by 
the Ophians ; for it was his custom to accuse Christians of 
the extravagances and errors of heretical and pseudo-Chris 
tian sects. But Origen says, in reply, that the Ophians were 
so far from being Christians, that they spoke of Jesus not less 
reproachfully than did Celsus himself, that they admitted no 
one into their fellowship without pronouncing curses against 
him, and that they were unwilling to hear his name even as 
that of a wise and virtuous man.f Origen calls them a very 
obscure sect, J and speaks of their number as very small ; 
there being, he says, none or very few remaining. Celsus 
had brought forward a symbolical diagram, having reference 
to the ascent of the soul through the seven spheres of the 
Creator and his angels ; and Origen is principally occupied 
by an account of this diagram, and the prayers inscribed upon 

* Contra Gels., lib. vi. 28; Opp. i. 651. f Ibid., p. 652. 

J Ibid., 24, p. 648 Ibid., 26, p. 650. 



288 EVIDENCES OP THE 

it. It bore names given to the seven Powers, barbarous to 
Grecian ears, borrowed partly from the Old Testament, and 
partly, according to Origen, from the art of magic.* But he 
says, that though he had travelled much, and everywhere 
sought the acquaintance of men professing to know any thing, 
yet he had never met with any one who professed to explain 
it.f 

In a passage antecedent to what I have quoted, Origen 
says : " Celsus seems to me to have become acquainted with 
some sects that have no fellowship with us even in the name 
of Jesus. Thus, perhaps, he has heard of the Ophians or the 
Cainites, or of some others, holding doctrines wholly foreign 
from those of Jesus." J 

Origen s account of the insignificance of the sect of the 
Ophians is confirmed, if it need confirmation, by the facts, 
that they are not named by Irenaeus, nor are their peculiar 
doctrines referred to in his long confutation of different here 
sies, which forms the greater part of his work ; that they are 
but once incidentally mentioned, as we have seen, by Clement 
of Alexandria ; and that they are not noticed at all by Ter- 
tullian. Their want of notoriety appears likewise from the 
uncertainty respecting their name. None is given them by 
Irenaeus. By Clement and Origen they are called Ophians 
( Ocpiavoi) ; by Epiphanius, and some Latin writers who 
mention them, Ophites ( Ocpiiai). Theodoret speaks of 
them as "Sethians, or Ophians, or Ophites ;" but Epi 
phanius and others make quite a distinct sect of the Seth 
ians, || and the probability is, that no proper sect ever 
existed under this name. H The obscurity of the Ophians is 

* Cont. Cels., lib. vi. 32, pp. 656, 657. f Ibid., 24, p. 648. 

J Ibid., lib. iii. 13, p. 455. Haeret. Fab., lib. i. n. 14, p. 204. 

|| They are the thirty-ninth Heresy of Epiphanius ; Opp. i. 284. 

Tf The Sethians have been mentioned before (p. 174, note). I conceive, 
that " Sethians " was, as there explained, only a name by which some of the 
Gnostics denoted the spiritual ; Seth being regarded as their progenitor or 
prototype. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 289 

made still more evident by the very confused and inconsistent 
accounts of their doctrines, accounts such as would not have 
been given of those of any well-known sect. 

There is, as we have seen, a disagreement between Origen 
on the one side, and Irenoeus and subsequent writers on the 
other, concerning the relation in which the Ophians stood to 
Christianity. Irenoeus represents them as Christian heretics ; 
Origen, as an antichristian sect. The difference would have 
been of no account, if Origen had merely said that they were 
not Christians. According to Irenasus, they held that their 
doctrines were not openly taught by Christ, but that Jesus, 
whom they distinguished from Christ, remaining on earth 
eighteen months after his resurrection, then communicated 
them to a few of his disciples, who had capacity for such 
great mysteries.* Thus founding a system of their own 
invention on a supposititious basis, they might well be consid 
ered as not Christians. But Origeu says, that they pro 
nounced curses against Jesus. With so slight a hold as they 
had upon Christianity, and probably with no very fixed belief, 
they may have passed through a natural process of deteriora 
tion during the interval between Irena3us and Origen. There 
is nothing improbable in the supposition, that a vain and 
foolish sect should first claim to be a sort of transcendental 
Christians, and then, finding themselves contemned by the 
great body of believers, and perceiving that their specula 
tions were only embarrassed by their pretended faith, should 
have determined to rely on their own spiritual wisdom alone, 
and should have openly professed their rejection of Christian 
ity with something of the spleen of apostates. 

This is an obvious solution of the disagreement between 
Origen and Irenoeus. But perhaps we are to look still far 
ther for an explanation of it. With more or less analogy to 
some later sects, the theosophic Gnostics believed that they 



Cont. Haeres., lib. i. c. 30, 14, p. 112. 
10 



290 EVIDENCES OF THE 

were guided to the truth by the divine light within, that 
spiritual nature which they considered as peculiar to them 
selves. Their systems consequently were the truth. They 
were derived from a higher source than reasoning, and were 
not amenable to it. They could be judged of only by those 
whose spiritual apprehensions were conformed to their recep 
tion. These principles, it is true, were not consistently acted 
upon. The Gnostics appear to have reasoned as well as 
they were able ; and, as we shall hereafter see, were even 
reputed in their day subtile reasoners from the Scriptures. 
The claim of a higher internal source of knowledge, of the 
nature and operations of which reason is not the judge, is 
commonly resorted to only when all other modes of proof 
fail. Men do not contemn the aid of reason before it is 
withdrawn. But it was the tendency of the self-confident 
state of mind which characterized the Gnostics to lead them 
to reject instruction from without. A true Gnostic was his 
own teacher ; and, though he found his system in the Gospel, 
yet his own mind was the book in which it was first read. 
Christianity was likely thus to become, in his view, an ab 
straction, the name for a body of opinions and imaginations, 
which he had embraced because he knew them to be true, 
independently of what others regarded as evidence of the 
divine authority of our religion. 

Together with this, the theosophic Gnostics generally 
distinguished between the being who appeared as a man, 
Jesus, the son of the Creator, and the celestial being, Christ, 
or the Saviour, or the spiritual Jesus, who, at the baptism of 
the former, descended into him from the Pleroma.* To use 
the words of Tertullian, they " made Christ and Jesus different 
beings. The one had escaped from the midst of multitudes, 
the other was apprehended : the one in the solitude of a 



* Irenseus, lib. i. c. 7, 2, pp. 32, 33; lib. iii. c. 10, 4, p. 186, c. 11, 1, 
8, pp. 188, 189: conf. lib. i. c. 2, 6, pp. 12. 13. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 291 

mountain, overshadowed by a cloud, had been resplendent 
before three witnesses ; the other, with no mark of distinction, 
had held common intercourse with men : the one was mag 
nanimous, but the other trembling : and, at last, Jesus had 
been crucified, and Christ had risen."* It was the Christ of 
the Pleroma whom they regarded as the teacher of divine 
truths ; and those truths which were most mysterious and 
transcendent they conceived him to have taught in secret 
meanings and enigmas, and in mere intimations and allusions, 
recorded in the Gospels, and in private, unrecorded discourses 
addressed only to those capable of comprehending them. 
But the system of the Ophians appears throughout as a 
coarse exaggeration of the doctrines of the theosophic Gnos 
tics. In common with those Gnostics, they regarded Jesus 
as the son of the Creator. But of the Creator they gave the 
most disparaging representations, and are said to have pro 
nounced him accursed. It is not, then, difficult to believe 
that they extended like enmity to his son ; nor is there any 
thing very improbable in supposing, that they might have 
pretended to be, in some sort, followers of Christ, while they 
rejected Jesus as a divine teacher, and even proceeded to 
the extravagance, mentioned by Origen, of pronouncing 
curses on his name. 

From what has been said, it may appear that sects and 
individuals who are not to be considered as Christians have 
been erroneously reckoned among the Gnostics. Nor is 
their existence difficult to be accounted for. Christianity 
soon became an object of universal attention. It was a new 
phenomenon in the intellectual world. A power unknown 
before was in action, and spreading its influence far beyond 
the sphere to which it might seem to be confined. Our 
religion essentially affected the heathen philosophy contem- 

* De Came Chrisli, c. 24, p. 325. 



292 EVIDENCES OP THE 

porary with it, and introduced into it conceptions such as had 
not been previously entertained. The doctrines of our faith 
were undoubtedly more or less known to many who had 
not studied them in the Gospels, nor were acquainted with 
its evidences as a revelation from God. Though not received 
by such as of divine authority, and but imperfectly under 
stood, they gave a new impulse to thought. Men s minds 
were thrown into a state of effervescence, new affinities 
operated, and new combinations of opinion were formed. 
There were, doubtless, those whose vanity prompted them 
to profess an acquaintance with the new barbaric philosophy, 
as they deemed it, and to represent themselves as having 
exercised a critical and discriminating judgment upon it, and 
as having discovered in it certain important views, and certain 
truths not before developed. In sOme of those affected by 
our religion, their imperfect and heartless knowledge of it 
would be rather destructive than renovating, breaking down 
all barriers of thought, and opening the way for wild specula 
tions. Hence, as we may easily believe, new systems of 
opinion sprung up, not Christian, but deriving some charac 
teristic peculiarities from Christianity, the systems held by 
.hose whom we have called pseudo- Christians. 

But how, it may be asked, came the pseudo- Christians to 
b-3 confounded with Christian heretics ? Various considera 
tions afford an answer to this question. As I have remarked, 
no well-defined boundary was apparent between the two 
classes. They passed insensibly into each other. In the 
reliance of the Gnostics upon the revelations of their own 
spiritual nature, we may perceive a tendency to infidelity. 
It was an error which would lead many to undervalue, and 
some to reject, the authority of Christ. The pseudo-Chris 
tians were reckoned among the Gnostics, because many of 
them held Gnostic opinions ; and such opinions were attributed 
even to those, the Carpocratians, by whom they were not 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 293 

held. Another cause of this confusion may be found in the 
fact, that the Heathens would naturally blend together in one 
general class all those who, breaking away from the old forms 
of philosophy, were evidently involved in the new movement 
in the intellectual world produced by Christianity. The ene 
mies of our religion charged upon Christians what might be 
truly or falsely said of such sectaries as we have been consid 
ering. And, on the other hand, the catholic Christians, 
regarding the Gnostics as not true believers, as not belonging 
to the Christian body, were not careful to discriminate be 
tween them, and those who, though corresponding with them 
in many respects, had yet no title to the Christian name. 
Hence it was, we may conceive, that the Gnostics were 
classed with individuals whose doctrines and whose lives 
many of them regarded with as strong disapprobation as did 
the catholic Christians. 

In the preceding chapters, we have taken a general view of 
the Gnostics, and of their relation to the catholic Christians. 
We have traced their external history, and attended to the 
respective characters of those writers from whom our knowl 
edge of them is derived. We have considered their morals, 
an essential point in determining how far they may be 
regarded as sincere though erroneous believers ; and we have 
discriminated them from sectaries with whom they have been 
confounded, who, though borrowing some conceptions from 
Christianity, were not Christians. 

It has been suggested, likewise, that the occasion of Gnos 
ticism was to be found in the aversion of the Gentiles to 
Judaism, in the form in which it was presented to their 
minds; and to this subject we will next attend. 



CHAPTER YL 

ON GNOSTICISM, CONSIDERED AS A SEPARATION OF JUDA 
ISM FROM CHRISTIANITY. 

" EVERY heretic, as far as I know," says Tertullian, " ridi 
cules the whole of the Old Testament."* " To separate the 
Law from the Gospel," he observes in another place, " is 
the special and principal object of Marcion." f " The labor 
of the heretics," he says, " is not in building up an edifice of 
their own, but in destroying the truth. They undermine ours 
to erect their own. Take away from them the Law of Moses, 
and the Prophets, and the Creator God, and they will have 
nothing to urge against us." $ " It is the case with all those," 
says Irenseus, " who hold pernicious doctrines, that, being influ 
enced by the opinion that the Law of Moses is different from, 
and contrary to, the doctrine of the Gospel, they have not 
turned to consider the causes of the difference between the 
two Testaments." 

Origen, in maintaining the necessity of interpreting the 
Scriptures allege rically, says, that many have fallen into 
great errors from not understanding them in their spiritual 
sense. He first instances the unbelieving Jews, who, he says, 
rejected the Messiah in consequence of interpreting the 

Advers. Marcion., lib. v. c. 5, p. 467. f Ibid., lib. i. c. 19, p. 374. 
| De Prsescriptione Hsereticorum, c. 42, p. 217. 
Cont. Hjeres., lib. iii. c. 12, 12, p. 198. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 295 

prophecies concerning him literally. He then proceeds 
thus : 

44 The hcrevics, too, when they read, Afire has blazed from my 
wrath ;* I am a jealous God, requiting the sins of fathers upon 
children to the third and fourth generation ; f / repent that 1 
have anointed Saul to be king ; J / am the God who makes peace 
and creates evil ; and, in another place, There is no evil in a city 
which the Lord hath not wroug7it;\\ and yet further, Evil came 
down from the Lord to the gates of Jerusalem ; ^ and, An evil 
spirit from the Lord tormented Saul,** when they read these and 
ten thousand other similar passages, they do not indeed venture 
to reject the divine origin of the Scriptures [the Jewish Scrip 
tures] , but they believe them to have proceeded from the Creator 
whom the Jews worship. Regarding him, in consequence, as 
imperfect, and not good, they think that the Saviour came to make 
known the more perfect God, who, they affirm, is not the Creator. 
Holding various opinions concerning this subject, and having de 
serted the Creator, who is the unoriginated only God, they have 
given themselves up to their own fabrications ; and have formed 
mythological systems, according to which they explain the pro 
duction of things visible, and of other things, invisible, the exis 
tence of which they have imagined. But indeed," continues 
Origen, "the more simple of those who boast that they belong 
to the Church, who regard none as superior to the Creator, and 
in this do well, have yet such conceptions of him as are not to be 
entertained of the most cruel and most unjust of men," in con 
sequence, as he immediately remarks, of their understanding the 
Jewish Scriptures, not " according to their spiritual sense, but 
according to the naked letter." ff 

44 The most ungodly and irreligious among the heretics," says 
Origen, in his Commentary on Leviticus, "not understanding 
the difference between visible Judaism and intelligible Judaism, 
that is, between Judaism in its outward form and Judaism in its 



* Jer. xv. 14. f Exod. xx. 5. J 1 Sam. xv. 11. 

Isa. xlv. 7. || Amos iii. 6, so quoted by Origen. 

Tl Micah i. 12. ** 1 Sam. xvi 14. 

ft De Principiis lib iv. 8 ; Opp. i. 164, seqq. 



296 . EVIDENCES OF THE 

hidden purport, have at once separated themselves from Judaism, 
and from the God who gave these Scriptures and the whole Law, 
and have fabricated for themselves another God beside him who 
gave the Law and the Prophets, and made heaven and earth."* 

Of the opinions of Ptolemy, the Valentinian, respecting 
the Jewish Law, we have a detailed account in his Letter to 
Flora, which he seems to have intended as a sort of inti educ 
tion to Gnosticism, as an exposition and defence of its 
fundamental doctrine. He begins by stating, that some 
believe the Law to have been ordained by God the Father, 
and others by the Adversary, Satan. Both opinions he 
rejects as altogether erroneous. It could not have proceeded 
from the Perfect God and Father, because it is imperfect, 
and contains commands unsuitable to the nature and will of 
such a God; nor, on the other hand, can the Law, which 
forbids iniquity, be ascribed to the Evil Being. His own 
opinion, he conceives, may be proved by the words of Christ, 
to which alone, he says, we may safely trust in investigating 
the subject. It is, that the Law contained in the Pentateuch 
does not proceed from a single lawgiver, consequently not 
from the god of the Jews alone. A part of it is to be 
ascribed to him; another part was given by Moses on his 
own authority ; and a third portion consists of laws inter 
polated by the elders of the people. In proof that some 
laws proceeded from Moses alone, he quotes the words of 
Christ, " Moses, on account of the hardness of your hearts, 
permitted you to put away your wives ; but in the beginning 
it was not so, for God established the connection ; and what 
the Lord has joined together, let no man put asunder." f To 
the laws interpolated by the elders, he regards Christ as 
referring, when he taught the Jews that they had set aside 
the Law of God by the traditions of their elders. $ Of that 

* Philocalia, c. 1, adjinem; Opp. ii. 192. 

t Matt. xix. 4-8. J Mark vii. 3-9. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 297 

portion of the Law which he ascribes to the god of the 
Jews, some of the precepts, according to him, are wholly 
unmixed with evil. They constitute the Law, properly so 
called, that Law which the Saviour came not to destroy, but 
to perfect. They are those of the Decalogue.* Other pre 
cepts have a mixture of something bad and wrong, and were 
abrogated by the Saviour. Such, for instance, is the law 
respecting retaliation, " An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 
tooth." A third class, consisting of the ceremonial law, 
relates to things typical of those to come, more spiritual and 
excellent, in the Christian dispensation. Why the laws of 
the god of the Jews should contain types of Christianity, 
Ptolemy does not explain in this Letter. He probably ac 
counted for it through a secret influence from the Pleroma, 
under which, as we shall hereafter see, the Creator was rep 
resented by the Valentinians as acting. 

Ptolemy next proceeds to answer the inquiry, Who was 
that god who gave the Law ? He was not, he repeats, the 
Perfect God, nor was he Satan ; but he was the Fashioner 
and Maker of this World, and of the beings contained in it, 
not good (that is, not possessing unmingled goodness), like 
the Supreme God, nor evil and wicked like Satan ; but stand 
ing in the midst between them, one who may properly be 
called Just, as one who rewards and punishes according to 
his measure of goodness ; not unoriginated, like the Supreme 
God, but being an image of him. 

In this account of his opinions, Ptolemy probably gives as 

* There is here, apparently, an example of that inconsistency of which 
we find so much in the theological speculations of the ancients. Christ, 
according to Ptolemy, retained and perfected "the ten commandments." 
But Ptolemy believed these to have been given, not by the Supreme Being, 
but by the god of the Jews. Now the first of them is, " Thou shalt have no 
other God beside me;" a command which, according to his system, it is 
impossible that Christ should have confirmed, since Ptolemy regarded him 
as having come to reveal another and far greater God than the god of the 
Jews. 



293 EVIDENCES OF THE 

favorable a view as was entertained by any Gnostic of the 
Jewish Law, and of the god of the Jews. 

It is to be observed, that the Gnostics did not reject the 
Pentateuch, and the other books of the Old Testament, as 
unworthy of credit. On the contrary, their system was 
founded on the supposition, that those books contained a 
correct account of the Jewish dispensation, and of the events 
connected with it. Difficulties and objections then pressed 
upon them. There was much that offended their reason, 
their moral sentiments, and their prejudices as Gentiles. 
Receiving the history as true, and understanding it in its 
obvious sense, they could not believe that the god of the 
Jews was the same being as the God of Christians. Thus 
they were led to separate the Law from the Gospel, and to 
introduce the agency of another being, wholly distinct from 
the Supreme God, in the government of the world. The 
corner-stone of Gnosticism was thus laid. 

But in regarding many of the representations given of 
God in the Old Testament as unworthy of the Supreme 
Being, the Gnostics did not stand alone. The more intelli 
gent of the catholic Christians, contemporary with them, 
strongly felt and expressed these and other objections to 
which the Old Testament was, in their view, exposed, if 
understood in its obvious sense. This feeling is shown in 
the quotations before given from Origen, and the subject well 
deserves further consideration ; for there are few of more 
importance in the history of Christian opinions. 

There is a work called the " Clementine Homilies," or the 
" Clementines," the author of which is unknown. The time 
of its composition is likewise uncertain ; but, judging from 
the fact, that, though its contents are such as would have 
been likely to attract the attention of Irenaeus, Clement of 
Alexandria, and Tertullian, it is yet not noticed by any one 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 299 

of them, and, from other considerations, it probably was not 
written before, or much before, the end of the second century. 
Tt is remarkable as an ancient work of fiction, resembling a 
modern romance. It is written in the form of an autobio 
graphy of an individual bearing the name of Clement. Cle 
ment represents himself as having been converted to Chris 
tianity by the preaching of Barnabas and Peter, and as 
having been present at many of the discourses of the latter, 
particularly with Simon Magus, who was represented by the 
writers against the Gnostics as the founder of their heresy. 
There is much relating to the objections to the god of the 
Jews (that is, in the view of the writer, to the Supreme 
God), which the Gnostics derived from the Old Testament; 
and of these objections the author, under the person of Peter, 
presents a bold solution. He gives up at once to reprobation 
the passages on which they were founded, maintaining that 
they are false representations of God. He represents them 
as existing in the Jewish Scriptures, through the permitted 
agency of Satan, to serve as a test for distinguishing between 
those who are, and those who are not, willing to believe evil 
concerning God.* According to him, what in those Scriptures 
is accordant with right conceptions of God is to be received 
as true, and what is not so is to be rejected as false. f 

But in his view of the general character of the Old Testa 
ment, the author of the Homilies stood apart from the other 
Christian writers of the second and third centuries. They 
received its books from the Jews, and received them with 
the Jewish notions of their divine authority, and were there 
fore obliged to resort to modes different from those of the 
Gnostics, or the author of the Clementine Homilies, for solv 
ing the difficulties which they equally felt. 

* Homil. ii. 38-52; Homil. iii. 5. 

f Homil. ii. 40, seqq. ; Homil. iii. 42, seqq. 



300 EVIDENCES OF THE 

In the solution that I shall first mention, as resorted to by 
the catholic Christians, will be perceived that remarkable 
resemblance, without coincidence, which often appears be 
tween their doctrines and those of the Gnostics. In com 
paring them together, we see sometimes, as in the present 
case, a striking likeness fashioned out of materials essentially 
different, while in other cases the material is the same, but 
moulded into a different form. In the solution of which I 
now speak, the Logos of the catholic Christians takes the 
place of the Creator of the Gnostics as the god of the Jews ; 
those representations of the Divinity in the Old Testament, 
which catholic Christians, equally with the Gnostics, regarded 
as incompatible with the character of the Supreme Being, 
being referred by them to the Logos. 

In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin Martyr says : " I will 
endeavor to prove to you from the Scriptures, that he who is 
said to have appeared to Abraham, to Jacob, and to Moses, 
and is called God, is another god [that is, divine being], dif 
ferent from the God who created all things ; another, I say, 
numerically, not in will ; for I affirm that he never did any 
thing at any time but what it was the will of Him who cre 
ated the world, and above whom there is no other God, that 
he should do and say." * 

Justin, among many other similar proofs that there is 
another god beside the Supreme God, quotes those passages 
in which it is said, that God ascended from Abraham ; that 
God spoke to Moses ; that the Lord came down to see the 
tower of Babel which the sons of men had built ; and that 
God shut the door of the ark after Noah had entered. " Do 
not suppose," he says, "that the unoriginated God either 
descended or ascended; for the ineffable Father and Lord 
of all neither comes anywhere, nor walks nor sleeps nor 
arises ; but remains in his own place, wherever that may be." 

* Dial, cum Tryph., p. 252. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 301 

After describing the greatness, omniscience, and omnipres 
ence of the Supreme God, he proceeds : " How, then, can he 
speak to any one, or be seen by any one, or appear in a little 
portion of the earth, when the people could not behold on 
Sinai even the glory of him whom he sent ! . . . Neither 
Abraham, therefore, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, nor any other man, 
ever saw the Father, the ineffable Lord of all, even of Christ 
himself; but they saw him who, through the will of the 
Father, was a god, his Son, and likewise his angel, as min 
istering to his purposes."* 

Tertullian regarded the Son, or the Logos, as having been 
the minister of God in creation and in all his subsequent 
works. To him he ascribes whatever actions are ascribed 
to God in the Old Testament. " He always descended to 
converse with men, from the time of Adam to that of the 
patriarchs and prophets. . . . He who was to assume a 
human body and soul was even then acquainted with human 
affections ; asking Adam, as if ignorant, Where art thou, 
Adam? repenting of having made man, as if wanting pre 
science ; putting Abraham to trial, as if ignorant of what was 
in man ; offended and reconciled with the same individuals : 
and so it is with regard to all which the heretics [the Gnos 
tics] seize upon to object to the Creator, as unworthy of God ; 
they being ignorant that those things were suitable to the 
Son, who was about to submit to human affections, to thirst, 
hunger, and tears, and even to be born and to die. . . . 
How can it be, that God, the Omnipotent, the Invisible, 
whom no man hath seen or can see, who dwells in light inac 
cessible, walked in the evening in paradise, seeking Adam, 
and shut the door of the ark after Noah had entered, and 
cooled himself under an oak with Abraham, and called to 
Moses from a burning bush? . . . These things would not 
be credible concerning the Son of God, if they were not writ- 

* Dial, cum Tiyph., pp. 410, 411. 



302 EVIDENCES OF THE 

ten: perhaps they would not be credible concerning the 
Father, if they were."* 

In his work against Marcion, Tertullian, after explaining 
various particular passages of the Old Testament objected to 
by him, says, that he will give a summary answer to the rest. 
" I will give," are his words, " a simple and certain account 
of whatever else you have objected to the Creator, as mean 
and weak and unworthy. It is, that God could not have had 
intercourse with men, unless he had assumed the feelings and 
affections of humanity, by which he humbled and tempered to 
human infirmity the intolerable might of his majesty. Un 
worthy indeed it was in respect to himself, but necessary for 
man; and therefore became worthy of God, since nothing 
can be so worthy of God as the salvation of man." Marcion 
himself believed that God had manifested himself as Christ ; 
and Tertullian proceeds, in language so foreign from what 
we are accustomed to, that it hardly admits of a literal trans 
lation : " Why do you think that those humiliations [the facts 
in the Old Testament which Marcion so regarded] are un 
worthy of our God, seeing that they are more tolerable than 
the contumelies of the Jews, and the cross, and the lomb ? 
Are not those humiliations ground for concluding,! that 
Christ, subjected as he was to the accidents of man, came 
from the same God whose assumption of humanity is made 
by you a matter of reproach? For we further maintain, 
that Christ has always been the agent of the Father in his 
name, that it was he who from the beginning was conversant 
with men, who had intercourse with the patriarchs and proph 
ets ; being the son of the Creator, his Logos, whom he made 
his Son by producing him from himself, and then set him over 
all that he disposed and willed ; making him a little lower 

* Advers. Praxeam, c. 16, pp. 509, 510. 

f "An hae sunt pusillitates quae jam prsejudicare debebunt," &c. For 
"An," we may read "An non," as the sense (about which there is no uncer 
tainty) seems to require. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 

than the angels, as was written by David. In thus being 
made lower than the angels, he was prepared by the Father 
for those assumptions of humanity with which you find fault. 
He learnt from the beginning, being then already a man, what 
he was to be at last. It was he who descended, he who ques 
tioned, he who demanded, he who swore. But that the 
Father has been seen by none, the Gospel common to us 
both* bears witness; for in this Christ says, k No one has 
known the Father but the Son. For he had pronounced in 
the Old Testament likewise, No one shall see God and live; 
thus determining that the Father is invisible, in whose name 
and by whose authority he who became visible as the Son of 
God was God. ... Thus whatever you require as worthy 
of God will be found in the invisible Father, remote from 
human intercourse, calm, and, if I may so speak, the God 
of the philosophers ; but whatever you censure as unworthy 
will be ascribed to the Son, who was seen, and heard, and 
had intercourse with men, who sees the Father and ministers 
to him, who unites in himself humanity and divinity, being 
in his powers divine, in his humiliation a man, that what he 
parts with from his divinity he may confer on man. All, in 
fine, that you regard as dishonorable to my God is the 
pledge of human salvation."! 

In the passage just quoted, beside the doctrine, that the 
Logos, or Son, was the being represented as God in the Old 
Testament, and that to him actions might be ascribed which 
would be unsuitable to the Father, there appears another 
conception, which is often presented in the writings of Ter- 
tullian, and is employed by him elsewhere to answer the 
objections of the Gnostics to the Old Testament. It is, that, 
in both the Jewish and Christian dispensations, the means 



* That is, the Gospel of Luke as used by Marcion. 
t Advers. Marcion., lib. ii. c. 27, pp. 395, 396. 



504 EVIDENCES OF THE 

used by God to effect his purposes are such as in the view 
of man may appear unworthy, incongruous, and contemptfble. 
He regards this as characteristic of the special manifestations 
of God. He grounds the conception particularly on a passage 
of St. Paul, which he frequently quotes or alludes to: " God 
has chosen the foolish things of the world to put wise 
men to shame, and the weak things of the world God has 
chosen to put to shame the strong, and the mean things of 
the world, and the despised, has God chosen ; and things that 
are nought, to do away what exist."* Tertullian, under 
standing this passage as he did, was able to reconcile himself 
to much that might otherwise have offended him in the Old 
Testament. " Nothing," he says, " ordained by God is truly 
mean, and ignoble, and contemptible, but only what proceeds 
from man. But many things in the Old Testament may be 
charged upon the Creator as foolish and weak and shameful 
and little and contemptible. What more foolish, what more 
weak, than the exaction by God of bloody sacrifices and 
sweet - smelling holocausts? What more weak than the 
cleansing of cups and beds? What more shameful than to 
inflict a new blemish on the ruddy flesh of an infant ? What 
so mean as the law of retaliation ? What so contemptible as 
the prohibition of certain kinds of food ? Every heretic, as 
far as I know, ridicules the whole of the Old Testament, 
For God chose the foolish things of the world to confound 
its wisdom." f 

It is to be observed, however, that Tertullian had, in a 
former part of his work, $ ably defended the reasonableness 
of all the requisitions of the Law of which he here speaks, 
except circumcision ; and that the defence of the Old Testa 
ment, in its literal or obvious sense, was not neglected by 
other fathers. 



* 1 Cor. i. 27, 28. f Advers. Marcion., lib. v. c. 5, p. 467 

{ Ibid., lib. ii. c. 18, seqq. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 305 

But, in connection with those that have been mentioned, 
another solution was found for its difficulties in the supposi 
tion of a hidden or allegorical sense. This imaginary sense 
was believed not to be expressed by the words in their direct 
meaning, but to be one of which the direct meaning presented 
an allegory, a type, a symbolical representation, or an enig 
matical expression. The allegorical mode of interpretation 
was unsupported by any tenable reasoning ; it proceeded on 
no settled principles ; it had no definite limits in its applica 
tion ; there was not, even professedly, any test of its correct 
ness ; nor, generally, does there appear to have been a distinct 
apprehension that the meaning educed by it was intended by 
the writer to whose words it was ascribed.* The subject 

* The following may serve as a specimen of allegorical interpretation* 
In Exod. xv. 23-27, it is related, that the Israelites, after crossing the Red 
Sea, came to the waters of Marah, which were so bitter that they could not 
drink them ; but that the Lord showed Moses a tree, which, when he cast 
into the water, it became sweet; and that afterwards, the Israelites arrived at 
Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm-trees. 

" It is very strange," says Origen, " that God should show Moses a tree to 
cast into the water, to make it sweet. Could he not make the water sweet 
without a tree? But let us see what beauty there is in the inner sense." 
He accordingly explains, that, allegorically understood, the bitter waters of 
Marah denote the Jewish Law, which, in its literal purport, is bitter enough; 
so that of its bitterness the true people of God cannot drink. " What, then, 
is the tree which God showed to Moses? Solomon teaches us, when he says 
of Wisdom, that she is a tree of life to all who embrace her. If, therefore, the 
tree of wisdom, Christ, be cast into the Law," and show us how it ought to 
be understood (I compress several clauses into these words), "then the water 
of Marah becomes sweet, and the bitterness of the letter of the Law is changed 
into the sweetness of spiritual intelligence ; and then the people of God can 
drink of it." Origen afterwards remarks on the subsequent arrival of the 
Israelites at Elim with its twelve springs and seventy palm-trees. " Do you 
think," he asks, " that any reason can be given why they were not first led 
to Elim ? ... If we follow the history alone, it does not much edify us to 
know where they first went, and where they next went. But, if we search 
out the mystery hidden in these things, we find the order of faith. The 
people is first led to the letter of the Law, from which, while this retains its 
bitterness, it cannot depart. But, when the Law is made sweet by the tree 
of life, and begins to be spiritually understood, then the people passes from 

20 



306 EVIDENCES OF THE 

was still further confused by the circumstance, that the term 
" to allegorize " was applied to the use of simply figurative 
language, of which the true meaning was sufficiently obvious ; 
and such language, in consequence, was confounded with that 
to which an imaginary mystical sense was assigned. Thus, 
Clement of Alexandria, in remarking on the words of our 
Saviour, "The good shepherd lays down his life for his 
sheep," speaks of Christ as by sheep expressing allegoricalJy 
a flock of men.* As to Origen, though it is not probable that 
he had ever so stated the subject to his own mind, yet his 
customary modes of speaking in relation to it imply that all 
interpretation of Scripture which is not literal is allegorical, 
and that there is no choice but of the one mode or the 
other. 

The allegorical mode of interpretation thus affords a strik 
ing illustration of the indistinct conceptions and unsubstantial 

the Old Testament to the New, and comes to the twelve fountains of the 
apostles. In the same place, also, are found seventy palm-trees. For not 
alone the twelve apostles preached faith in Christ; but it is related, that 
seventy others were sent to preach the word of God, through whom the world 
might acknowledge the palms of the victory of Christ." Homil. in Exod. 
vii. 1, 3, Opp. ii. 151, 152. 

Such is the style of interpretation which, intermixed with good sense, just 
remarks, and correct moral and religious sentiments, prevails throughout the 
expository works of Philo and Origen, and is frequent in the writings of 
many of the other fathers beside Origen ; especially, as regards our present 
purpose, in those of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement, and Tertullian. 

" Ce qu il y a de commode," says Le Clerc, " dans cette maniere d expli- 
quer la Bible, c est que Ton fait de son texte la meme chose que les Peripate- 
ticiens font de leur matiere premiere, quce neque est quid, neque quale, neque 
quantum, neque quicquam eorum quibus ens denominatur. On le tourne comme 
on veut; on lui donne la forme que Ton trouve a propos; et Ton y trouveroit 
^galement son compte, quand il auroit dit tout le contraire." Bibliotheque 
Universelle, torn. xii. p. 20. 

* Ei (Je rj TToifJ-vr] rj aXTujyopovfizvij irpb? TOV Kvptov ovdev u2}io rj 
aytkri nq uvOpujruv kariv, K. r. "X. Stromat. i. p. 421. The same use of 
iM,7]yopu t or an equivalent term, may be found on p. 104, 11. 17, 30; p. 129, 
11. 20, 29; p. 138, 1. 5; p. 148, 1. 5; p. 528, 1. 21; p. 708, 1. 11; p. 771, 1. 23; 
p. 806, 1. 17. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 307 

reasoning of the ancients. For we must not suppose that it 
was adopted by the fathers alone, or confined in its applica 
tion to the Scriptures. It was prevalent in the age of which 
we speak. It had for a long time been applied by the heathen 
philosophers to the offensive fables of their mythology, the 
scandal of which they endeavored to remove by representing 
them as symbolical representations of certain truths concern 
ing the physical and moral world ; a mode of explanation 
which, with little good sense, has been continued to our own 
day.* The revelations in the heathen mysteries probably 
consisted in great part of such interpretations of the heathen 
mythology. The philosophical Jews also had resorted to 
it in the exposition of the Old Testament ; and, in applying 
it to the same book, the fathers only followed in the broad 
path which had been cleared by Philo. His explanations of 
the Old Testament are throughout allegorical. He had the 
same feeling as the Christian fathers of the objections to 
which it is liable, if understood in its obvious sense, and of 
the supposed necessity of recurring to a hidden meaning. 
Thus, in reference to the account of the formation of Eve, he 
affirms that " what is said concerning it is fabulous ; " that is, 
that the obvious meaning is fabulous. " How can any one," 
he asks, " credit that a woman, or any human being, was 
made out of the rib of a man ? " And after various objec 
tions to the story, he proceeds to convert it into an allegory.f 
Speaking of the serpent which tempted Eve, and of the 
brazen serpent of Moses, he says, " These things, as they 
are written, are like prodigies and portents ; but, when alle- 
gorically explained, the fabulous immediately disappears, and 
the truth is manifestly discovered." J After quoting the 

* On this subject, see (in the " Bibliotheque Choisie," torn. vii. p. 88, seqq.) 
the remarks of Le Clerc, who, in the compass of a few pages, treats it with hia 
customary clearness and judgment. 

t Legis Allegoriae, lib. ii. Opp. i. 70, ed. Mangey. 

J De Agriculture, Opp. i. 315. 



308 EVIDENCES OF THE 

words, " And God planted a garden in Eden," he says, that 
to understand this of his planting vines, or fruit-trees of any 
kind, would be great and hardly curable folly. " We must 
have recourse to allegory, the friend of clear-sighted men." * 
Thus, also, in commenting on the passage, " Cain departed 
from the face of God," he regards it as proving that what is 
written in the books of Moses is to be understood tropologi- 
cally (that is, allegorically), the apparent meaning presented 
at first sight being far from the truth. " For if God have 
a face, and he who wills to leave him may easily remove else 
where, why do we reject the impiety of the Epicureans, or 
the atheism of the Egyptians, or the mythological fables of 
which the world is full ? " t Many similar passages occur in 
his writings. $ 

Nor was the allegorical mode of understanding the Jewish 
Scriptures introduced by Philo. He celebrates the Thera- 
peutae, a sect among the Jews who devoted themselves to 
religious exercises and meditation, and of them he relates, 
that they occupied much of their time in the allegorical expo 
sition of the sacred writings, regarding the literal meaning as 
symbolical of hidden senses, expressed enigmatically. He 
says, that they compared the whole Law to an animal, its 
body being the literal precepts, but its soul the invisible sense 
lying treasured up in the words ; and adds, that, in their alle 
gorical exposition, they had for models the writings of ancient 
men, the founders of the sect. Elsewhere, Philo repeatedly 
refers to this mode of interpretation as common. " I have 
heard," he says in one place, " another explanation from in- 



* De Plantatione Noe, Opp. i. 334: conf. De Mundi Opificio, Opp. i. 37; 
Legis Allegorise, lib. i. Opp. i. 32. 

| De Posteritate Caini, Opp. i. 226. 

{ As, for example, Legis Allegoriae, lib. ii. Opp. i. 70, lib. iii. 88. Quod 
Deterius Potion insidiari soleat, Opp. i. 194, 209, 223. De Posteritate Caini, 
Opp. i. 232, 234, 235. Quod Deus sit immutabilis, Opp. i. 292, et alibi. 

De Vita Contemplative,, Opp. ii. 475, 483. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 309 

spired men, who consider most things in the Laws as visible 
and spoken symbols of the invisible and unspeakable." * The 
confidence with which, throughout his works, he proceeds on 
the system of allegorical exposition, without explaining or 
defending it, shows that it was well known and admitted. Its 
general prevalence is likewise made evident by the fact, that 
it appears in quotations from the Jewish Scriptures in the 
New Testament, particularly in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

The Christian fathers, from the beginning, adopting the 
conceptions of their age, interpreted the Old Testament alle- 
gorically. Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho, 
abounds in such expositions of it ; but, in a controversy with 
a Jew, he was not called upon to defend it. He makes 
evident, however, his notions of its character, as requiring to 
be thus explained. After having represented the blood of 
the passover, with which the Israelites sprinkled their door- 
. posts when the first-born of the Egyptians were destroyed, 
and the scarlet line which the harlot Rahab hung out 
when Jericho was taken, as both intended for types of the 
blood of Christ, shed for the deliverance of men, he thud 
addresses Trypho : " But you, who explain these things in 
a low sense, impute much weakness to God, through under 
standing them so simply, and not inquiring into the true 
purport of what is said. For thus [that is, by understanding 
the Scriptures thus literally] even Moses may be judged a 
transgressor ; since, after commanding that no likeness should 
be made of any thing either in heaven, or on the earth, or in 
the sea, he himself made a brazen serpent, and, setting it up 
for a sign, directed those who were bitten to look upon it ; 
and, by looking upon it, they were saved. So the serpent, 
then, whom God cursed in the beginning, and destroyed, as 
Isaiah proclaims, with a great sword,| will be thought to 
have then saved the people ; and thus we shall understand 

* De Specialibus Legibus. Opp. ii. 329. f Isa. xxrii. 1. 



310 EVIDENCES OF THE 

such things foolishly, like your teachers, and not as symbol 
ical." * 

Irenaeus does not resort to allegorical interpretation in 
directly answering the objections of the Gnostics to the Old 
Testament. He defends it in its obvious meaning, in much 
the same manner as modern divines have done. But, in 
maintaining its connection with Christianity, he represents it 
as full of types, shadowing forth in their hidden senses the 
coming dispensation ; and in such hidden senses it appears 
that he himself was disposed to take refuge from the difficul 
ties that pressed upon its obvious meaning. Thus he says : 
" One of the ancient presbyters relieved my mind by 
teaching me, . . that when the wrong actions of the patri 
archs and prophets are simply related in the Scriptures with 
out any censure, we ought not to become accusers (for we 
are not more observing than God, nor can we be above our 
master), but to look for a type. For no one of those actions, 
which are mentioned thus uncensured in the Scriptures is 
without its purpose." f 

Tertullian does not dwell at length on the objections of the 
heretics to the Old Testament in any of his works except that 
against Marcion. Marcion rejected the allegorical mode or 
interpretation ; $ and, in reasoning with him, Tertullian de 
fends, and with ability, portions of the Jewish Law and 
history understood in their obvious sense, except so far as 
this sense was modified by his belief, before mentioned, con 
cerning the agency of the Logos. But he abounds, at the 
same time, in allegorical expositions of the Old Testament, 
some of them exceedingly forced. He speaks of " the secret 
meanings of the Law, spiritual as it is, and prophetical, and 



* Dial, cum Tryph., pp. 374, 375. 

t Cont. Hseres., lib. iv. c. 31, 1, p. 268. 

f Tertullian. advers. Marcion., lib. ii. c. 21, p. 392; lib. iii. cc. 4, 5, pp. 
398, 399. Origen. Comment, in Matt., torn. xv. 3, Opp. iii. 655. In Epist. 
ad Homanos, lib. ii. Opp. iv. 494, 495. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 811 

full of figures in almost every part." * And, in another 
place, he describes God, the God of the Old Testament, as 
" making foolish the wisdom of the world, choosing its foolish 
things, and disposing them for man s salvation ; " this being, 
he says, the hidden wisdom of which the apostle speaks, 
k which was in foolish and little and shameful things, which 
lay hid under figures, allegories, and enigmas, and was after 
wards to be revealed in Christ." f 

Celsus, who lived in the second century, was acquainted 
with this manner of explaining and defending the Old Testa 
ment, and expressed himself vehemently against it. " He 
attacks the history of Moses," says Origen, " and finds fault 
with those who explain it tropologically and allegorically." $ 
" He seems to me to have heard of writings containing the 
allegories of the Law, which if he had read, he would not 
have said, The pretended allegories written concerning 
these fables are far more offensive and absurd than the fables 
themselves ; for, with marvellous and altogether senseless 
folly, they bring together things which can in no way what 
ever be fitted to one another. He seems," continues Origen, 
" to refer to the writings of Philo, or to others still more 
ancient, as those of Aristobulus." But Origen did not 
mean to imply, that Celsus, in his attack on the allegorical 
interpretations of the Old Testament, had not in view Chris 
tian allegorists as well as Jewish. He had a little before 
quoted from him a passage, in which Celsus, speaking of some 
of the narratives in Genesis and Exodus, says, that "the more 
rational of the Jews and Christians turn them into allegories. 
They take refuge in allegory because they are ashamed of 
them." In reply, Origen makes a strong retort upon the 



* Advers. Marcion., lib. ii. c. 19, p. 391. 
t Ibid., lib. v. c. 6, p. 467. 
J Cont. Cels., lib. i. 17, Opp. i. 336. 
Ibid., lib. iv. 51, p. 542. 



312 EVIDENCES OP THE 

obscene fables of the mythology of the Pagans, which their 
philosophers represented as allegories.* 

The early fathers, in general, allegorized freely in their 
expositions of the Old Testament, and evidently regarded 
this mode of exposition as a means of removing objections to 
it. But no other of their number has recurred to this method 
so confidently as Origen, of whom Jerome, before he began 
to regard his opinions as heretical, declared, that " none but 
an ignorant man would deny, that, next after the apostles, he 
was the master of the churches." f Origen, proceeding on 
the hypothesis of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, 
allegorized the New Testament as well as the Old ; perceiving 
no other method of solving the great difficulties which, on 
that hypothesis, often presented themselves to his mind in 
the verbal meaning of the Gospels and Epistles. $ His no 
tions of the Old Testament appear in the passages already 
quoted ; but it may be worth while to adduce a few others. 

" There are many of the laws of Moses," he says, " which, 
as regards their literal observance, are absurd or impossible. 
It is absurd to forbid the eating of vultures, a kind of food 
which none, however pressed by hunger, would resort to. 
An infant not circumcised on the eighth day, it is said, shall 
be cut off from the people. || Were any law which was to be 
understood literally, required respecting this matter, it ought 
to have been, that the parents, or those who have the care of 
such an infant, should suffer death." *J[ In one of his Hom 
ilies, speaking of the directions concerning the sin-offering 
in Leviticus,** he says, " All this, as I have often before 
observed when the passage was recited in the church, unless 

* Cent. Gels., 48, p. 540 ; 50, p. 542. 

t Praefat. in lib. de Interpret. Nomin. Hebraeor. Opp. ii. 3. 

$ See p. 103. Lev. xi. 14. Deut. xiv. 13. || Gen. xvii. 12, 14. 

[[ De Principiis, lib. iv. 17, Opp. i. p. 176. Origen treats at length of 
the subject of allegorical interpretation, in the work just referred to, p. 164. 
seqq. ** Chap. vi. 24-30. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 313 

it be understood in a sense different from the literal, is more 
likely to be a stumbling-block in the way of Christianity, and 
to overthrow it, than to be matter for exhortation and edifica 
tion." * Elsewhere, in treating of the distinction of clean 
and unclean food, after having allegorized the laws respecting 
it, he thus goes on : " If we say that the great God pro 
mulgated laws to men which are to be thus understood, I 
think that they will appear worthy of the divine majesty. 
But if we cleave to the letter, and receive them as they are 
understood by the Jews, or as they are commonly understood, 
I should blush to affirm and profess that such laws were given 
by God. The laws of men, as those of the Romans, or of 
the Athenians, or of the Lacedaemonians, would seem more 
refined and reasonable. But if the Law of God be under 
stood, as is taught by the Church, then it evidently surpasses 
all human laws, and may truly be believed to be the Law of 
God." f 

A few more passages will sufficiently illustrate Origen s 
opinions on this subject. Speaking of different narratives in 
Exodus, he says, " These are not written to afford us 
instruction in history, nor is it to be supposed that the divine 
books relate the acts of the Egyptians ; but what is written 
is written to afford us instruction in doctrine and morals. J 
. . . We, who have learned to regard all that is written, not 
as containing narratives of ancient times, but as written for 
our discipline and use, perceive that what is here read takes 
place now, not only in this world, which is figuratively called 
Egypt, but in each one of ourselves." This mode of alle 
gorizing Egypt into the world and the inferior part of our 
nature was, with much else of the same character, derived by 
Origen from Philo. || In answering certain objections of 



* Homil. in Lev., v. 1, Opp. ii. 205. f Ibid., vii. 5, Opp. ii. 226.. 
J Homil. in Exod., i. 5, Opp. ii. 131. Ibid., ii. 1, Opp. ii. 133. 
U Philo de Migratione Abraham!, passim. 



314 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Celsus, founded on the Old Testament, he has these words : * 
" We say the law is twofold, literal and allegorical, as 
others have taught before us. The literal has been pro 
nounced, not so much by us as by God, speaking in one of 
the prophets, to consist of ordinances not good, and statutes 
not good ; | but the allegorical, according to the same prophet, 
is said by God to consist of good ordinances and good stat 
utes. $ Certainly the prophet does not here [in speaking of 
the Law in the passages referred to] assert manifest contra 
dictions. And, conformably to this, Paul says, The letter, 
that is, the Law understood literally, kills ; but the spirit, that 
is, the Law understood allegorically, gives life." 

The allegorical or hidden meaning was divided into the 
moral, and the mystical or spiritual ; the moral being sup 
posed to relate to morality, and the mystical to the doctrines 
of religion. In remarking on the declaration of St. Paul, 
The works of the flesh are apparent, || Origen allegorizes the 
passage as referring to the literal sense of the Old Testament. 
This was figuratively called the carnal sense, being compared 
to the body in man ; while the two branches of the allegori 
cal the moral, and the mystical or spiritual were compared 
to the soul and to the spirit, according to the threefold divis 
ion of man in ancient theology. " The history of the di\ ine 
volumes," he says, " contains the works of the flesh, and is of 
little benefit to those who understand it as it is written." 



* Cont. Cels., lib. vii. 20, Opp. i. 708. 

t Ezek. xx. 25. J Ezek. xx. 11. 

2 Cor. iii. 6. This is a passage which, from the time of Origen to the 
present day, has been often so quoted as to pervert its meaning. The word 
ypdiifjia, incorrectly translated "letter," means "what is written," "the writ 
ten Law," " the Jewish Law." St. Paul says, that he was not a minister of 
that Law, but of " the Spirit," or, in other words, of the spiritual blessings 
to be received through Christ ; " for the written Law causes death [that is, to 
such as adhere to it in opposition to Christianity], but the Spirit gives life. * 
There is no reference to the distinction between the letter and the spirit of any 
particular writing. || Gal. v. 19. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 815 

The examples of the patriarchs, according to him, lead to 
dissoluteness, and the sacrifices of the Law to idolatry, if the 
history of the former, and the injunctions concerning the latter, 
are not supposed to have a further meaning than appears in 
the letter. " That the language of Scripture," he adds, 
" in its obvious sense, teaches hatred, is shown by this pas 
sage : Wretched daughter of Babylon ! Blessed be he who 
shall requite thee as thou hast treated us. Blessed be he 
who shall take thy little ones and dash them against the 
stones ; * and by this passage: In the morning, I slew all the 
sinners of the land.^ And there are others of a similar kind, 
expressive of contention, rivalry, anger, strife, dissension ; 
which vices the examples set before us in the history, if we 
do not look to their higher meaning, are more likely to 
produce than to restrain. Heresies, likewise, owe their ex 
istence rather to understanding the Scriptures carnally [liter 
ally] than, as many think, to the works of the flesh." $ The 
last sentence shows the liberality of Origen. From this, as 
well as from passages before cited, we perceive what he 
thought the main occasion of the heresy of the Gnostics, and 
consequently what he regarded as its essential characteristic, 
that is to say, their doctrine concerning the Jewish dispensa 
tion. All the passages quoted from him prove, likewise, that 
he agreed with the Gnostics in regarding the opinions of the 
Jews respecting their Scriptures as untenable, if these Scrip 
tures were to be understood only in their obvious meaning. 
But, if the metaphor may be allowed, he thought that their 
difficulties were to be solved in the menstruum of allegor 
ical interpretation, and that the essential meaning might thus 
be obtained in crystalline purity. 



* Psalm cxxxvii. 8, 9. t Psalm ci. 8. 

J Ex decimo Stromatum Origen. Lib. (apud Hieronymi Comment, in ED 
ad Galat., Opp. iv. pars 1, coll. 294, 295), Origenis Opp. torn. i. p. 41. 
See pp. 296, 296 



316 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Among the Gnostics, Marcion, as I have said, rejected the 
allegorical mode of interpretation. Other Gnostics, particu 
larly the Valentinians, allegorized at least as extravagantly 
as the fathers ; but they were not disposed, like them, thus to 
do away the difficulties of the Jewish Scriptures. They, per 
haps, felt more strongly the common dislike of the Gentiles 
to the Jews. They were not so ready to overcome the first 
unfavorable impressions which those books made upon their 
minds. Their faith as Christians was more imperfect ; it 
was more implicated with their philosophical speculations ; 
and they were not as solicitous as the catholic Christians 
to receive all which they supposed to be taught or implied in 
the New Testament. Their hypothesis respecting the Jewish 
dispensation, that it proceeded from an inferior divinity, was 
equally in accordance with the notions of the times, as the 
supposition that the books of the Jews were to be interpreted 
allegorically. By their theory, by admitting the existence 
and acts of the God of the Jews, but denying him to be the 
Supreme Being, they accounted, as they believed, for the 
otherwise inexplicable phenomena which those books pre 
sented ; while the catholic Christians thought themselves 
enabled to escape the force of the objections founded on those 
phenomena, by the allegorical mode of interpretation, and the 
other expedients to which they had recourse. 

It may appear, then, that the principal occasion of the 
existence of the Gnostics, that is, of proper Christian Gnos 
tics, was the impossibility, as it seemed to them, of regarding 
the God of the Old Testament and the God of Christians as 
the same being. It is true, that their systems, as we shall 
see, were intended to give an account of the evil in the world. 
But, in having this object in view, they did not differ from the 
catholic Christians, nor from heathen philosophers. What 
characterizes them is their regarding the Jewish dispensation 
as an essential part of the evil and imperfection to be ac- 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 311 

counted for, and the character and agency which they conse 
quently assigned in their systems to the God of the Jews. 
They were constituted a peculiar class by being Christians 
who separated Judaism from Christianity. In the contro 
versy with their catholic opponents, the strength of their 
cause evidently lay in their objections to the Old Testament. 
These they appear to have been most ready to bring forward 
in defending their systems. In them they had a vantage- 
ground above their opponents, and could become assailants in 
their turn. Such was the state of opinion and feeling in the 
early age when the Gnostics were most numerous and re 
spectable, that we might reasonably suppose that a consid 
erable number of individuals would embrace Christianity with 
more or less imperfect faith, who would not extend their 
belief so far as to acknowledge Judaism also as a dispensation 
from God. 

The belief of the catholic Christians in the divine origin of 
Judaism was a genuine consequence of their Christian faith. 
But with this belief, as if the one thing were necessarily 
connected with the other, they went on to adopt, likewise, 
the opinions of the Jews concerning the divine authority of 
the books of the Old Testament. Those opinions were not, 
indeed, at once received by all Christians not Gnostics, as we 
have seen in the case of the author of the Clementine Hom 
ilies ; but they soon obtained general reception. The belief 
of the divine authority of the Jewish books was even extended 
by the catholic Christians to embrace most of those which 
constitute the Apocrypha of our modern Bibles. 

There are few phenomena in the history of opinions more 
remarkable than this reception of the Jewish notions concern 
ing the Old Testament by the generality of the early Chris 
tians. The Jews had been regarded with aversion by other 
nations. The unbelieving Jews continued to be so by the 
Gentile Christians ; and the believing Jews were an hereticaJ 



318 EVIDENCES OF THE 

sect in little repute. The books of the Old Testament, 
though accessible to every Greek and Roman scholar through 
the medium of the Greek translation of them, the Septuagint, 
had heretofore been treated with contemptuous neglect. The 
Gentile Christians, by whom they were received as of divine 
authority, were, with very few exceptions, wholly unac 
quainted with their original language, and obliged to recur 
for its meaning to copies of the Septuagint or of other trans 
lations, the correctness of which was denied by their oppo 
nents, the unbelieving Jews. At the same time, they had a 
strong feeling of the objections to which the Pentateuch and 
other parts of the Old Testament are exposed, if understood 
in their obvious meaning, or, as they expressed it, in their 
literal sense ; and notwithstanding the allegorical mode of 
interpretation, and the other expedients by which they es 
caped from these difficulties, they were reduced to straits, 
both in reconciling many passages to their own reason and 
moral sentiments, and in defending them against the attacks 
of Gnostics and unbelievers. Still they encumbered their 
cause, and gave great advantage to their opponents, by as 
serting the Jewish opinions concerning the character of those 
books, in consequence of the belief that the truth of Chris 
tianity implied, not merely the fact of the divine mission of 
Moses, but the truth of those Jewish opinions. The scholars 
and philosophers, for scholars and philosophers they were, 
notwithstanding any modern prejudices to the contrary, 
who during the first three centuries appear as Christian fath 
ers, received from the Jews, with whom as a people they had 
no friendly intercourse, all their canonical books ; regarding 
them as of divine origin, and ascribing to them equal author 
ity with the records of Christianity. It must have been a 
powerfully operative cause which produced this result. It 
strikingly evinces the strength of evidence that accompanied 
our religion. Its proofs must have been overwhelming, 
when, in addition to establishing an invincible faith in the 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 319 

religion itself, they occasioned, notwithstanding such obstacles, 
the adoption of the Jewish opinions respecting the Old Testa 
ment. 

The fundamental difference, then, between the Gnostics 
and the catholic Christians consisted in their different views 
of Judaism, and of the author of the Jewish dispensation. 
But, like other speculatists of their day, the Gnostics formed 
for themselves a system of the universe, in which, answer- 
ably to the declarations of the Old Testament, he whom they 
regarded as the god of the Jews appears as the Creator of 
the physical world. Such a system necessarily embraced 
some solution, or rather some account, of the evil that exists ; 
and this was partly found in the supposed character of the 
Creator, and partly in the evil nature ascribed to matter. 



The topics treated of in this chapter naturally suggest 
the inquiry, In what manner should the Jewish dispensation 
and the books of the Old Testament be regarded? The 
views that have been given of the opinions of the early Chris 
tians, both Catholics and Gnostics, involve the whole subject 
in doubts and difficulties, of which no rational solution is 
afforded. But the Jewish is intimately connected with the 
Christian dispensation, and one may therefore reasonably be 
unwilling to dismiss the inquiry without some attempt to 
answer it. I have accordingly considered the subject else 
where.* 

* See the original edition of this work, vol. ii., Additional Note, D. 



CHAPTER VII. 

OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE GNOSTICS RECONCILED 
THEIR DOCTRINES WITH CHRISTIANITY. 

IN comparing the peculiar doctrines of the Gnostics with the 
teaching of Christ, as recorded in the Gospels, or with the 
Christian Scriptures generally, the question naturally arises, 
How could they imagine those doctrines to have been taught 
by the Master whom they professed to follow, or identify 
them in any way with Christianity ? We may, at first vie\\ , 
be inclined strongly to suspect that they held the common 
histories of Christ, and the other books of the New Testa 
ment, in no esteem ; and to adopt the inference of Gibbon, 
that " it was impossible that the Gnostics could receive our 
present Gospels."* 

But, on further attention to the subject, we may perceive 
that there is nothing peculiar in the case of the Gnostics. 
Their systems have long been obsolete; they are foreign 
from our thoughts and imaginations ; and, in comparing 
them with the systems of other sects, we are apt to 
measure their relative distance from Christianity by their 
relative distance from the forms of Christian belief with 
which we are familiar. Of opinions equally false, those 
with which we have long been acquainted seem to us much 
less extraordinary than such as are newly presented to our 

* See p. 161. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 321 

minds. In inquiring, therefore, how the Gnostics could mis 
take their doctrines for the doctrines of Christianity, the first 
consideration to be attended to is the fact, that their mistake 
was not greater than that which has been committed by a 
large majority of the professed disciples of Christ. The faith 
of the whole Christian world for ten centuries before the 
Reformation had no advantage over that of the Gnostics, in 
being more accordant with reason and Christianity. The 
gross literal errors and absurdities, maintained by the Catho 
lics of this period, are in as strong contrast with the truths of 
our religion, as the mystic extravagances of the early heretics. 
The system by which the Catholic faith was supplanted among 
Protestants, with its doctrines concerning the threefold per 
sonality of God, and concerning God s government of his 
creatures ; with its representations of the totally depraved 
nature, capable only of moral evil, with which he brings men 
into being ; with its scheme of redemption required by man s 
utter misery and helplessness ; its infinite satisfaction to the 
justice of God the Father, made by the sufferings of God 
the Son ; and its " horrible decrees," * may perhaps appear, 
to a rational believer of the present day, to stand in as open 
and direct opposition to Christianity as the systems of the 
leading Gnostics. Or, to come down to a later period, 
the hypotheses and expositions by which the Gnostics recon 
ciled their conceptions with the declarations of Christ and 
his apostles could not, as many will think, be more irrational 
and extravagant than the hypotheses and expositions of that 
modern school of German theologians, who, admitting the 
authenticity of the Gospels, find nothing supernatural in the 

* I borrow the expression from a well-known passage of Calvin. " Unde 
factum est, ut tot gentes una cum liberis eorum infantibus aeternse morti 
involveret lapsus Adae absque remedio, nisi quia Deo ita visum est? . . . 
Decretum quidem horribile fateor." "Whence is it, that the fall of Adam 
involved so many nations, with their infant children, in eternal death, without 
r&medy, except that it so seemed good to God ? ... It is a horrible decree 
I confess." Institut., lib. iii. c. 23, 7. 

21 



322 EVIDENCES OF THE 

history, but explain, as conformable to the common laws of 
nature, events which, according to their theory, have, from 
the time of their occurrence to the present day, been mistaken 
for miracles. I refer to the opinions of large bodies of Chris 
tians, or of men claiming to be called Christians; and to 
peculations which have been defended by such as were, or 
have been reputed to be, learned and able. It is not neces 
sary to pursue the illustration by adverting to the doctrines 
of smaller sects. I will only observe further, as the case 
seems to me particularly analogous, that the disciples of 
Swedenborg are believers in our religion, that they have 
their full share of the Christian virtues, and that they 
have reckoned among their number men of more than com 
mon powers of mind ; while he who rejects the systems both 
of Ptolemy and of Swedenborg will probably think that there 
is no reason for preferring one to the other, on account of 
its being the more rational faith, or having a better founda 
tion in the Gospels. 

Whatever opinions a thinking man may entertain of Chris 
tianity, or of religion unconnected with Christianity, when 
he compares them with those which have existed, or are 
existing, among mankind, he will find himself in a small 
minority. Whoever may really have attained to the 

" bene munita, . . . 
" Edita doctrinal sapientum, templa serena," 

to the serene temples, well fortified, built up by the learning 
of the wise, 

" Despicere unde queas alios, passimque videre 
Errare atque viam palenteis quaerere vitse," 

will assuredly not find them thronged ; and, from their 
height, he will see not a few others wandering in errors as 
extravagant as those of the Gnostics. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 323 

Such have, for many centuries, been the doctrines of the 
larger portion of the professed followers of Christ, that faith 
has been formally disconnected from reason ; and reason, or, 
as the term is usually qualified, human reason, has been 
represented as its dangerous enemy. From the time of the 
Gnostics to our own, there has always been a very numerous 
class, composed of individuals who have held different and 
opposite tenets, but who have all in common appealed, in 
some form or other, to an inward sense, a spiritual discern 
ment, infallible in its perceptions, surpassing the powers of 
the understanding, and superseding their use. " The natural 
man," says St. Paul, meaning the unconverted, him who 
rejected revelation, " receives not the truths of the spirit of 
God ; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot know 
them, because they are spiritually discerned;"* that is to 
say, spiritual things, the truths taught by Christianity, are 
to be discerned only through the light which Christianity 
affords. But the words of the apostle were early perverted 
by the theosophic Gnostics ; f and there are none that have 
been more commonly or more mischievously abused. One 
main occasion of the existence, not only of the Gnostics, but 
of other sects of religionists, has been the vanity of belonging 
to a spiritual aristocracy, from which good sense, learning, 
and rational piety only form a ground of exclusion. Those 
Gnostics, with their pretence to spiritual discernment, had no 
more difficulty than later sects in finding what they looked 
for in the teachings of Christ. 

The ease with which different parties among Christians 
have discovered apparent support for doctrines the most 
irrational has been essentially connected with a fundamental 
error respecting the nature of those writings which compose 
the Old and New Testaments. All these writings, so different 

* 1 Cor. ii. 14. f Irenaeus, lib. i. c. 8, 3, p. 39. 



324 EVIDENCES OF THE 

in character and value, have been represented as constituting 
the Revelation from God. They have been ascribed to God 
as their proper author ; the human writers being considered 
only as agents under his immediate direction. When, there 
fore, all these different writers, with all their imperfect and 
erroneous conceptions, were thus transformed into infallible 
divine instructors, there is no wonder, that their words, even 
if correctly understood, should afford support for many errors. 
But, beside the direct consequence of this fundamental misap 
prehension, there has been an indirect consequence not less 
important. The words contained in the books of the Old 
and New Testaments being regarded as the words, not of men, 
but of God, the rational principles of interpretation, which 
would apply to them as the words of men, have been set 
aside. These principles would lead us to study the respective 
characters of the authors of those books, and the various influ 
ences which were acting upon them, and to make ourselves 
acquainted with the particular occasion and purpose of their 
different writings, and with the characters, circumstances, 
opinions, errors, and modes of expression of those for whom 
their writings were immediately intended ; and when we had 
thus enabled ourselves, as far as possible, to sympathize with 
them, we should determine their meaning with a constant 
regard to the considerations which we had thus grouped 
together. But such knowledge is foreign from the purpose, 
if the books to be explained are not properly the works of 
human authors. It has, accordingly, been disregarded. The 
essential elements and rules of a correct interpretation have 
been neglected; and the work of explaining the Scriptures 
has been denied to reason and judgment, and delivered over 
to men s preconceptions, caprices, imaginations, and spiritual 
discernment. The consequence has been, that, in the per 
formance of this work, we may find all varieties of error, 
from the wildest allegories and cabalistic follies, down to 
the imposition of verbal meanings which are verbal or moral 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 325 

absurdities. The false modes of interpretation common in 
their day afforded the theosophic Gnostics, as false modes of 
interpretation have afforded later sects, a ready means of ap 
parently reconciling their opinions with the Scriptures. 

Every one acquainted with theological controversy must 
be familiar with the fact, that, in defending doctrines contrary 
to the teaching of Christ, a few texts are seized upon, the 
words of which, when standing alone, admit an interpretation 
favorable to those doctrines ; and that their defenders, fixing 
their attention on these texts, are able to close their eyes to 
the whole opposing tenor of the New Testament. But the 
Gnostics could have been in no want of such toxts as might 
readily be accommodated to the support of their fundamental 
doctrine, that the God of the Jews was not the God of 
Christians. Marcion wrote a work on this subject, which he 
entitled " Antitheses," the main object of which was to point 
out the contrariety between the representations given by 
Christ of his Father, and those given of God in the Old 
Testament.* The opposition between Christianity and some 
of the views of religion and morals presented in the Penta 
teuch (which I have had occasion to remark) furnished the 
Gnostics with a storehouse of arguments from Scripture. As 
regards another principal point, the claim set up by the the 
osophic Gnostics to be by nature the chosen, or the elect, of 
God, as being the spiritual, they could have found no more 
difficulty in supporting their pretensions from the New 
Testament, than one of those who, since their day, have 
claimed to be elected as the spiritual through a decree of 
God, irrespective of any merits of their own. Similar modes 
cf misinterpretation would apply as well in the one case as 
the other, and furnish a similar harvest of apparent proofs. 



* TerUllian. ailvers. Marcion., lib. i. c. 19, p. 374; lib. iv. c. 1, p. 413j 
t. 6, p. 416. 



326 EVIDENCES OP THE 

After these general remarks, we will proceed to consider 
more particularly the means by which the Gnostics reconciled 
their doctrines with their Christian faith. The inquiry is one 
of particular interest, on account of the proof which it affords 
that the Gnostics had no other Gospel-history than that which 
was common to them with the catholic Christians and with 
ourselves ; and that, together with the catholic Christians, 
they used some one, or all, of our present Gospels, as the 
only document or documents of any value respecting the min 
istry of Christ. 

In the first place, then, the theosophic Gnostics, in common 
with the catholic Christians, applied the allegorical mode of 
interpretation to the New Testament. Neglecting the proper 
meaning of words, they educed from them mystical senses. 
Of these, I have already, in the course of this work, produced 
examples ; and many more are given by their early oppo 
nents, particularly by Irenaeus. This afforded a ready means 
of accommodating the language of the New Testament to 
their conceptions. But their whole system of interpretation 
was, besides, arbitrary, and unsupported by any correct prin 
ciples. The vocabulary of the theosophic Gnostics, like that 
of other erring sects, consisted, in great part, of words from 
the New Testament, on which they had imposed new senses. 
The names of the -ZEons most frequently mentioned were 
borrowed from the New Testament ; and, as the same name 
was applied by them to different individuals, as the name 
of God, for example, was given both to the Gnostic Creator 
and to the Supreme Being, and that of Jesus both to the JEon 
so named and to the man Jesus, it thus became easy for 
them, on the one hand, to find supposed references to their 
theory, and, on the other, to explain away much that was 
inconsistent with it. 

Like other false expositors of Scripture, the Gnostics 
detached particular passages from their connection, and in- 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 327 

fused a foreign meaning into the words. Irenoeus, after 
saying that they appealed to unwritten tradition as a source 
of their knowledge, goes on to remark, that, "twisting, ac 
cording to the proverb, a rope of sand, they endeavor to 
accommodate, in a plausible manner, to their doctrines the 
parables of the Lord, the declarations of the prophets, or 
the words of the apostles, so that their fiction may not seem 
to be without proof. But they neglect the order and connec 
tion of the Scriptures, and disjoin, as far as they are able, 
the members of the truth. They transpose and refashion, 
and, making one thing out of another, they deceive many by 
a fabricated show of the words of the Lord which they put 
together."* The Gnostics, according to him, in thus putting 
together proofs from Scripture, resembled one who, taking a 
mosaic representing a king, should separate the stones, and 
then form them into the likeness of a dog or a fox.f He 
afterwards compares them to those who made centos from 
lines of Homer, by which some story was told altogether 
foreign from any thing in his works.J They allowed, he 
says, that the unknown God, and the transactions within the 
Pleroma, " were not plainly declared by the Saviour, because 
all had not capacity to receive such knowledge ; but, to those 
who were able to understand them, they were signified bv 
him mystically and in parables." 

In addition to these modes of interpretation, the theosophic 
Gnostics likewise maintained a principle similar to a funda 
mental doctrine of the Roman Catholics ; namely, that reli 
gious truth could not be learned from the Scriptures alone, 
without the aid of the oral instructions of Christ and his 
apostles, as preserved by tradition. " When," says Irena3us, 



* Cent Haeres., lib. i. c. 8, 1, p. 36. For tro^i p, in the last sentence, I 
Adopt the reading, QavTaaip, or ^avrdafiari.. See Massuet s note. 
t Ibid. I Lib. i. c. 9, 4, pp. 45, 46. 

Lib. i. c. 3, 1, p. 14; lib. ii. c. 10, 1, p. 126; c. 27, 2, p. 155. 



328 EVIDENCES OF THE 

" they are confuted by proofs from the Scriptures, they turn 
and accuse the Scriptures themselves, as if they were not 
correct, nor of authority ; they say that they contain contra 
dictions, and that the truth cannot be discovered from them 
by those who are ignorant of tradition. For that it was not 
delivered in writing, but orally ; whence Paul said, We 
speak wisdom among the perfect, but not the wisdom of this 
world. " * "The heretics," says Tertullian, "pretend that 
the apostles did not reveal all things to all, but taught some 
doctrines openly to every one, some secretly, and to a few 
only."t What was peculiar in their own doctrines they 
regarded as that esoteric teaching which had come down to 
them by oral tradition. 

Conformably to this, the Gnostics, in particular cases, 
pointed out certain individuals, supposed disciples of the 
apostles, from whom their leaders had received their systems. 
Thus, Valentinus was said to have been taught by Theodas, 
an acquaintance of Paul, and Basilides by Glaucias, a com 
panion of Peter. $ It would seem, likewise, from a single 
passage in Clement of Alexandria, that the Gnostics gener 
ally boasted that their opinions were favored by Matthias, 
who was chosen an apostle in the place of Judas. || Though 
the remark is not made by Clement, yet it is evident that 
this appeal to the authority of a particular apostle one of 
whom scarcely any thing is now known, and of whom it 
follows that scarcely any thing was known in the second 
century proves that the Gnostics did not appeal with any 
confidence to the authority of the other apostles. 

Irenasus earnestly opposes the doctrine of a secret oral 
tradition. H But it was maintained by Clement as expressly 
and fully as by the Gnostics. It was altogether consistent 

* Lib. iii. c 2, 1, p. 174. 

t De Praescriptione Hsereticorum, cap. 25, p. 210. 

J Clement. Al. Stromat., vii. 17, p. 898. Ibid., p. 900. 

U Acts i. 26. Tf Cont. Haeres., lib. iii. capp. 2-4, pp. 174-170. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 829 

with his conceptions, that the more recondite truths of 
philosophy were to be exhibited under a veil, and not to 
be communicated to the generality. This higher knowledge, 
the philosophy of Christianity, to which he gave the same 
name (yrcodr^) which the Gnostics gave to their specula 
tions, he supposed was to be attained only by those who 
were in his view true Gnostics (yyoxmxot), that is, truly 
enlightened. The greater number of Christians had only 
simple faith, faith in the essential truths of Christianity, 
which was sufficient for them. On this faith, as its founda 
tion, all higher knowledge rested.* It was the notion of 
Clement, that the secret wisdom of which he speaks was first 
communicated by our Lord to Peter, James, John, and Paul, 
from whom it had been transmitted."}" " Our Lord," he says, 
" did not at once reveal to many those truths which did not 
belong to many ; but he revealed them to a few to whom he 
knew them to be adapted, who were capable of receiving 
them, and of being conformed to them. But secret things, as 
God [meaning, I conceive, philosophical speculations con 
cerning God], are committed, not to writing, but to oral dis 
courses." 

This notion of a secret tradition is not found in Justin 
Martyr, Irenaeus, or Tertullian. When the two latter speak 
of tradition, they mean that traditionary knowledge of the 
history and doctrines of Christianity which necessarily ex 
isted among Christians. It is described by Irenaeus as a 
" tradition manifest throughout the world, and to be found in 
every church." By it, he says, a knowledge of our religion 
was preserved without books among believers in barbarous 
nations. || At the end of about a century from the preaching 
of the apostles, there must have been, throughout the com- 

* See, among many passages to this effect, Stromat, vii. pp. 890, 891. 
t Stromat., i. p. 322. Etiam apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles., lib. ii. c. 1. 
| Stromat, i. p. 323. Lib. iii. c. 3, 1, p. 175. 

|| Ibid., c. 4, 2, p. 178. 



830 EVIDENCES OP THE 

munities which they had formed, a general acquaintance with 
what they had taught, even had no written records of our 
religion been extant. In regard, likewise, to facts important 
in their reference to Christianity, as, for example, the genu 
ineness of the books of the New Testament, the Christians 
of the last half of the second century must have relied on the 
testimony of their predecessors. It is this traditionary knowl 
edge concerning Christianity, not secret, but open to all, which 
Irenaeus and Tertullian appeal to, with justifiable confidence, 
in their reasonings against the heretics, when they distinguish 
between the evidence from tradition and the evidence from 
Scripture. The tradition of which they speak is altogether 
different from the secret tradition of Clement. 

The origin of the opinion common to Clement and to the 
theosophic Gnostics may be explained by the supposition, 
that inferences, true or false, from the truths taught by 
Christ and his apostles, and theories built on those truths, 
were conceived of, and represented, as having been taught by 
them ; and, since it did not appear that they made a part of 
their public teaching, the notion in consequence grew up, that 
they were taught by them privately. This notion would ally 
itself with the conceptions of both Clement and the Gnostics 
concerning that higher esoteric wisdom which few only were 
capable of receiving. In holding their common belief, it is 
probable that neither had a distinct conception of what was 
embraced in the tradition the existence of which they as 
serted. It appears from the whole tenor of the Stromata of 
Clement, that, in his view, the true knowledge, which, in 
union with accordant virtues, constituted an enlightened 
Christian (his Gnostic), in the highest sense of the words, 
comprehended the whole compass of intellectual philosophy, 
and particularly all that can be known by men respecting the 
nature, attributes, and operations of God.* If he had been 

* Instead of producing at length the authorities and reasons for this 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 331 

asked, whether he believed that all this knowledge had 
been handed down by a secret tradition, the question might 
have presented the subject to his mind under a new aspect, 
but he undoubtedly would have answered in the negative. 
Had he then been requested to point out what particular part 
of it he conceived to have been thus handed down, I think he 
would have been embarrassed by the inquiry. 

In connection with their notion of a secret tradition, the 
Gnostics, or some of the Gnostics, said, according to Irenaeus, 

statement, which would carry us too far away from our main purpose, I will 
quote a few sentences from the valuable work of the present Bishop of Lin 
coln (Dr. Kaye), entitled " Some Account of the Writings and Opinions of 
Clement of Alexandria." It is the most important work on the subject 
of which it treats. The author says (pp. 238-241) : 

" By yvwatf [the higher esoteric knowledge] Clement understood the 
perfect knowledge of all that relates to God, his nature and dispensa 
tions. . . . The Gnostic [Clement s Gnostic] comprehends not only the First 
Cause and the Cause begotten by him [the Logos], and is fixed in his no 
tions concerning them, possessing firm and immovable reasons; but also, 
having learned from the truth itself, he possesses the most accurate truth 
from the foundation of the world to the end, concerning good and evil, and 
the whole creation, and, in a word, concerning all which the Lord spake . . . 
With respect to the source from which this knowledge is derived, Clement 
says, that it was imparted by Christ to Peter, James, John, and Paul, and 
by them delivered down to their successors in the Church. It was not 
designed for the multitude, but communicated to those only who were capa 
ble of receiving it; orally, not by writing. " 

The notions of Clement respecting this sacred tradition are not only to be 
distinguished from the reasonable conceptions of other fathers respecting that 
public traditionary knowledge concerning Christianity which necessarily 
existed among Christians, but equally also from an opinion which began to 
prevail in the latter half of the fourth century, and which has become funda 
mental in the Roman-Catholic Church. This opinion is, that certain doctrines 
and rites, which are not to be kept secret, but are to be made known to all, 
and to be believed or practised by all, are not expressly taught or enjoined 
in the New Testament, but are derived from the oral teaching or the appoint 
ment of Christ or his apostles, a knowledge of which has been preserved by 
tradition. This principle was, perhaps, first clearly avowed by Basil of 
Caesarea, in the latter half of the fourth century, in his treatise, " Concerning 
the Holy Spirit*" 



332 EVIDENCES OF THE 

"that the apostles, practising dissimulation, accommodated 
their doctrine to the capacity of their hearers, and their 
answers to the previous conceptions of those who questioned 
them, talking blindly with the blind, weakly with the weak, 
and conformably to their error with those who were in error ; 
and that thus they preached the Creator to those who thought 
that the Creator was the only God, but to those able to 
comprehend the unknown Father they communicated this 
unspeakable mystery in parables and enigmas."* " Some," 
says Irenasus, " impudently contend, that the apostles, preach 
ing among the Jews, could not announce any other God but 
him in whom the Jews had believed." f 

Again : some of the Gnostics, especially the Marcionites, 
maintained that Paul was far superior to the other apostles 
in the knowledge of the truth ; " the hidden doctrine having 
been manifested to him by revelation."! They represented 
the other apostles as having been entangled by Jewish preju 
dices, from which he was in a great measure free. Hence 
Tertullian, in one place, calls him " the Apostle of the Here 
tics. ^ In support of this opinion, Marcion relied much on 
that passage in the Epistle to the Galatians || in which Paul 
represents himself as having reproved Peter and Barnabas 
for not acting conformably to the principles of Christianity, 
but by their conduct " compelling the Gentiles to Judaize," 
that is, to observe the Levitical Law.^1 Marcion regarded 
the Gospels as expressing the false Jewish opinions of their 
writers. But among the Gospels he conceived that there 
was ground for making a choice; and he selected, for his 
own use and that of his followers, the Gospel of Luke, the 

* Lib. iii. cap. 5, 1, p. 179. t Ibid., cap. 12, 6, p. 195. 
J Ibid., c. 13, 1, p. 200. Advers. Marcion., lib. iii. c. 5, p. 399 

|| Chap. ii. 11, seqq. 

Tf Advers. Marcion., lib. iv. c. 3, pp. 414, 415; lib. i. c. 20, p. 375: conf. 
De Prsescript. Haeretic., c. 23, p. 210. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 333 

Companion of Paul. This he further adapted to his purpose 
by rejecting from it what he viewed as conformed to those 
opinions. Nor did he consider Paul himself as wholly free 
from Jewish errors, but likewise struck out, from those of his 
Epistles which he used, the passages in which he thought 
Ihem to be expressed. 

Sometimes, according to Irenseus, the Gnostics, apparently 
without making an exception in favor of St. Paul, charged 
the apostles generally with Jewish errors and ignorance con 
cerning the higher truths and mysteries of religion. "All 
those," he says, " who hold pernicious doctrines, have departed 
in their faith from Him who is God, and think that they have 
found out more than the apostles, having discovered another 
God. They think that the apostles preached the Gospel 
while yet under the influence of Jewish prejudices, but that 
their own faith is purer, and that they are wiser than the 
apostles." He states that Marcion proceeded on these prin 
ciples in rejecting the use of some of the books of Scripture, 
and of portions of those which he retained.* " The heretics," 
says Tertullian, " are accustomed to affirm that the apostles 
did not know all things ; while at other times, under the 
influence of the same madness, they turn about, and maintain, 
that the apostles did indeed know all things, but did not 
teach all things to all." f "I cannot help wondering," says 
Clement of Alexandria, " how some dare to call themselves 
perfect, and Gnostics, thinking themselves superior to the 
apostles." J But the theosophic Gnostics did not stop here. 
Irena3us, after saying that the heretics, when confuted from 
the Scriptures, appealed to oral tradition, goes on thus : " But 
when we, on the other hand, appeal to that tradition which, 
proceeding from the apostles, has been preserved in the 
Church by a succession of elders, then they oppose tradition, 



* Lib. iii. c. 12, 12, p. 198. | De Prescript. Hseretic., c. 22, p. 209. 
t Paedagogus, lib. i. c. 6, pp. 128, 129. 



334 EVIDENCES OF THE 



saying that they, being not only \*iser than the elders, but 
wiser than the apostles, have discovered the pure truth. For 
the apostles, they say, mixed their legal notions with the 
words of the Saviour ; and not only the apostles, but the Lord 
himself, spoke sometimes from the Creator [as the Messiah 
of the Creator], sometimes from the Middle Space [that is, 
conformably to the spiritual nature which he had derived 
from Achamoth], and sometimes from the highest height fas 
the JEon Christ from the Pleroma] ; * but that they them 
selves know with full assurance the hidden mystery, un 
mixed, in all its purity ."f The opinion of the Gnostics, 
here expressed, concerning the discourses of Christ, is analo 
gous to the Orthodox doctrine, still extant, that he spoke 
sometimes as a man, sometimes as God, and sometimes in 
his mediatorial character, as neither God nor man simply, 
but as both united ; and that, as a man, he was ignorant of 
what, being God, he knew. 

There is nothing to object to the general proposition of the 
Gnostics, that the apostles were under the influence of Jew 
ish prejudices, nor to the proof which they brought of this 
fact from the conduct of Peter and Barnabas, which was 
reproved by Paul. Their extravagance consisted in the 
irrational misapplication which they made of this principle. 
The spirit of God, which enlightened the minds of the apos 
tles as to all essential truths of religion, did not deliver them 



* According to the verbal construction of the old Latin Translation of 
Irenaeus, which is here our authority, and which I have followed in my 
translation, though not in my exposition, these clauses apply equally to the 
apostles as to Christ. But I cannot think that this meaning was intended 
by Irenaeus, or, at least, that this was the meaning of the Gnostics. Irenteus 
elsewhere (lib. i. c. 7, 3, p. 34) gives a similar account of their opinions re 
specting the preaching of Christ, without mentioning the apostles. Nor is 
there any probability that the Gnostics believed in the inspiration of men 
from the Pleroma, which opinion would be implied in the supposition that 
the apostles sometimes spoke " from the highest height." 

t Lib. iii. c. 2, 2, p. 175. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 335 

from all error, and transform them into all-wise and all 
knowing philosophers. But, if the apostles were liable tft 
any errors, they were particularly exposed to the influence of 
those in which they had been educated, and could hardly 
escape being more or less affected by the inveterate concep 
tions and errors of their countrymen. It being the object of 
the Gnostics to separate Judaism from Christianity, and to 
distinguish the God of the Jews from the God of Christians, 
they naturally seized upon this truth to effect their purpose ; 
and as no strongly marked line can be drawn, defining the 
sphere within which alone the apostles were liable to error, 
they applied, or rather misapplied, a principle, correct in 
itself, to all cases in which the words of the apostles so 
explicitly contradicted their doctrine, as to be incapable, by 
any force, of being conformed to it. 

It remains to add a few words concerning the belief of the 
theosophic Gnostics in their own infallible spiritual knowl 
edge. This they conceived of as the result of their spiritual 
nature. " They object to us," says Clement of Alexandria, 
" that we are of another nature, and unable to comprehend 
their peculiar doctrines." * A similar pretension to that of 
the Gnostics has been common among Christians. An 
essential doctrine of the Roman-Catholic Church is its own 
infallibility, an infallibility which must reside in some of its 
individual members. Among the sects into which Protes 
tants have been divided, the generality hare, at least in the 
earlier stages of their growth, maintained the principle, 
expressed in the perverted language of St. Paul, that spir 
itual things are spiritually discerned, and have, of course 
confined this unerring spiritual discernment to themselves. 
Calvin taught that " the first step in the school of the Lord 
is to renounce human reason. | For, as if a veil were inter- 

* Stromat , vii 16, pp. 891, 892. f "Humana perspicacia." 



336 EVIDENCES OF THE 

posed, it hinders us from attaining to the mysteries of God, 
which are not revealed but to little children;"* and, after 
these words, he proceeds to quote, as might be expected, the 
often-quoted passage of St. Paul just referred to. Even 
the genuineness and inspiration of the books of the Bible, 
or, as he expresses it, the fact that they " had proceeded from 
the very mouth of God" (ab ipsissimo Dei ore fluxisse), 
11 were not to be submitted to reasoning and arguments," but 
were spiritually discerned ; so as to be known with the same 
certainty as men know that black is not white, and sweet is 
not bitter." f The theosophic Gnostics, in expressing their 
sense of the incapacity of common Christians to understand 
their doctrines, could not have used stronger language than 
that of Calvin concerning the natural blindness of the unre- 
generate to the truths of religion. It was, in his view, the 
spiritual illumination of the elect which enabled them clearly 
to discern these truths ; or, in other words, clearly to discern 
the identity of the system which he taught with the teachings 
of Christ. 

The Gnostics, as we have seen, were equally able with 
Calvin to identify their systems with Christianity. In the 
modes by which they effected their purpose, we may observe 
the same operations of the human mind as have been going 
on from their day to our own. One of the most effectual 
means of checking their further progress is, by directing atten 
tion to the extravagances to which they lead. It is a main 
advantage resulting from the study of obsolete errors, and 
one which this study alone can furnish, that, as we have no 
prejudices in their favor, we are able, without disturbance, to 
trace them to their sources ; and when those sources are dis 
covered, we may perceive that they are still in full action 
producing new errors, or more commonly, perhaps, repro- 

* Institut, lib. iii. c. 2, 34. f Ibid., lib. i. c. 7. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 337 

ducing old ones under a new form. It may be doubted, 
whether a History of Human Folly would not be a more 
instructive work than our Histories of Philosophy ; but its 
contents would not be throughout so different from theirs as 
its different title might lead one to expect. 

Among the Gospels, the Marcionites used only their copy 
of that of Luke. To this they joined ten Epistles of St. Paul, 
from which, as from the Gospel, they rejected certain pas 
sages, as I have before mentioned. On this history of Christ, 
and on these Epistles, they founded their system, and from 
them they reasoned. They appealed to them as freely and 
confidently as did the catholic Christians, and the theosophic 
Gnostics, to the books of the New Testament in general. 
The arguments which they drew from them are presented to 
view in the writings of their opponents, especially of Tertul- 
lian. From those books they derived their knowledge of 
Christ and of Christianity. It does not appear that they 
made a pretence to any exclusive spiritual discernment, or 
that they relied on any secret tradition. It does appear that 
they made no use of any other history of Christ besides the 
Gospel of Luke. No apocryphal gospel is said to have been 
extant among them. They are never charged with having 
rested their system, wholly or in part, on any such gospel. 
But, had there been ground for the charge, it would undoubt 
edly have been made. The controversy between them and 
the catholic Christians would have brought out such a fact 
with the broadest distinctness. It would have been, to say 
the least, as much insisted upon as the fact that they struck 
out some passages from the Gospel of Luke and the Epistles 
of Paul, notices of which are continually recurring in the 
writings of their opponents. Those passages the Marcionites 
rejected, and they disavowed the authority of the other three 
Gospels, not on the ground that they were not genuine, 
but because, believing them to be genuine, they believed 

22 



338 EVIDENCES OF THE 

their authors to be under the influence of Jewish preju 
dices. 

But were those which have been mentioned the only means 
that the Gnostics made use of to find support for their systems 
in the real or supposed teaching of Christ? Had they not, as 
has been imagined, gospels of their own, presenting a view of 
his ministry and instructions, different from that contained 
in the catholic gospels; -accounts of Christ, which they pre 
ferred and opposed to those given by the evangelists ? Every 
one has heard of apocryphal and Gnostic gospels. 

As regards the Marcionites, these questions have been 
answered. It is evident that they had no such gospels or 
gospel. Those theosophic Gnostics, who adopted the means 
that have been explained of reconciling their doctrines with 
Christianity, could, likewise, have had no such gospels. It 
has appeared, not only in the present chapter, but through 
out this work, that their systems, equally with the faith of 
the catholic Christians, were founded on the common account 
of Christ s ministry. In their reasonings, they constantly 
referred to the Gospels. They therefore could have received 
as of authority no history of his ministry which varied essen 
tially from those Gospels. Whether they had any other 
histories of his ministry, which did not vary essentially from 
the Gospels, is an unimportant question, so far as it regards 
the main purpose which we have in view. For, if those 
histories proceeded from authors who wrote from independent 
sources of information, they would serve, by their agreement, 
to confirm the accounts of the catholic Gospels; while, if 
they were merely founded on those Gospels, or on some one 
of them, they would serve to show the authority which the 
latter had very early attained. 

But a question may be virtually settled without all the 
explanation having been given which is necessary to our 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 339 

satisfaction, and to a full understanding of the subject. After 
all that has appeared, the inquiry may still recur, What, then, 
were those apocryphal and Gnostic gospels about which so 
much has been said ? To this inquiry I propose to give an 
answer in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ON THE QUESTION, WHETHER THE GNOSTICS OPPOSED TO 
THE FOUR GOSPELS ANT OTHER WRITTEN HISTORIES OR 
HISTORY OF CHRIST S MINISTRY. 

THIS question will lead us to consider all those books that 
have been called apocryphal gospels which we have any reason 
for supposing to have been extant during the first two cen 
turies, except the Gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of 
Marcion. We examine elsewhere the grounds for believing 
that the former, as it was first used by the Hebrew Chris 
tians, was the Hebrew original of the Gospel of Matthew, 
though its text, in some or many copies, may hare afterwards 
become much corrupted.* The latter was merely the Gos 
pel of Luke mutilated by Marcion. f The authority of 
neither of these books, therefore, could be opposed to that 
of the catholic Gospels ; nor can the epithet apocryphal, with 
its common associations, be properly applied to them. No 
book which was not in existence till after the end of the 
second century, could have been used by the Gnostics as a 
basis for their opinions, or could, by any sect whatever, have 
been brought into competition with the four Gospels, as an 
original history of Christ s ministry. All that is necessary to 
be said in direct reply to the question proposed lies within a 

* See Note A., section iv. 

t See Additional Note, C, in vol. iii. of the former editions of the Genu 
ineness of the Gospels: " On the Gospel of Marcion." 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 341 

small compass. But the subject of apocryphal gospels, as 
well as that of apocryphal books in general, has been treated 
in such a manner as necessarily to produce confused and 
erroneous conceptions respecting them. It is a subject which 
demands explanation, where argument is not needed ; and the 
inquiry on which we are about to enter will, through its 
incidental relations, extend much beyond the second century, 
and embrace books which were not extant till long after that 
period.* 



* In respect to the apocryphal gospels, the modern writer, whose informa 
tion is principally relied on, is Fabricius. In his " Codex Apocryphus Novi 
Testamenti," he has given a full and accurate account of all the passages 
relating to them which are to be found in ancient writers. I say, " a full and 
accurate account;" because his work has now sustained that reputation 
unquestioned for more than a century. Fabricius, however, has merely 
brought together a mass of materials, without applying them to the illustra 
tion of any fact whatever. He has not arranged the books which he treats 
of chronologically, with reference to the period when they are first mentioned, 
or when they may be supposed to have appeared. Such an arrangement 
would at once show, that far the greater number deserve no consideration 
from any supposable bearing on the authority of the Gospels. He has 
arranged them in the alphabetical order of their titles, which tends to produce 
the impression, that they all equally deserve attention. 

Fabricius was followed by Jones in the first two volumes of his " New and 
Full Method of settling the Canonical Authority of the New Testament " 
But the principal value of Jones s work consists in its giving, in an English 
dress, the information to be found in Fabricius, and in the republication of 
some of the later apocryphal writings (also published by Fabricius) with 
English translations. He had no clear comprehension of his own purpose in 
writing; and his views and reasonings only tend to perplex the subject. He 
follows Fabricius in arranging the books in the alphabetical order of their 
titles. 

In 1832, J. C. Thilo published the first volume of his "Codex Apocryphus 
Novi Testamenti," a work commenced on an extensive plan, but of which 
no other portion has appeared. The first volume contains the later apocry 
phal writings, which had previously been published, with others in addition, 
all apparently edited in a careful and thorough manner, with Prolegomena 
and notes. It contains also the Gospel of Luke used by Marcion, as restored 
by Hahn, who has made Marcion s Gospel a particular subject of study. 

I shall refer to the three works which I have mentioned, by the names of 
their respective authors. The copy of Fabricius which I use is of the second 



342 EVIDENCES OP THE 

I begin by stating the most important considerations re 
specting the question proposed ; and I hope to be excused for 
BO me repetition in hereafter recalling attention to them with 
reference to different writings. 

Of the controversy carried on by the catholic Christians 
with the Valentinians and the Marcionites, we have, as has 
been seen, abundant remains. The opinions and arguments 
of those heretics are brought forward in order to be confuted ; 
and though we may not regard them as fully and fairly 
stated, yet, on the other hand, it cannot be supposed that any 
striking peculiarity in their opinions, or any main topic of 
their reasoning, has been passed over in silence. If they had 
opposed other histories of Christ to the four Gospels, if they 
had relied for the support of their systems on accounts of his 
ministry different from those we now possess, we should find 
frequent notices of the fact. If they and the catholic Chris 
tians had been at issue on the question, which among dis 
cordant histories of Christ was to be received as authentic, 
this would necessarily have been the main point in contro 
versy, the question to be settled before all others. We find 
in the case of the Marcionites, that their confining themselves 
to the use of a mutilated copy of Luke s Gospel is a circum 
stance continually presented to view ; and we have particular 
notices of the use which other heretics made of a few passages 
relating to Christ, not found in the evangelists. The fathers 
were eager to urge against the Gnostics the charges of cor 
rupting and contemning the Scriptures, and of fabricating 
apocryphal writings. Had there been occasion to make it, 
they would not have passed over what in their view would 
have been a far graver allegation, that the Gnostics pretended 
to set up other histories of Christ in opposition to those re- 



edition, printed in 1719, in three parts. That of Jones is of the Oxford edition, 
printed in 1798. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 343 

ceived by the great body of Christians. Such a fact, from its 
very nature, neither would nor could have remained unno 
ticed. Ample evidence of it must have come down to 
us ; an> I, if no evidence is to be found, we may conclude 
without hesitation, that the Gnostics made no pretence to 
having more authentic histories of Christ than the Gospels. 

What, then, is the state of the case ? I answer, in the 
first place, that Irenaeus and Tertullian were the two prin 
cipal writers against the Gnostics, and from their works it 
does not appeal- that the Valentinians, the Marcionites, or 
any other Gnostic sect, adduced, in support of their opinions, 
a single narrative relating to the public ministry of Christ, 
besides what is found in the Gospels. It does not appear 
that they ascribed to him a single sentence of any imaginable 
importance, which the evangelists have not transmitted. It 
does not appear that any sect appealed to the authority of any 
history of his public ministry, besides the Gospels, except 
so far as the Marcionites, in their use of an imperfect copy 
of St. Luke s Gospel, may be regarded as forming a verbal 
exception to this remark. The question, then, which we 
have proposed for consideration, would seem to be settled. 
The Gnostics did not oppose any other history of Christ 
to the catholic Gospels. Had they done so, it is altogether 
incredible that the fact should not have been conspicuous 
throughout the controversial writings of Irenaeus and Tertul 
lian. 

But what, then, were those ancient books which have been 
called " apocryphal gospels " ? I answer, that, with the ex 
ception of the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Gospel of Marcion, 
and a narrative which Tatian formed out of the four evange 
lists, it is not probable that any one of them was a professed 
history of Christ s ministry. The main evidence of this fact 
will appear from a particular examination of the accounts which 
have been given of them. But it may be here observed, that 
the name " gospel," signifying in its primary meaning " a 



344 EVIDENCES OF THE 

joyful message," "glad news," was given as a title to the 
works of the evangelists, because they contained an account 
of the joyful message which Christ gave from heaven to 
men. It but indirectly denoted their character as histories 
of his ministry. The name " gospel " has ever been used to 
signify the whole scheme of Christianity ; and a book, con 
taining the views of its writer concerning this system, or the 
views ascribed by him to a particular apostle, might hence be 
entitled his gospel, or denominated by him the gospel of that 
apostle. There was a book in common use among the 
Manichaeans, called a gospel, which, as Cyril of Jerusalem 
expressly mentions, contained no account of the actions of 
Christ.* In later times, in the latter part of the seventeenth 
century, a book was published by Dr. Arthur Bury, which 
he entitled " The Naked Gospel." Another work appeared 
about the same time in Germany, which was called " The 
Eternal Gospel ; " and another with the same title was pro 
duced in the thirteenth century.f It is not improbable, like 
wise, that the fathers may have used the term " gospel " in 
the same way in which it has been used by controvertists 
in modern times, when they have charged their opponents 
with teaching " another gospel." There is a French book 
entitled " The New Gospel of Cardinal Pallavicini, revealed 
by him in his History of the Council of Trent ; " J Scioppius, 
in one of his letters, talks of " the fifth gospel of Luther ; " 
and the Jesuit Rene Rapin published against the Jansenists a 
work which he called " The Gospel of the Jansenists." || 
Thus in ancient times the charge of teaching a new gospel 
might occasion the title " gospel " to be given to some book 
by which it was not assumed ; or even lead to the false 



* It is ascribed by him to Scythianus as its author. Catachesis, vi. 13, 
p. 92. 

t Fabricius, i. 337*, 338. J Ibid., i. 339, note. 

La Roche s Memoirs of Literature, vol. ii. p. 252. 
|| Fabricius, i. 339, note. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 345 

supposition, that there was some book which bore that title, 
or to which it might be applied, when no such book existed. 
Among what have been called the Gnostic gospels, we find, 
as I have formerly mentioned, one under the name of " The 
Gospel of Eve," probably used by the Ophians, which pro 
fessed to contain that wisdom which Eve learned from the 
Serpent. This gospel, therefore, was not a history of the 
ministry of Christ* Nor can we reasonably suppose that 
this character was ascribed to another, said to be in use 
among the Cainites, called " The Gospel of Judas," meaning 
Judas Iscariot.f Epiphanius mentions a book as in use 
among Gnostics, which he says was named " The Gospel of 
Perfection." $ Its title, and the brief account which he 
gives of it, imply that it was not an historical book, if indeed^ 
any such book existed. These remarks are merely prelimi 
nary. As we proceed, I trust it will appear that there is no 
ground for believing that any work which may properly be 
called a Gnostic gospel was a professed history of Christ s min 
istry, or that any history of his ministry was in circulation 
during the second century, among either the catholic Chris 
tians or the Gnostics, besides the cathplic Gospels, and books, 
like those of Marcion and Tatian, founded upon one or all of 
them. 

With this understanding of what might be meant by the 
title " gospel," let us next inquire what we may find respect 
ing Gnostic or apocryphal gospels in Irenaeus and Tertul- 
lian. 

Tertullian often mentions the mutilated copy of Luke s 
Gospel used by the Marcionites. But this, as I have said, 
should not be spoken of as an apocryphal gospel. He no- 



* See p. 279, seqq. t Irenaeus, lib. i. c. 31, 1, p. 112. 

t Hares, xxvi. 2, p. 83. 



346 EVIDENCES OP THE 

where, throughout his writings, ascribes to the Gnostics the 
ase of any proper Gnostic gospel, in any sense of the term 
" gospel." He nowhere speaks of any apocryphal gospel 
whatever, or intimates a knowledge of the existence of such 
a book. The conclusion is unavoidable. Either he did not 
know of the existence of any such book, or, if he did, he re 
garded it as too obscure and unimportant to deserve notice. 
But neither could have been the case in respect to any book 
which the Gnostics brought into competition with the Gos 
pels. 

Once, and once only, Irenaeus speaks of what he calls a 
u gospel," as used by the Valentinians, in addition to the four 
Gospels. He thus expresses himself concerning it: "The 
followers of Valentinus, throwing aside all fear, and bringing 
forward their own compositions, boast that they have more 
gospels than there are. For they have proceeded to such 
boldness as to entitle a book not long since written by them 
< The True Gospel/ [verbally The Gospel of the Truth,"] 
a book which agrees in no respect with the Gospels of the 
apostles, so that not even the Gospel can exist among them 
without blasphemy. For if that which is brought forward 
by them be the true Gospel, but differ at the same time from 
those Gospels which have been handed down to us by the 
apostles (those who wish may learn in what manner from the 
writings themselves), then it is evident that the Gospel 
handed down by the apostles is not the true Gospel." * 

The author of the Addition to Tertullian, probably copy- 

* " Si enim quod ab iis profertur veritatis est Evangelium, dissimile est 
autem hoc illis [sc. Evangeliis] quae ab Apostolis nobis tradita sunt; (qui 
volunt possunt discere quemadmodum ex ipsis scripturis;) ostenditur jam 
non esse id quod ab Apostolis traditum est veritatis Evangelium." Lib. ili. 
c. 11, 9, p. 192. This difficult passage may, perhaps, be thus arranged with 
a change of pointing, a parenthesis, and the printing of scripturis without an 
initial capital. But no difference of arrangement or translation is important 
aa regards the present subject. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 347 

lug Irenocus, says, "Valentinus likewise has his gospel 
besides ours." * By Valentinus is here, I presume, meant the 
Valentinians ; sects being not unfrequently by the fathers thus 
designated from their leaders. These are the only notices to 
be found of the Valentinians, as a sect, having used any 
other book called a gospel besides the canonical Gospels. 

It is evident from the passage of Irenaeus, as well as from 
much other equally unequivocal testimony, that the Valentin 
ians received the four Gospels in common use. The charge 
against them is, that they had more gospels than the catholic 
Christians, that is, one more. This additional gospel, there 
fore, could have contained no history of Christ s ministry at 
variance with that in the four Gospels, which they also admit 
ted. But (if such a gospel existed) there is no probability 
that it was an historical book of any sort. It was a gospel, we 
may reasonably presume, of the kind before described, contain 
ing an account of what its author believed to be the doctrines 
of the Gospel. If it had been a history presenting any addi 
tions to the narratives of the evangelists, adopted by the 
Valentinians to support their opinions, they would have 
quoted it for this purpose ; and of the additional accounts, 
and of the arguments founded upon them, we should have had 
abundant notices in the writings of their opponents, and in 
the fragments still extant of their own. But there are no 
such notices whatever. 

Such is the state of the case, if the Valentinians really had 
among them a book with the title supposed. But, though 
the account of Irenaeus, so far as it relates to the existence of 
the book, may be correct, there is reason for doubting it alto 
gether. If he has fallen into a mistake, it is one that may 
easily be explained. The Valentinians, we may suppose, pro 
fessed that they alone had " the true Gospel," meaning that 
they alone held the true doctrines of the Gospel ; and some 

* De Prescript. Haretic., c. 49 p. 222. 



348 EVIDENCES OF THE 

of their opponents misunderstood them as meaning that they 
possessed a book with that title. Had they really, as Ire- 
nasus says, boasted of possessing such a gospel, it must have 
been an important book in reference to the exposition of their 
doctrines. But, as I have said, it is nowhere referred to 
by Irenaeus himself, except in the passage just quoted. It is 
mentioned by no subsequent writer except the author of the 
Addition to Tertullian, who probably took his notice of it 
from Irenaeus. Tertullian himself, who was well acquainted 
with the works of Irenseus, affords proof, by his silence con 
cerning it in his writings against the Valentin ians, that he 
was not aware of its existence, or regarded it as not worth 
notice. It follows, therefore, either that Irenaeus was in 
error in supposing that there was such a book, or that he 
was in error in supposing that the Valentinians, generally, 
attached any importance to it. 

Irenaeus gives one other title (before mentioned), purport 
ing to be that of an apocryphal gospel which he supposed 
to be in existence, and to be called " The Gospel of Judas," 
that is, of Judas Iscariot. He represents it as having been 
used by the Cainites. According to him, these heretics were 
distinguished by their abominable immorality, by their de 
grading the character of the Creator, and by their celebrating 
such personages in the Old Testament as Cain, Esau, Korah, 
and the Sodomites. They regarded them as allied to them 
selves by the possession of the same spiritual nature, and as 
having been, on account of this nature, persecuted by the 
Creator. They apparently considered Cain as the head of 
the spiritual among men. He was from " the higher power " 
(a superior e principalitate). The truth, on these subjects, 
they said, was known to Judas alone ; and in consequence of 
this knowledge, " he performed the mystery of delivering up 
his master ; and thus through Judas all things earthly and 
heavenly [all the works of the Creator] were dissolved. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 349 

And they produce," adds Irenaeus, "a fabrication to this 
effect, calling it < The Gospel of Judas. " * The account of 
Irenasus is repeated by Epiphanius and Theodoret. 

If there were such a book as Irenaeus names, there is no 
ground for believing it to have been a fabricated history of 
Christ s ministry. But it is highly improbable that any sect 
or any book existed, such as Irenaeus describes. It is a 
moral absurdity to suppose that there was a Christian sect 
which held such doctrines, and were guilty of such vices, as 
he imputes to the Cainites; that there were Christians 
avowing Cain to be their spiritual head, claiming alliance 
with the Sodomites, and taking Judas for their religious 
teacher. Nor would there be much less absurdity in imagin 
ing that any pseudo- Christian Gnostics exposed themselves 
in this barefaced manner to infamy and detestation ; that they 
claimed to be on a level with the worst characters in the Old 
and New Testaments, and avowed doctrines at once so mon 
strous, and so intimately connected with Judaism and Chris 
tianity. Without supposing the existence of any such sect, it 
is not difficult to explain the origin of the stories concerning 
it, in connection with the origin of the name. We have good 
reason to think that the name " Nicola itans " was derived 
from passages in the New Testament; and especially from 
two in the Apocalypse, in which it is applied to those who, 
having professed themselves Christians, indulged in licen- 
tiousness.f That of " Cainites," we may suppose, was de 
rived from a passage (formerly quoted) in the Epistle of 
Jude, in which certain individuals are thus spoken of: 
u Woe for them ! for they have walked in the way of Cain, 
and given themselves up to deceive, like Balaam, for pay, 
and brought destruction on themselves through rebellion, like 
Korah." $ The name was applied to those otherwise called 

* Cont. Hares., lib. i. c. 31, pp. 112, 113. t See pp. 252, 253. 

t Jude, ver. 11. See p. 252. 



350 EVIDENCES OP THE 

JSicolai tans, as we are informed by Tertullian in the only 
passage in which he mentions it.* But there was probably 
still another occasion of its use. The theosophic Gnostics 
considered Seth as the representative and head of the spir 
itual among men, and, in consequence, appear to have some 
times given themselves the name of Sethians.f But the 
assumption of this name might naturally provoke the more 
angry among their opponents to apply the opposite name of 
Cainites to those Gnostics, at least, whom they regarded as 
guilty of gross vices. The name being given, a system of 
doctrines corresponding to it would be easily fabricated, out 
of exaggerations, misconceptions, and false reports ; and one 
may find little difficulty in supposing that the assertion, that 
those to whom it was applied were traitors to Christ, teaching 
not his gospel, but the gospel of Judas Iscariot, gave occasion 
to the notion that they had a book with that title. If there 
were no sect holding the doctrines imputed to the Cainites, 
there was no gospel in existence conformed to those doc 
trines. Should it, however, still be thought that there may 
have been such a book, it is to be recollected that it must 
have been a book not used by Christians, of no authority, 
and, as appears from the little attention it received, of no 
notoriety. 

Such is all the information concerning Gnostic or apocry 
phal gospels afforded by the two principal writers against the 
Gnostics. Tertullian, throughout his works, mentions no 
such gospel. Irenasus gives two titles supposed by him to 
belong to such books. But it is very improbable that there 
was any such book as " The Gospel of Judas." The exist 
ence of " The True Gospel," also, is doubtful. But, if there 

* Tertullian, after referring to the Nicolaltans mentioned in the Apoca 
lypse, says: "Sunt et nunc alii Nicolaltae; Calana haeresis dicitur." De 
Prescript. Haeretic., c. 33, p. 214. 

f See p. 174, note; and p. 288. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 351 

were a book bearing that title, we cannot reasonably suppose 
it to have been a history of Christ s ministry at variance with 
the four Gospels. 

The Valentinians and Marcionites were the two principal 
sects of the Gnostics, and probably comprehended far the 
greater part of their number. Excepting the story of Ire- 
naeus concerning " The True Gospel," there is no charge 
against either sect, that they appealed to apocryphal gospels ; 
unless that name be given to Marcion s defective copy of 
Luke s Gospel. Next to those two sects, the Basil idians 
appear, for some reason or other, to have been regarded 
as the most important ; and we will now attend to what is 
said of their use of an apocryphal gospel. 

Of any work called a " gospel," different from the four 
Gospels, which was in use among the Basilidians, there is no 
mention in Irenaeus or in Clement of Alexandria, who are 
the principal sources of all the information concerning them 
to which any credit can be attached. Nor is such a work 
mentioned by Epiphanius, who in general brought together 
all that he could find, true or false, to the prejudice of the 
heretics; nor by Eusebius, among the apocryphal writings 
which he enumerates ; nor by Theodoret, who compiled his 
accounts of the heretics from many earlier authors. Such 
a book is first named by the author of the Homilies on Luke, 
which have been ascribed to Origen. That writer speaks of 
it in a passage in which he gives the titles, real or supposed, 
of various apocryphal gospels, to be hereafter noticed. He is 
commenting on the words with which Luke begins his Gos 
pel, " Since many have undertaken to arrange a narrative 
of the events accomplished among us." He regards the term 
" undertaken " as perhaps implying a censure on the works 
referred to by Luke. The four evangelists, he says, did not 
" undertake ; " they wrote under the impulse of the Holy 



352 EVIDENCES OP THE 

Spirit. But others (since their day) had " undertaken," and 
among them " Basilides," he says, " had the boldness to write 
a * Gospel according to Basilides. " * The whole passage, 
with this notice of a gospel ascribed to Basilides, was imitated 
by Ambrose t and Jerome $ toward the end of the fourth 
century. 

Such is the evidence that a gospel was written by Basilides. 
It consists in the assertion of an unknown writer, who must 
have lived more than a century after the death of Basilides, 
and the repetition of this assertion by two other writers, more 
than two centuries after that event. This evidence is of no 
weight to counterbalance the great improbability, that such 
a gospel should not have been taken notice of by the earlier 
opponents of Basilides, nor by any writer of a later age who 
has professed to give an account of his doctrines and sect. 
The fathers were very ready to charge the heretics with using 
books of no authority, apocryphal books. Why should we 
not have heard as much of a gospel written by Basilides, 
as of the defective Gospel of Luke used by the Marcionites ? 

The notion that Basilides wrote a gospel probably arose 
from the fact, that he wrote a commentary on the Gospels. 
In this he of course explained his views of Christianity ; and 
these views, or the book in which they were contained, might 
be called his gospel. Agrippa Castor, who, according to 
Eusebius, was a contemporary of Basilides, and whose " most 
able confutation " Eusebius says was extant in his time, 
apparently knew nothing of any " Gospel of Basilides," but 
did mention that he "wrote twenty-four books on the Gos 
pel," meaning by that term the four Gospels. From the 
twenty-third book of this Commentary Clement of Alexandria 
quotes several passages in connection. The Commentary of 

* Homil. i. in Lucam. Origen, Opp. iii. 933. 
1 Expositio Evang. Lucae, lib. i. Opp. i. 1265, ed. Benedict. 
J Comment, in Matth. Proem., Opp. torn. iv. pars i. p. 2. 
Stromat., iv. 12, pp. 599, 600. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 353 

Basilides is one among the decisive proofs of the respect in 
which the Gospels were held by the theosophic Gnostics. 

If the account of the author of the Homilies on Luke were 
founded on the existence of any work, this Commentary, in 
all probability, was the work, which, having heard of it and 
not having seen it, he called " The Gospel of Basilides." 
But, were there another book bearing that title, it could not 
have been a history of Christ s ministry at variance with our 
present Gospels. Of such a book we should have had far 
other information than an incidental mention of its title first 
made more than a century after the death of its author. 

In what precedes, we have seen the whole amount of infor 
mation concerning apocryphal gospels, the use of which is 
attributed to either of the three principal Gnostic sects. This 
information consists of two stories, one concerning " The True 
Gospel," an4 the other concerning " The Gospel of Basilides." 
It is doubtful, as we have seen, whether any books existed 
bearing those titles ; but, did such books exist, they must have 
been works of no celebrity, not current among the Gnostics, 
and not regarded by them as of authority. No writer pro 
duces an example of their drawing an argument from either 
of them, or of their appealing to them for any purpose what 
ever. 

We have seen, likewise, that, of the two principal writers 
against the Gnostics, Tertullian makes no mention of apocry 
phal gospels ; and we have considered what is the amount of 
evidence which Irenaeus affords of their existence and use. 

Next to Irenaeus and Tertullian, their contemporary, Clem 
ent of Alexandria, is our most important authority concern 
ing the Gnostics. He was a man of extensive information, a 
wide reader, quoting from a great variety of authors, and 
acquainted with the writings of the principal theosophic 
Gnostics, whose words he often cites. From him, therefore, 

23 



854 EVIDENCES OF THE 

if from any one, we should expect authentic notices of apocry 
phal gospels ; and, accordingly, we do find mention of one 
such book, which, there is no doubt, really existed. It was 
called " The Gospel according to the Egyptians." * 

This book has, in modern times, been particularly remarked. 
It has been thought by many to have been a history of Christ s 
ministry, used by the Gnostics ; and some have even imagined 
that it was one of those gospels referred to by Luke in tho 
introduction to his own.* The facts concerning it are these. 

Clement, in reasoning against those heretics who denied the 
lawfulness of marriage, gives the following passage, as adduced 
by them in support of their doctrine. " When Salome asked 
the Lord, i How long death should have power, he replied, 
* As long as you women bear children. " f This, Clement 
asserts, is only a declaration that death is the natural conse 
quence of birth. Considering the passage, therefore, as hav 
ing no force to prove the point for which it was adduced, 
namely, our Lord s disapproval of marriage, he does not 
remark upon the question of its authenticity, nor mention in 
this place from what book it was taken. But a few pages 
after he says, " But those who, through their specious conti 
nence, oppose themselves to the creation of God, cite what 
was uttered to Salome, of which I have before taken notice. 
The words are found, as I suppose, in the Gospel according 
to the Egyptians. For they affirm that our Saviour himself 
said, I have come to destroy the works of the female ; by 
the female meaning lust, by the works generation and 
corruption." $ 

Clement explains the words ascribed to Jesus in a different 
sense from that in which they were understood by those 
against whom he wrote. It is unnecessary to give his re 
marks. Toward the conclusion of them he asks, 

* The opinions of modern authors respecting it are collected by Jones, i. 
201, seqq. 

t Stromat, iii. 6, p 532. J Ibid., 9, pp. 539, 540. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 355 

" But do not those who prefer any thing to walking by that 
gospel rule which is according to the truth, also allege what 
follows of the conversation with Salome? For, upon her 
saying, * I have done well in not bearing children, as if there 
were something improper in it, the Lord replied, Eat of 
every herb, but of that which is bitter eat not ; by which 
words he signifies that celibacy or marriage is a matter within 
our own choice, neither being enforced by any prohibition of 
the other." * 

I proceed to the last passage whim ne quotes. He is 
here arguing particularly against a writer named Julius 
Cassian. 

" Cassian [in defending his doctrine respecting celibacy] 
says, Upon Salome s asking when those things should be 
known concerning which she inquired, the Lord answered, 
When ye shall tread under foot the garment of your shame, 
and when the two become one, and the male with the female 
neither male nor female. " f 

By the garments of shame, that is, the garments of skin, 
which, according to the story in Genesis, God made for Adam 
and Eve, Cassian, in common with other ancient allegorists, 
understood human bodies, the flesh, the seat of corruption. 
The body was the garment of shame which he believed was 
to be trodden under foot. $ 

Part of the words ascribed to Christ in the passage last 
quoted are likewise given as a " saying of the Lord," without 
reference to any book, in a spurious work called the " Second 
Epistle of Clement," of Rome. 

The words in the passage first quoted || occur in the Doc- 



* Stromat,, iii. 9, p. 541. t Ibid., 13, p. 553. 

J See the context of the passage in Clement, p. 564, and Beausobre, His- 
toire du Maniche"isme, torn. ii. pp. 135, 136. 

The words are found at the end of the fragment of this epistle which 
remains. 

11 See before, p. 354. 



356 EVIDENCES OF THE 

trina Orientalis,* as follows: "When the Saviour said to 
Salome, Death shall continue as long as women bear chil 
dren, he did not mean to blame the generation of children." 
The Gnostic writer, who here quotes the words, rejected, J ke 
Clement of Alexandria, the use made of them by the ascetics. 
He supposed them to have a mystical meaning, referring to 
Achamoth. 

The title of " The Gospel according to the Egyptians " is 
mentioned by the author of the Homilies on Luke, in the 
passage before referred to, and after him by three writers who 
have imitated that passage ; namely, Jerome, Titus Bostrensis, 
and Theophylactt 

Epiphanius, in his article on the Sabellians, after saying 
that they make use of all the writings both of the Old and 
of the New Testament, selecting passages to their purpose, 
adds, " But their whole error, and the main support of their 
error, they derive from certain apocryphal books, particularly 
that called The Egyptian Gospel, a name which some have 
given it. For in that there are many things to their purpose, 
of an obscure, mystical character, which are ascribed to the 
Saviour; as if he himself had made known to his disciples 
that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were the same 
person." $ 

An improbable story, resting solely on the testimony of 
Epiphanius, is not entitled to credit ; and this story about the 
Sabellians is altogether improbable. Epiphanius does not 
seem to have known even the proper title of the book which 
he charges them with using. He says that it was called 
" The Egyptian Gospel ; " the other writers who mention it 
give it the title of " The Gospel according to the Egyptians." 

I have quoted all the fragments, and, I believe, mentioned 



* 67, p. 985. f Fabricius, i. 335*, note, 

t Haeres., Ixii. 2, Opp. i. 613, 514. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 357 

all the notices of this apocryphal gospel which have come 
down to us. One unaccustomed to such studies might be sur 
prised to see the hypotheses and assertions that have been 
founded upon them in modern times. What in fact appears 
is, that it was an anonymous book, extant in the second cen 
tury, and probably written in Egypt, in the dark and mystical 
style that prevailed in that country. In judging of its noto 
riety and importance, we must compare the few writers who 
recognize its existence with the far greater number to whom 
it was unknown, or who were not led by any circumstance to 
mention it. It was a book of which we should have been 
ignorant, but for a few incidental notices afforded by writers, 
none of whom give evidence of having seen it.* Neither 
Clement, nor any other writer, speaks of it as a Gnostic gos 
pel. It does not appear that it had any particular credit or 
currency among the generality of the Gnostics. Some asce 
tics of their number, in maintaining the obligation of celibacy, 
argued from a passage found in it, as they did undoubtedly 
from passages found in the four Gospels ; but other Gnostics, 
as we have seen from the Doctrina Orientalis, rejected their 
interpretation. The Gnostics did not appeal to it in support 
of their more distinguishing and fundamental doctrines ; for, 
had they done so, we should have been fully informed of the 
fact. 

As this is the first apocryphal gospel the former existence 
of which we have clearly ascertained, the question arises, 
whether it were or were not a history of Christ s ministry 



* That it had not been seen by Clement of Alexandria, from whom our 
principal information concerning it is derived, appears from his turns of 
expression in remarking on the quotations from it: "The words are found, 
as I suppose (olfiai\ in the Gospel according to the Egyptians;" " They 
affirm, that the Saviour himself said;" and where, in appealing to a pas 
sage in the conversation with Salome, as justifying his own views, he refers 
to it as quoted by those whom he is opposing, and not as otherwise known to 
him, thus, " Do they not also allege what follows? " See Jones, i. 206. 



358 EVIDENCES OF THE 

The only aigument of any weight for believing it to have 
been so is, that it contained a narrative of a pretended con 
versation of Christ with Salome. But if it were not an his 
torical, but a doctrinal, book, there is no difficulty in supposing 
that the writer might find occasion to insert in it a traditional 
account of a discourse of Christ. A few such traditional ac 
counts of sayings of our Lord are found in other writers of 
the first three centuries.* As regards the words ascribed to 
him in the conversation with Salome, it is evident that the 
tradition concerning them was false. Our Saviour never 
expressed himself as he is reported to have done in the pas 
sages that have been quoted. The writer had an erroneous 
conception of his character. But if the book had been an 
historical gospel, this conception would have pervaded it, and 
would have been prominent in many other particular passages. 
A history of Christ s ministry, so foreign in its character from 
the Gospels as this must have been, could not have existed 
in the last half of the second century, whether it were a com 
position of an early age, or a fiction of later times, without 
having been an object of far greater attention than that which 
this book received. Especially, had it been brought forward 
by any sect in opposition to the Gospels, it would have been 
a primary subject of discussion. But we have seen that the 
book in question was little regarded or known. It could not, 
therefore, have been a history of Christ s ministry. 

This is the only apocryphal gospel, unless the Gospel 
according to the Hebrews be regarded as apocryphal, the title 
of which is mentioned by Clement. According to his present 
text, he quotes one other without giving its title. But there 
are good reasons for believing that his text, as it stands, is 
corrupt, and that there was originally no mention in it of a 
gospel.f 



* See pp. 130, 131. Fabricius, i. 321*, Beqq. Jones, i. 405, seqq. 

t Clement (Stromat., v. 10, p. 684) is treating of the hidden wisdom on 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 359 

If this be so, then, with the exception just mentioned of 
the Gospel according to the Hebrews, supposing that this ex 
ception should be made, the Gospel according to the Egyptians 
is the only apocryphal book, bearing the title of a gospel, that 
is mentioned by any writer during the three centuries suc 
ceeding our Lord s death, from which a single quotation is 
professedly given, or of which it is probable that a single 
fragment remains. 

As I have said, the title of no other apocryphal gospel, 
used by any Gentile Christians, is mentioned by Clement. 
But it is desirable to give the fullest information on the sub 
ject which we are examining ; for, as I have before remarked, 

which he so much insists. He professes to quote a passage from a prophet, 
apparently intending Isaiah, though nothing very like it is found in his 
writings, or elsewhere in the Old Testament. It is this : " Who shall under 
stand the parable of the Lord [Jehovah], but the wise and understanding, 
and he who loves his Lord?" Clement then, as his text now stands, goes 
on thus : " For it is in the power of few to understand these things. For the 
Lord, though not unwilling to communicate, the prophet says [or, the Scrip 
ture says], declared in a certain gospel, My secret is for me and the sons 
of my house. " "Ov jap Qdovtiv, (f>rjal, irapTjyyeLhsv 6 KvpiOf zv TIVI 
eiayythiu" K. T. A. I suppose the words u in a certain gospel" to be an 
interpolation. The passage quoted corresponds to what is found in some 
copies of the Septuagint at Isa. xxiv. 16. (See the note on the passage in 
Potter s edition of Clement, where, in the first line, " cap. 2 " is a misprint 
for "cap. 24.") The verb <prjai, sat/s, must have for its subject, either the 
prophet mentioned immediately before, or the Scripture (the ellipsis supposed 
in the last case being not uncommon). But Clement cannot be imagined to 
have made so incongruous an assertion as that " The prophet says," or 
" The Scripture says," " that the Lord [Christ] declared in a certain gospel." 
That he considered himself as borrowing the words, " My secret is for me 
and my children," not from a certain gospel, but from Isaiah, appears also 
from the circumstance, that, a few lines after them, he gives a quotation from 
Isaiah, introducing it with the words, "The prophet says again " (llahv 6 
Trpo^r^f .) I suppose, therefore, that the words " in a certain gospel " were 
originally a marginal gloss made by a transcriber, who attributed to Christ 
the declaration quoted by Clement, and who, knowing that it was not found 
in the four Gospels, thought it must be in some gospel or other. (See Jones, 
i. 422. seqq. ) 



360 EVIDENCES OF THE 

it is a subject that requires elucidation rather than argument. 
I will therefore advert to another work, which he quotes 
under the name of "The Traditions," and which has been 
imagined to be the same with an apocryphal gospel called 
"The Gospel according to Matthias." He speaks of the 
Traditions in the following passages : 

" To attain wisdom we must begin with wondering at things, 
as Plato says in his Theastetus ; and Matthias, in the Tra 
ditions, thus concludes, Wonder at present things ; making 
this the first step of our progress in knowledge." * 

In arguing against the licentiousness of the Carpocratians, 
he adduces another passage, thus : 

" It is said, likewise, that Matthias also thus taught : We 
must contend against the flesh and humble it, granting it no 
intemperate pleasure, but promote the growth of the soul 
through faith and knowledge. " f 

He again quotes a passage ascribed to Matthias, for the 
purpose, as before, of confirming his own doctrine: "It is 
said in the Traditions, that Matthias, the apostle, often re 
peated, * that, if the neighbor of one of the elect sin, he him 
self has sinned ; for, if he had conducted himself as Reason 
(the Logos) dictates, his neighbor would have so reverenced 
his course of life as not to sin. " $ The language is too un 
limited, but the morality is good. 

In what is supposed to be a Latin translation of a portion 
of a lost work of Clement, called " Hypotyposes," or Institu 
tions, there is another strange passage quoted from the Tra 
ditions, as agreeing with the conceptions of the writer. 
Clement, if he be the writer, is commenting on the first 
words of the First Epistle of John, which to render as he 
understood them are these: "What was from the begin 
ning, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have heard, 



* Stromat., ii. 9, pp. 452, 453. f Ibid., iii. 4, p. 523. 

J Ibid., vii. 13, p. 882. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 361 

and our hands have touched, concerning the Logos of life." 
He maintains (conformably to what Photius says* was a 
heresy affirmed by Clement in the work just mentioned), that 
the Logos who was from the beginning is to be distinguished 
from the Logos who became incarnate. The latter consisted 
of those powers of the former which proceeded from him as 
" a ray from the sun ; " and " this ray, coming in the flesh, 
became an object of touch to the disciples." "Thus," he 
says, " it is related in the Traditions, that John, touching 
his external body, plunged his hand in, the hardness of the 
flesh offering no resistance to it, but giving way to the hand 
of the disciple. Hence it is that John affirms, Our hands 
have touched concerning the Logos of life ; f that which 
came in the flesh being made an object of touch." $ Such 
traditions strikingly illustrate what would have been the state 
of the history of Jesus in the latter half of the second century, 
had it not been for the early existence and authoritative char 
acter of the Gospels. 

There is no reason to suppose that the book called " The 
Traditions " was in favor with any Gnostics. Clement does 
not represent it as having been cited by any heretical writer. 
On the contrary, he himself quotes it as confirming his own 
opinions. He does not entitle it " The Traditions of Mat 
thias," as it has been called in modern times, but simply " The 
Traditions." The former title has been given it, because, in 
the three passages quoted by Clement in his Stromata, the 
name of Matthias occurs ; and this title having been given it, 
the book has been fancied by some to be the same with an 
apocryphal gospel called " The Gospel according to Mat 
thias." 

Of this book, nothing but the title remains. It is first 



* Photii Bibliotheca, col. 285, ed. Schotti. 

t " Propter quod et infert, Et manus nostrce contrectaverunt de verfa rite." 

t Apud dementis Fragmenta, Opp. p. 1009. 



362 EVIDENCES OF THE 

mentioned by the author of the Homilies on Luke ; after him, 
by his imitators, Ambrose and Jerome, and also by Eusebius. 
Possibly the notion that there was such a book may have 
arisen from the fact mentioned by Clement,* that the Gnostics 
boasted that their opinions were favored by Matthias, or, in 
other words, that they taught the Gospel as it was understood 
by Matthias, the Gospel according to Matthias. Had they 
possessed a book with that title known to Clement, it seems 
likely that he would have spoken of it, when thus taking 
notice of their claim to the countenance of Matthias. Con 
sidering the tendency of the fathers to charge the heretics 
with using books of no authority, the bare titles of supposed 
apocryphal and heretical works given by the author of the 
Homilies on Luke, and by writers after the end of the third 
century, deserve little consideration. 

Before the time of Origen, no writer besides Irenaeus 
and Clement mentions any apocryphal gospel, real or sup 
posed, except Serapion, as quoted by Eusebius. Serapion, 
who was bishop of Antioch about the close of the second 
century, wrote, concerning a gospel called " The Gospel ac 
cording to Peter," a tract, of which Eusebius gives the follow 
ing account.f 

" Another tract was composed by Serapion concerning the 
Gospel according to Peter, so called, the object of which was 
to confute the errors contained in it, on account of some in 
the church at Rhossus who had been led by this book to 
adopt heterodox opinions. From this it may be worth while 
to quote a few words in which he expresses his opinion con 
cerning it. We, brethren/ he writes, acknowledge the au 
thority both of Peter and the other apostles, as we do that of 
.Christ; but we reject, with good reason, the writings which 
falsely bear their names, well knowing that such have not 

* See before, p. 328. f Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. c. 12. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 363 

been handed down to us. T, indeed, when I was with you, 
supposed that you were all going on in a right faith ; and, not 
reading through the gospel under the name of Peter which 
was produced by them [those who were pleased with it], I 
said, If this is all that troubles you, let the book be read. 
But having since learnt from what has been told me, that 
their minds had fallen into some heresy, I hasten to be with 
you again, brethren, so that you may expect me shortly 
Now we, brethren, know that a like heresy was held by 
Marcion, who also contradicted himself, not comprehending 
what he said, as you may learn from what has been written 
to you.* For we have been able to procure this gospel from 
others who use it, that is, from his followers, who are called 
Docetce (for the greater part of the opinions in question be 
long to their system), and, having gone through it, we have 
found it for the most part conformable to the true doctrine of 
the Saviour ; but there are some things exceptionable, which 
we subjoin for your information. " 

We may conclude, from this account, that the Gospel of 
Peter was not a history of Christ s ministry. Serapion would 
not have regarded with such indifference as he first manifested 
a history of our Lord, ascribed to the apostle Peter, which he 
had not before seen. Were it genuine, it must have been to 
him, as to any one else, an object of great interest. But the 
supposition of its genuineness is too extravagant to require 
discussion. Nor can we suppose it to have been an original 

* As this sentence is unimportant, and as I believe the present text to be 
corrupt, I have ventured to render it as perhaps it should be amended. It 
now stands thus: H/zeif 6e, afietyol, K(iTakai3d[j,VOi 6-noia^ rjv aipeaeu^ 6 
Map/ciavdf, Kal eavrw TJVO.VTIOVTO, pr] vouv u eAa/lei, a (jLaOrjazaQe ef tjv V[MI> 
typdtyr]. Edw^pv yap Trap uA^uv, K. T. A. I would read the first words 
as follows: HjUCif (5e, adeAtyoi, KaTfhafioftev on 6[ioia fyv alpeaewc 6 Mup/ctwv, 

OC Kal EaVTU) fjVaVTlOVTO, K. T. /I. 

There is also some uncertainty about the precise meaning of the next 
sentence ; but, fortunately, this uncertainty does not extend to any thing 
important in the paragraph 



364 EVIDENCES OF THE 

history (that is to say, not a compilation from any one or 
more of the four Gospels), which, though not the work of 
Peter, was yet entitled to credit. For it is impossible that 
the existence of such a history should not have been notori 
ous ; that it should not have been a frequent subject of re 
mark ; that it should have been unknown to Serapion, himself 
a bishop and a controversial writer; or, even if previously 
unknown, that it should not at once have excited his atten 
tion. Nor can it have been a history founded upon one or 
more of the four Gospels, with certain additions favoring the 
opinions of the Docetae. When we recollect the abundant 
notices of Marcion s gospel, which was only a mutilated copy 
of Luke s, it cannot be believed that there was another his 
torical book extant among Marcion s followers, of a similar 
character (except that it contained some obnoxious additions), 
of which the notices are so scanty, and which is never men 
tioned as an historical book. There is still another supposi 
tion, that it was a history undeserving of credit, a history 
containing many fabulous accounts. But this is inconsistent 
with the manner in which Serapion mentions it; for he 
speaks of it with but slight censure, commending the general 
ity of its contents ; as no catholic writer of his time would 
have spoken of such a professed history of Christ s ministry 
as we hav6 last imagined. 

The Gospel according to Peter, then, was not an historical 
book ; and this appears, not merely from what has been said, 
but from the fact, that neither Serapion nor Eusebius gives 
any intimation that it bore that character. Serapion s trea 
tise was in the hands of Eusebius, as it probably had been in 
those of many before him. It treated of the errors in the 
book ; it was written to refute them ; and, had these errors 
consisted in false narratives concerning Christ, there is no 
reasonable doubt that plenary evidence of the fact would have 
existed, both in the writings of Serapion and Eusebius, and 
in those of other fathers. It appears that it was used by the 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 366 

Gnostics, and, had it been a professed history of Christ s min 
istry used by them, we should certainly have had much more 
full information concerning it. The supposition that it was 
not an historical book, and this alone, it may be further ob 
served, agrees with the manner in which 8erapion describes 
it, as " for the most part conformable to the true doctrine " 
(not the true history) " of the Saviour, but containing some 
things exceptionable." 

The book, it may be added, was not of any importance or 
notoriety. Serapion, Bishop of Antioch, in his time the prin 
cipal see in the East, was, as we have seen, unacquainted with 
it, till his attention was called to it by some Christians of his 
diocese, as favoring heretical doctrines. We may conclude, 
therefore, that it was unknown to a great majority of Chris 
tians, his contemporaries. Besides the notice of it by him, 
we find the following passage in Origen : " Some say that 
the brothers of Jesus were the sons of Joseph by a wife to 
whom he was married before Mary, relying upon the tradi 
tion in the Gospel according to Peter or the book of James." * 
It is also referred to by Eusebius and Jerome, who mention 
it as an apocryphal work falsely ascribed to Peter. Eusebius 
especially enumerates it among those books which were 
brought forward by the heretics under the names of apostles ; 
such as no writer of the Church had thought worth commem 
orating, they being altogether devoid of good sense and piety. 
No fragment of it remains, and these are all the notices of it 
found in the first four centuries. 

We now come to Origen. It is doubtful whether the 
Homilies on Luke, which have been so often mentioned in 
this chapter, are to be referred to him as their author, f If 
they are not, there is no passage in all Origen s works in 



* Comment, in Matth., torn, x., Opp. iii. 462, 463. 

t See the Preface to the third volume of De U Rue s edition of Origen. 



368 EVIDENCES OF THE 

which he speaks of an apocryphal gospel as used by any 
Gentile Christians, catholic or heretical, besides that relating 
to the Gospel of Peter which has just been quoted. Of the 
book of James, mentioned in connection with it, I shall speak 
hereafter. 

I have remarked on three titles of apocryphal gospels men 
tioned by the author of the Homilies on Luke. There is one 
other, "The Gospel according to Thomas," to which likewise 
I shall advert hereafter. 

Besides those writers whom I have quoted, there is none 
who speaks of apocryphal gospels before Eusebius, in the first 
half of the fourth century. He enumerates among heretical 
books, " altogether absurd and irreligious," three of those 
already mentioned, namely, the gospels of Peter, Thomas, 
and Matthias,* but gives no further information concerning 
them, and adds no new title to the list. 

I have brought down the inquiry respecting apocryphal 
gospels to a much later period than was necessary. No one 
will suppose that a book of which there is no mention before 
the fourth century could have served the Gnostics as a basis 
for their doctrines. If any book appeared after the com 
mencement of the fourth century, pretending to be an origi 
nal history of Christ s ministry, of which we have no 
proof, and which, in the nature of things, is altogether im 
probable, no one will imagine that it was entitled to 
regard. Of any book of an early age, purporting to give an 
account of his ministry different from that contained in the 
four Gospels, it is a moral impossibility that we should not 
have received full and unequivocal information from writers 
before the time of Eusebius. 

* Hist. Eccles., lib. iii. c. 25. 



GKNUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 367 

There is no reason, as I conceive, to suppose that the apoo- 
ryphal gospels which have been mentioned, or the other 
apocryphal books extant during the first three centuries, 
were commonly written with the fraudulent design of fur 
nishing the pretended authority of Jesus or his apostles in 
support of false doctrines or spurious history ; or that, when 
they bore the name of an apostle, it was intended that they 
should be ascribed to him as his proper work. The 
author of such a book may have put his own opinions into 
the mouth of an apostle by a common rhetorical artifice, as 
Plato in his dialogues introduces Socrates and Timaius as 
teaching his doctrines ; or as if one, at the present day, were 
to publish a work, calling it " The Gospel- as taught by (ac 
cording to) St. Paul," or "The Gospel as taught by St. 
James." Of this mode of writing we have a remarkable ex 
ample in the Clementine Homilies, the author of which could 
have intended no deception. But the whole account given in 
them of the actions of Peter is a fiction, and the discourses 
ascribed to him contain only the writer s own views of the 
character of Christianity. According, however, to the an 
cient use of language, this book might have been, and possibly 
was, called " The Gospel according to Peter." Such books 
might be, or it might be fancied that they were, founded on 
some traditionary information respecting the teaching of an 
apostle. Thus a book called " The Preaching of Peter," or 
" The Preaching of Peter and Paul," was regarded both by 
Clement of Alexandria and by Lactantius as a work of some 
authority. Lactantius supposed it to be a record of their 
preaching while together at Rome.* Clement quotes it in 
the same manner as he quotes " The Traditions" before men 
tioned, and the works of the Pagan philosophers, not in evi 
dence of facts, but as corresponding with and confirming his 
own opinions. 

* Institut., lib. iv. c. 21. 



368 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Irenseus speaks, at we have seen, of a gospel by Judas 
Iscariot. There was reported to be another under the name 
of Matthias, and another under the name of Thomas; but 
these titles are not mentioned before the third century. Of 
the books or of the titles which have been enumerated, bear 
ing the names of apostles, there is besides only the Gospel of 
Peter, which became known to Serapion about the close of the 
second century. But it is altogether incredible that any Gen 
tile Christian in the second century should have engaged in 
so hopeless and foolish an attempt, as to endeavor to pass off 
a composition of his own as a gospel written by an apostle, 
a gospel which had never before been heard of. Nor is it 
much more likely that any Gentile Christian, without ascrib 
ing his work to an apostle, would, after the destruction of 
Jerusalem, have pretended to give an original history ot 
Christ s ministry, at variance with the four Gospels. As we 
have already seen, there is no evidence that any such work 
existed. 

The subject of the apocryphal gospels has, as it was natural 
it should, attracted much attention. It is a subject which de 
served to be thoroughly examined. But the unavoidable 
consequence of the manner in which it has been treated has 
been to produce a very false impression of their importance. 
They were obscure writings, very little regarded or known 
by any Christians, catholic or heretical. We find in Justin 
Martyr and Tertullian nothing concerning them ; in Irenceus, 
two titles, one purporting to be that of a book, which most 
probably was not extant, and the other likewise perhaps 
originating in mistake, but supposed to belong to a Valen- 
tinian gospel, which there is no evidence that the Valentinians 
ever appealed to. Clement gives some extracts from a gospel 
which he found quoted by the Encratites or ascetics. Serapion 
mentions the Gospel of Peter, as in the hands of persons be 
longing to a parish in his diocese, called Rhossus, and as used 
by some of the Docetae. Origen once refers to the same book. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 369 

And the author of the Homilies on Luke adds three other 
titles of books of which he gives no account.* These are al 
the notices of apocryphal gospels to be found in all the writers 
of Christian antiquity before the end of the third century. 
Had they been works of any notoriety, works possessing any 
intrinsic or accidental importance, we should have had page 
after page of controversy, discussion, and explanation con 
cerning them. 

About the beginning of the last century, a manuscript was 
made known of a gospel ascribed to Barnabas, in the Italian 
language, but supposed to be translated from the Arabic. It 
is the work of a Mahometan, or a work interpolated by a 
Mahometan. Much more has been written by different 
authors about this book| than all that is to be found in the 
Christian writers of the first three centuries concerning apoc 
ryphal gospels. Yet it is a book of which, probably, few of 
my readers have ever heard ; and of which he who has known 
any thing may have forgotten what he knew. It is easy to 

* I have not adverted in the text to one title mentioned by the author 
of the Homilies; namely, " The Gospel according to the Twelve Apostles; " 
because, as we learn from Jerome (Advers. Pelagianos, lib. iii. Opp. torn. iv. 
pars ii. col. 533), this was only a name which was sometimes given to the 
Gospel of the Hebrews. It may naturally have had its origin in the cir 
cumstance that the Hebrew Christians affirmed that the Gospel of Matthew, 
which alone they used, contained the Gospel as taught by the apostles, or, in 
other words, was the Gospel according to the apostles. But there is some 
thing more to be observed. The title given is not simply, " The Gospel 
according to the Apostles," but " The Gospel according to the Twelve Apos 
tles." The Hebrew Christians, generally, did not recognize the apostleship 
of St. Paul, but regarded him as a false teacher. They revolted at his 
doctrine of the abolition of their Law, and of their peculiar national distinc 
tions. Hence they may have called their gospel the Gospel according to the 
Twelve Apostles, of whose number he was not, in order to imply that it was 
from the twelve apostles, and not from him, the preacher to the Gentiles, that 
the true doctrines of the Gospel were to be learned. 

t See Fabricius, iii. 373, seqq. ; Jones, i. 162, seqq.; Sale s Translation 
of the Koran (ed. 1825), in his Preliminary Discourse, p. 102, and in his 
Notes, vol. i. pp. 61, 170; and the works referred to by the authors men 
tioned. 

24 



370 EVIDENCES OF THE 

apply this fact to assist ourselves in judging of the importance 
to be attached to the notices of apocryphal gospels found in 
the fathers. 

It may seem as if, in reference to our present inquiry, any 
further discussion of the subject must be useless ; and it would 
be so, but for the misapprehensions which have existed con 
cerning it. There are some fabulous books still extant, which, 
thus standing as it were in the foreground, are more likely, at 
first view, to be taken for true representatives of ancient apoc 
ryphal gospels, than those titles and fragments, appearing in 
the remote distance, with which alone we are in fact con 
cerned. These books have, in modern times, been called 
" Gospels of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary," and " Gospels 
of the Infancy," that is, of the infancy of Jesus. They have, 
likewise, directly or indirectly, been brought into competition 
with the four Gospels. But whatever tends to weaken the 
exclusive authority of the catholic Gospels, or to confound 
them in the same class with fabulous writings, opens the way 
for a vague conjecture that there may have been in early times 
other histories of the ministry of Christ at variance with those 
Gospels, and entitled to as much or more credit. We will, 
therefore, go on to take notice of the works referred to. 

In the quotation that I have given from Origen,* besides 
the mention of the Gospel of Peter, there is mention, likewise. 
of a book of James. About the middle of the sixteenth cen 
tury, the celebrated visionary Postel brought to the notice of 
European scholars a work written in Greek, a manuscript 
of which he found in the East. It is a book of about a quarter 
of the size of the Gospel of Mark. He entitled it "The 
Protevangelion (that is, the First Gospel) of St. James the 
Less ; " t the pretended events which it relates being sup- 

* See before, p. 365. 

* The work has been republished by Fabricius, Jones, and Thilo. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 371 

posed by him to have occurred prior to those recorded by St. 
Mark, to whose Gospel he fancied it intended for an intro 
duction. But a number of manuscripts of it are now known, 
and the title Protevangelion is not supported by their au 
thority.* The author, in the conclusion of the work, gives 
his name as James. It is a collection of legendary fables 
principally concerning the nativity of the Virgin Mary, her 
history and that of Joseph, and the nativity of Jesus. The 
nativity of the Virgin is represented to have been miraculous, 
like that of Samuel, and to have been announced by an angel. 
Some things are interwoven from the first two chapters 
ascribed to Matthew, and from the account of our Saviour s 
birth given by Luke. There are two coincidences of its 
narrative with what is found in ancient authors, which 
deserve notice. The first relates to the passage of Origen 
just referred to. 

Origen says, that, conformably to the book of James, the 
individuals called in the Gospels the brothers f of Jesus were 
children of Joseph by a former wife. In the Protevangelion, 
Mary is represented as having been dedicated by her parents 
as a virgin to the service of God in the Temple, but at the 
age of twelve years as having been removed thence by the 
priests, and committed in trust to Joseph, with the purpose 
of her becoming his wife. Before receiving her, he is repre 
sented as saying, "I am an old man and have children." J 



* Its title is given with much diversity in different manuscripts ; but in 
all its variations expresses that the subject of the work is a History of the 
Nativity of Mary. In what is supposed to be the oldest manuscript it 
runs thus : " A Narration and History how the superholy Mother of God 
(ij VKepayia Georo/cof) was born." (Thilo, p. liii.) But the book is not 
confined to a mere account of the nativity of Mary: it extends (as appears 
above) to the history of her life. 

t The word in the original, udetyoi, should be rendered kinsmen, accord- 
ing to a common use of it. It does not in the passage -in question denote 
brothers, in the limited sense of the English word. 

$ Protevangelion, c. 9. 



372 EVIDENCES OF THE 

The story, that Joseph, when he married Mary, was an old 
man with children by a former wife, is found in many writers 
after the middle of the fourth century. 

One of the fables in this book is, that Mary, after child 
birth, remained in all respects as a virgin.* The story is 
referred to and countenanced by Clement of Alexandria, t 
Tertullian, on the contrary, in contending against those 
Gnostics who asserted that the body of Christ was not a body 
of flesh and blood, and that it was in no part derived from 
his mother, insists on his proper birth, and incidentally repre 
sents it as in all respects like that of others, t It is not, 
however, to be inferred that the Gnostics maintained the 
opinion just mentioned ; for, on the one hand, the Marcion- 
ites denied altogether the nativity of Christ ; and, on the 
other, that opinion was not necessarily connected with the 
doctrine of the theosophic Gnostics, who ascribed to Christ 
a body, though not a human body. But, with a strange 
approximation to the Gnostic denial of the proper body of 
Christ, it has become the established faith of the Roman 
Catholic Church. It was made an article of orthodox belief 
by the Lateran Council, held under Pope Martin the First, 
in the year 649. 

Unless Origen, under the name of the book of James, 

* Protevangelion, cc. 19, 20. f Stromat., vii. 16, pp. 889, 890. 

J In his tract De Came Christi. 

"II convient toutefois qu il est de la foi catholique, que Marie est 
dcmeure e Vierge apres 1 enfantement comme devant." (Fleury, Hist. 
Eccle"s. An. 847.) In the Catechism of the Council of Trent (pars i. art. 3, 
n. 13) it is said, " Praeterea, quo nihil admirabilius dici omnino, aut cogitari 
potest, nascitur [Christus] ex matre sine ulla maternae virginitatis diminu- 
tione, et quo modo postea ex sepulcro clauso et obsignato egressus est, atque 
ad discipulos clausis januis introivit: vel, ne a rebus etiam, quae a natura 
quotidie fieri videmus, discedatur, quo modo solis radii concretam vitri sub- 
stantiam penetrant, neque frangunt tamen, aut aliqua ex parte laedunt; 
simili, inquam, et altiori modo Jesus Christus ex materno alvo, sine ullo 
inaternae virginitatis detrimento, editus est, ipsius enim incorruptam virgini 
talem verissimis laudibus celebrainus." 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 373 

refers to some work like the Protevangelion, that is, to some 
pretended history of the mother of our Lord, which may 
have served for the foundation of that now extant, there is 
no mention of any such work before the latter half of the 
fourth century. In the fourth and fifth centuries, it seems 
probable that there was more than one narrative of this kind 
in existence ; but that these narratives were generally re 
garded as fabulous and worthless.* During the ages of 
darkness that followed, the legends concerning the Virgin 
found favor, in common with other fables which overspread 
ecclesiastical and profane history. They have entered into 
the established mythology of the Roman Catholic Church, 
and have furnished conceptions for its great masters in the 
art of painting. But the particular book we are considering, 
the Protevangelion, never obtained such credit in the West 
as in the East. In the West, its existence had become un 
known before it was brought to light by Postel. In the 
East, it seems probable that it was at one period read in some 
churches on certain holydays, in the same manner as the le 
gends of Saints were read on their festivals. f The oldest man 
uscript of it now known is referred to the tenth century. J 

The fables respecting the nativity and history of Mary, like 
those which went to the compilation of other apocryphal 
writings, being destitute of all authority, were recast in differ 
ent forms by different hands. They are extant, with much 
diversity from the Protevangelion, in a work found in two 
Latin manuscripts, one of the fourteenth and the other of the 
fifteenth century, in which they are connected at the end 
with a few stories of miracles performed by our Lord in his 
infancy. || In Latin, also, there is another work, shorter and 



* Thilo, p. lx. seqq.; p. xci. seqq: conf. Epiphanius, Haeres., xxiv. 12, 
p. 94. 

t Thilo, pp. lix., lx. J Ibid., p. liii. Ibid., p. cviii. 

|| The work is published by Thilo under the title of " Historia de Nativi- 
tate Mariae et de Infantia Salvatoris " 



374 EVIDENCES OF THE 

less extravagant than those which have been mentioned, re 
lating to the birth and history of Mary, of which the modern 
title is "The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary."* Of this 
the pretended Hebrew original was ascribed to the Apostle 
Matthew, and the translation to Jerome. The fiction by 
which Jerome is represented as its translator shows that its 
composition must have been later than the fourth century. 

We proceed to the Books of the Infancy. As I have men 
tioned, the author of the Homilies on Luke gives the title of 
a Gospel according to Thomas ; and the same title is found in 
subsequent writers.f We may conjecture it to have been 
one of those professed expositions of Christianity which were 
called "gospels." Nor is there any thing in the ancient 
writers who mention it to countenance a different supposition. 
But there is now extant in Greek a collection of fables con 
cerning the infancy and childhood of Jesus, which is not, in 
the manuscripts of it, entitled " a gospel," but the writer of 
which announces himself as Thomas an Israelite. $ This 
book has been thought to be essentially the same with the 
gospel mentioned by the author of the Homilies, and to have 
been in existence in the second century. But of such books, 
more or less resembling one another, there are a number ex 
tant, which have passed in modern times under the name of 
" Gospels of the Infancy." 

One of this number (much larger than the book ascribed to 
Thomas in its present state) is written in Arabic. It was 
published with a Latin translation in the year 1697, by 
Henry Sike, Professor of the Oriental Languages in the Uni 
versity of Cambridge. With this the name of Thomas is not 

* It may be found in Fabricius, Jones, and Thilo. 

t See Fabricius, i. 131, seqq.; Thilo, Ixxix. seqq. 

J A fragment the first part of this book may be found in Fabricius 
and Jones. The whole, as now extant, is given by Thilo. 

The Latin version has been republished by Fabricius and Jones ; and 
the original with the version, by Thilo. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 375 

connected. It consists of stories of pretended miracles, which 
accompanied the birth and infancy of our Saviour, and which 
he himself performed when a child. There is some fancy in 
these fictions. They have a tinge of Eastern invention, but 
are essentially of the same character as the common legends 
of the Middle Ages. The relater sometimes refers to facts in 
the Gospels, and connects his story with them. Thus he 
gives a narrative concerning two robbers, whom he represents 
as the same afterwards crucified with Jesus.* These and simi 
lar fables became popular in the East, particularly among the 
followers of Mahomet. Two of them appear in the Koran,f 
and others have been current among Mahometan writers. $ 

The compilation in Greek that bears the name of Thomas 
has a general correspondence with the last half of the preced 
ing. Omitting those pretended miracles which accompanied 
the nativity and infancy of Jesus, it begins with those per 
formed in his childhood. Of these, about half the stories 
in one work correspond to those in the other, though the 
order in which they are arranged is not the same, and they 
are often differently told. Both works imply a very low 
state of intellect and morals in those by whom and for whom 
they were written. In some of the fictions, Jesus, as a child, 
is represented as violent and cruel, so that his father, Joseph, 
is introduced as saying, " From this time we will not suffer 
him to go out of the house ; for whoever makes him angry is 
killed." The notions of the writer of either book seem in 
this respect to have been derived from the use of power by an 
Oriental despot. 

Cap. 23. 

t One is of Christ s speaking while in his cradle (Arabic Gospel of the 
Infancy, c. 1), which he did according to the Koran (chap. 3, vol. i. p. 58, 
and chap. 19, vol. ii. p. 145). The other is of his making birds of clay, to 
Which he gave life (Arabic Gospel, cc. 36, 46), which is referred to in tt 
Kjran (chap. 3, vol. i. p. 59, and chap. 5, vol. i. p. 139). 

J See Sike s notes (republished by Thilo). 

Arabic Gospel, c. 49. Gospel of Thomas, c. 14. 



876 EVIDENCES OF THE 

A similar collection of fables appears to be, or to have 
been, extant in different languages of the East.* Several 
manuscript collections of them are extant in Latin, more or 
less diverse from one another, and from the Arabic and the 
Greek compilation. One only of these is known to bear the 
name of Thomas. The author s name is otherwise given as 
Matthew the Evangelist, or James the son of Joseph (to 
whom the Protevangelion is ascribed) ; and in one copy the 
pretended authors are Onesimus and John the Evangelist.f 

In regard to these fables respecting the infancy and child 
hood of Jesus, we find an early notice of one of them in 
Irenaeus. He is giving an account of a sect, the Marco- 
sians, who believed, like the Jewish Cabalists, that there 
were profound mysteries hidden in the letters of the alpha 
bet. After speaking of their perversion of the Scriptures, 
Irenasus says, 

** Moreover, they bring forward an unspeakable number of 
apocryphal and spurious writings, which they have fabricated, to 
confound the simple, and such as are ignorant of those writings 
which contain the truth. To this end, they also adopt that fiction 
concerning our Lord, that, when he was a child, and learning the 
alphabet, his master, as usual, told him to say Alpha (A) ; and 
that, upon his repeating Alpha, when his master next told him to 
say Beta (B), the Lord replied, * Do you first tell me what Alpha 
is, and then I will tell you what Beta is. And this they explain 
as showing that he alone knew the mystery, which he revealed, in 
the letter Alpha." J 

We may first incidentally remark on this passage, that the 
many apocryphal books fabricated by the Marcosians could 
have had but a short-lived existence, and were but of little 
note; since no one of them is specified by name in any 
writer ; nor does Irenams, in his long article on the sect, nor 



* Thilo, p. xxxii. seqq. t Ibid., p. cv. seqq. 

J Cont. Haeres., lib. i. c. 20, p. 91. 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 877 

any other writer, refer elsewhere to any use which the Mar- 
cosians made of them. It may next be observed, that the 
passage is remarkable, as affording one of the only two exam 
ples which are reported by the writers during the three 
centuries succeeding the death of our Lord, of an argument 
for a Gnostic doctrine, founded on a narrative concerning 
him not related in the Gospels.* But that this narrative was 
already incorporated into a collection of like stories does not 
appear from Irena3us. His words, on the contrary, rather 
imply that it was not. " In addition," he says, to their apoc 
ryphal books, for this is the force of his language, "they 
adopt for the same purpose that fiction," a well-known fiction, 
as is implied, " concerning the Lord." 

This fiction has become the foundation of two different 
stories in the Arabic compilation,! and of three in the Greek, J 
in the former our Saviour being represented as having had 
two successive schoolmasters, and in the latter, three ; and, as 
might be expected from its antiquity, none of the fables of 
the same class appears to have been more widely circulated. 



* The other example which I refer to is the use, before mentioned (see 
p. 354, seqq.), which was made by the Encratites of a passage in the Gospel 
of the Egyptians. 

I" Cc. 48, 49. J Cc. 6, 7, 8, 14, 15. 

"As to the life of Jesus Christ," says Chardin, "the Persian legends 
contain not only what is in the Gospels, but likewise all the tales found in 
the legends of the Eastern Christians, and particularly in an Annenian 
legend, entitled VEvangile Enfant* which is nothing but a tissue of fabulous 
miracles; such, for example, as that Jesus, seeing Joseph much troubled at 
having cut a board of cedar too short, said to him, Why are you so troubled ? 
Give me one end of the board and pull the other, and it will grow longer. 
Another story is, that, being sent to school to learn the alphabet, his master 
directed him to pronounce A. He paused, and said to his master, Tell me, 
first, why the first letter of the alphabet is formed as it is. Upon this, his 
master treating him as a talkative little child, he answered, I will not say 
A, till you tell me why the first letter is made as it is. But his inustrr 
growing angry, he said to him, I will instruct j ou, then. The first letter 

* The title is so rendered by Chardia. 



378 EVIDENCES OF THE 

During a long interval after Irenaeus, we hear nothing 
more of fables respecting the infancy and childhood of Christ. 
There is nothing necessarily miraculous in the supposed fact 
related in the story which he quotes : on the contrary, none 
but the Marcosians, or those who entertained like notions 
with them of the mysterious significance of the letters of the 
alphabet, could have inferred from it any supernatural knowl 
edge in the infant Jesus. , Epiphanius is the first writer who 
distinctly refers to stories of fabulous miracles performed by 
Jesus in his childhood; and these stories he does not alto 
gether reject. The miracle at the marriage feast at Cana, he 
says, was the first performed by Jesus, "except, perhaps, 
those which he is reported to have performed in his youth, in 
play as it were, according to what some say." * After him, 
Chrysostom expresses his opinion, that the miracle of Cana 
was the first performed by our Saviour, and rejects, as wholly 
undeserving of credit, the fables concerning miracles per 
formed by him in his childhood.f 

As regards the book now extant, of which the author calls 
himself Thomas, it could not have been that referred to by 
the author of the Homilies on Luke, and subsequently by some 
other ancient writers, under the name of the Gospel of 
Thomas ; for it is evidently a composition of the Middle Ages. 
All, it would seem, that can be meant by those modern 

of the alphabet is formed of three perpendicular lines on a horizontal line 
(the Armenian A is thus formed, very like an inverted m) to teach us that 
the Beginning of all things is one Essence in three persons. " Voyages en 
Perse, torn. ii. pp. 269, 270, ed. 4to, 1735. 

The difference between the Armenian version of the story of the alpha 
bet and that given by the Marcosians shows the changes to which fables of 
this sort were exposed. Two stories, different from each other, but both 
corresponding essential!} to the marvel of lengthening the cedar board, are 
found, one in the Arabic Gospel (c. 39), and the other in the Gospel of 
Thomas (c. 13). 

* Hajres., li. 20, Opp. i. 442. 

f Homil. in Joannem, xx. col. 132, ed. 1697. Homil. xvi. col. 108. 
Homil. xxii. col. 124. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 379 

writers who have regarded the two books as the same, is, 
that the one anciently called the Gospel of Thomas served as 
a basis for the present compilation of fables. But the present 
book bears so thoroughly, in its matter and style, the charac 
ter of an age far later than that in which the Gospel of 
Thomas is first mentioned, that, should we attempt to sep 
arate this character from it, we should find that nothing 
would be left. Besides, of those different compilations of 
fables that have been mentioned, only one set professes to have 
been written by an author called Thomas ; and no copy which 
bears his name assumes to be called a gospel. The supposi 
tion, that the ancient Gospel of Thomas was so remarkable a 
book, as one containing a collection of stories respecting our 
Lord s childhood must have been regarded during the first 
three centuries, cannot be reconciled with the facts, that we 
are not informed of its contents by any ancient writer ; that 
it is not quoted under that name by any ancient writer ; 
that those who mention the fables do not speak of the Gospel 
of Thomas, and that those who mention the Gospel of Thom 
as do not speak of the fables.* 

* There is another book that has been reckoned among apocryphal 
writings, "The Gospel of Nicodemus," so called, of which, when the 
first edition of this work was published, it did not seem to me that there was 
occasion to give an account in relation to the argument before us, or that 
there would be any propriety in doing so incidentally. But I have remarked 
that one of the most noted modern champions of infidelity (Strauss), in 
treating of the death of our Lord, and elsewhere, often quotes it, and com 
pares its statements with those of the evangelists ; as he has also quoted, in 
like manner, the Protevangelion of James, the History of the Nativity of 
Mary (see before, p. 374), and the Gospels of the Infancy. 

The Gospel of Nicodemus is equally fabulous with the books just men 
tioned. The Greek original has been published, from a collation of different 
copies, with elaborate notes, by Thilo. A Latin translation, which differs 
from it in many particulars, may be found in Fabricius and Jones. The 
copies of this book, like those of others of the same class, vary much from 
one another. 

According to the Greek text, a person who announces himself as Ananias, 
a Jew, says, that, in the reign of Theodosius (his blunders in chronology 



380 EVIDENCES OF THE 

But, it may be asked, were the fables contained in the 
Protevangelion and the Books of the Infancy ever really 
believed? The question falls into the same wide class with 

are such as to leave it uncertain whether he meant the first or second emperor 
of that name), he had discovered this book; that it was written originally 
in Hebrew by Nicodemus, and that he had translated it into Greek. 

The book which follows this proem consists, first, of an account of the 
trial of our Lord before Pilate, founded on the relations of the evangelists. 
It is swelled by a narrative of the appearance before Pilate of many who had 
been the subjects or witnesses of his miracles, miracles recorded in the 
Gospels, who are introduced as testifying in his favor. Then, after an ac 
count of his death and burial, follows a marvellous story respecting Joseph 
of Arimathea, who is represented as having been persecuted by the Jews on 
account of the honor paid by him to the body of Jesus, and to have been 
delivered from confinement by Jesus immediately after his own resurrection ; 
and narratives of individuals supposed to have witnessed the ascension of 
our Lord, and to have testified to this fact before the Jewish Sanhedrim. 

Here it seems probable that the book originally ended ; but, in some manu 
scripts, a conclusion is found, which consists of an account of our Lord s 
descent to Hades, and of his carrying away thence the souls of the just who 
had died before his time. It is given in the form of a deposition before the 
Sanhedrim of two of the dead, who were present in Hades upon the occasion ; 
which deposition they themselves committed to writing, and gave into the 
hands of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. This concluding legend 
appears to have been the immediate source of those conceptions respecting 
our Lord s descent to Hell, or the " Harrowing of Hell," as it was called in 
old English literature, which were common in the latter part of the Middle 



Such is the Gospel of Nicodemus. It is not named by any Greek or 
Latin father; nor is there any clear proof of its existence till a very late 
period. (See the Testimonia et Censures collected by Fabricius, i. 214-237, 
and the Prolegomena of Thilo.) There would be no greater want of good 
sense in quoting a miracle-play of the Middle Ages for the purpose of con 
fronting its representations with those of the evangelists, than what appears 
in quoting for this end the Gospel of Nicodemus; or, it may be added, in 
thus quoting the Protevangelion of James, the History of the Nativity, and 
the Gospels of the Infancy. 

But as this book has been mentioned, it may be well to enter into some 
further explanation respecting it. There has been, as I conceive, a great 
confusion of ideas concerning it, arising from the error of giving it the addi 
tional name of " The Acts of Pilate." This error appears to have had its 
origin from two passages in the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 

many others, to all which a common answer is to be given. 
Were the legends with which the whole history of Christen 
dom was swarming from the fourth century to the fifteenth 

written in the latter part of the sixth century. In the first of these passages 
(lib. i. cap. 21), Gregory makes a very brief mention of the imprisonment of 
Joseph of Arimathea by the chief-priests (the story before referred to), which 
he says was related in the Acts of Pilate ( Gesta Pilati), sent by him to the 
Emperor Tiberius; and in the second (ibid., c. 24) he mentions these Acts 
again, as containing information, given by Pilate to the emperor, of the 
miracles, death, and passion of Jesus, and as being still extant. The cir 
cumstance, that, in the first passage, he has referred to the persecution of 
Joseph of Arimathea, which is related in the Gospel of Nicodemus, has led 
to the belief that this work is, or was originally, the same book with the Acts 
of Pilate. But the argument would in no case avail to prove this identity, 
since the author of the Gospel of Nicodemus may, equally with Gregory, 
have derived the story, directly or indirectly, from some book which bore 
that title, fl; may even be that Gregory himself furnished him with tho 
germ of his fable. 

Here two questions arise : What was the original meaning of that title, 
" The Acts of Pilate " ? and how must it be understood in relation to the 
subject before us ? 

The accounts which the Roman provincial governors were accustomed to 
send to the emperor of their own doings, and of remarkable events in their 
respective provinces, were sometimes called Acts (Ada in Latin, or, as 
written in Greek letters, *Ara). There can be little doubt that Pilate did 
send home such an account relating to Jesus. Rumors concerning him must 
have reached Rome; and his reputed miracles and claims, and the circum 
stances connected with his history and death, were not matters to be passi-d 
over in silence in the reports of a procurator who was under the eye of 
Tiberius. 

Accordingly, Justin and Tertullian, in their Apologies, refer briefly in gen 
eral terms to the account of Pilate, which Justin calls his Acts, as confirm 
ing their statements respecting the miracles and death of Jesus. But it is 
not probable that either of them had seen an authentic copy of those Acts, 
or that such copies were ever in circulation. They either spoke from private 
information, direct or indirect, or perhaps inferred, from the nature of the 
case, that the account given by Pilate must tend to confirm their own. 

In the beginning of the fourth century, according to the relation of Euse- 
bius (Hist. Eccles., lib. ix. c. 5: conf. lib. i. cc. 9, 11), during the persecu 
tion under Maximin, pretended Acts of Pilate, full of calumnies against our 
Lord, were fabricated and zealously circulated. 

Afterward, as we learn from Epiphanius (Hseres., 1 , Opp. i. 420), th-re 
were extant among Christians, in the fourth century, other spurious Acts 3f 



382 EVIDENCES OF THE 

really believed ? How was it with the mythology and marvels 
of Greek and Roman Paganism, interwoven as they were 
with the religious sentiments and rites and daily usages of 

Pilate, which were appealed to by certain heretics, in proof that our Lord 
suffered on the eighth of the Calends of April, the anniversary of which day 
they commemorated. Epiphanius says (but whether truly or not may be a 
question) that he had seen copies of those Acts giving a different date. The 
author of a Homily ascribed to Chrysostom (Chrysostomi Opp. v. 942, ed. 
Savil.) says that the day of our Lord s death was known, from the Acts of 
Pilate, to be the eighth of the Calends of April. The same date is also 
found in the Gospel of Nicodemus. 

This is the sum of all the information concerning any real or pretended 
Acts of Pilate furnished by all the writers before Gregory of Tours. 

No one can be supposed to imagine, that the Gospel of Nicodemus is 
either the authentic Acts of Pilate referred to by Justin and Tertullian. or 
those spurious Acts which were put into circulation during the persecution 
under Maximin. It follows, that those who believe the Gospel to be the 
same book with the Acts must believe it to be the Acts of which Epiphanius 
speaks, of the contents of which we know nothing, except that they specified 
a particular day as that of our Lord s death. 

But this belief must be entertained in opposition to the clear and decisive 
evidence furnished by the book itself. 

The Greek Gospel published by Thilo begins with a statement that the 
Hebrew original was found and translated into Greek in the seventeenth 
year of Theodosius, the first or second of that name. At the end of the 
Latin version edited by Fabricius, Theodosius the Great is said to have 
discovered it in the Prsetorium of Pilate at Jerusalem, which extraordinary 
story shows that the times of Theodosius must have been to the author of 
this version a fabulous age. No copy of the work assigns an earlier date 
for its discovery. 

But no one will credit the fable of the Hebrew original of the book. The 
Greek text is the original ; and this, it appears, claims for itself no higher 
antiquity than the end of the fourth century or the beginning of the fifth. 
It is probably of much later date. But, on its own showing, it could not 
have been the book quoted, as Epiphanius reports, under the name of " The 
Acts of Pilate," by heretics in the fourth century. 

The character of the Gospel of Nicodemus is such as to render the sup 
position utterly incredible, that any one could have put it forth under the 
name of" The Acts of Pilate; " that title being understood, as it undoubtedly 
was during the first four centuries, to denote an official account of his doings 
concerning Jesus sent by Pilate to the emperor. It has nothing of the 
nature or form of an official communication. It is a legendary fable. There 
is no inscription to Tiberius, nor any address to him throughout the book. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 383 

tfee most enlightened nations of antiquity ? Had the Egyp 
tians a true fhith that a particular bull was their god Apis ? 
Did they believe in the divinity of the Crocodile and the 
Ibis ? What was their state of mind in respect to their other 
gods, quaJia demens ^Egyptus portenta colebat, with all 
the strange and disgusting histories attached to them ? How 
has it been with the Hindus, one of the few nations out of 
the European family which have approached to European 
intelligence ? Have they believed or not the enormous fables 
that even a healthy imagination shrinks from which are 
reported as true in their sacred books ? How much of the 
history of human opinions on all the higher subjects of 
thought is a history of human errors, often of errors the 
most repulsive to reason, yet widely prevailing, and obsti 
nately maintained from century to century ! Have riot those 
errors been believed ? 

The general answer to be given to these questions em 
braces the particular reply to the inquiry by which they 
were suggested, respecting the fables of the Protevangelion 
and of the Books of the Infancy. Throughout the history of 
mankind, we find, as regards both facts and doctrines, the 
broadest exhibitions of credulity, which, if the delusion have 



Nor is it pretended in the book itself that Pilate was its author. Ac 
cording to its own statement, it was composed by Nicodemus. In the Greek 
copies, there is no mention of Pilate as haring any thing to do with it. 
Nor does it appear, that the title, Acts of Pilate," wns given it in any manu 
script, Greek or Latin. In an addition made in Latin copies (Thilo, p. 788), 
it is said, that Pilate, having been informed by Joseph of Arimathea and 
Nicodemus of all that passed in the Jewish Sanhedrim, "wrote all which 
had been done and said by the Jews concerning Jesus (omnia quce rjesta tt 
dicta sunt de Jesu a Judceis), and put all the words in the public books of his 
Praetorium." This story, and the words "omnia quse gest(i," may perhaps 
have countenanced the error of calling it the Acts of Pilate ( Gesta Pilati). 
But the only title which could with any plausibility be derived from the 
passage would be " Acts of the Jews " ( Gesta Judceorum), meaning, in a sense 
of the word Gesta familiar in the Middle Ages, "Deeds (or Doings) of the 
Jews. Note to Second Edition, 1847. 



384 EVIDENCES OF THE 

passed away, or if we are out of the sphere of its influence, 
we can hardly help regarding as monstrous and unnatural, till 
we recollect how prevalent they have been, and consequently 
how consistent with our common nature. There are other 
avenues, more trodden than the narrow way of reason, by 
which opinions enter the mind. What impresses the imagi 
nation, affects the feelings, and is blended with habitual asso 
ciations, is received by the generality as true. Fables 
however absurd, conceptions however irrational, even un 
meaning forms of words, which have been early presented to 
the mind, and with which it has been long conversant, make 
as vivid an impression upon it as realities, and assume their 
character. No opinions inhere more strongly than those 
about which the reason is not exercised ; for they are unas 
sailable by argument. It would be well to have different 
words to distinguish between the two different states of 
mind, in the one of which we receive conceptions as true 
without reasoning, while in the other our assent is given 
through an exercise of judgment. The term to credit is now 
used in one of its significations merely as synonymous with 
the term to believe. We might confine the use of the former 
term to denoting the first kind of assent, assent without the 
exercise of the understanding ; and employ the latter only to 
signify a faith that relies on reason. Using the words in 
these senses, we might say that the mass of errors which 
have been credited bears a vast disproportion to the amount 
of truths which have been believed. Nor shall we find it 
hard to conceive, nor regard it as a very extraordinary fact, 
that the fables respecting the mother of our Lord and our 
Lord himself have been credited, as well as the doctrine of 
tran substantiation. Undoubtedly the world has grown wiser ; 
or, rather, a small portion of the world has grown wiser ; and 
we may hope that the light will become less troubled, stead 
ier, and brighter, and spread itself more widely. Aliud ex 
olio clarescet. Res accendent lumina rebus. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 385 

From what has appeared in this chapter, it is evident that 
the Gnostics did not oppose to the four Gospels any other 
history of Christ s ministry ; or, to state the conclusion in 
more general terms, it is evident, that, during the first three 
centuries, no history of Christ s ministry at variance with 
the. four Gospels was in existence. The history of his min 
istry, such as it is contained in them, or in some one of them, 
served as a common basis for the opinions of all Christians, 
both catholic and heretical. 

If the Gospel of the Hebrews, in its uncorrupted state, 
was, as we have seen reason to believe, the Gospel of Mat 
thew, then there is no probability that any work besides those 
of the evangelists, professing to be an original history of our 
Lord s ministry, was ever in circulation after the appearance 
of the first three Gospels, somewhere, probably, about the 
year 65. Luke mentions imperfect accounts which preceded 
his own. But, after the appearance of the first three Gos 
pels, though the copies of such accounts might not be 
destroyed, they would cease to be multiplied and circulated. 
We accordingly find no trace of their existence subsequent 
to the notice of them by Luke. 

It may seem again as if nothing further were to be said ; 
but, in order to exhaust the general subject we are consider 
ing, a few more remarks remain to be made concerning some 
supposed gospels, formerly mentioned, which Eichhorn main 
tains to have been in common use during the second century 
pieviously to the use of the catholic Gospels, or even to the 
existence of the latter in their present state.* I have 
already had occasion to take notice of all the titles which he 
enumerates, except two. These two, to which we will now 
attend, are " gospels used by Tatian in composing his Dia- 
tessaron," and " The Gospel of Cerinthus." f 

* See pp. 61-62: comp. p. 5, seqq. 

t Cerinthi Eyangelium. Eichhorn s Einleit. in das N.T., i. 107. 
25 



386 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Tatian, the disciple of Justin Martyr, and the contempo 
rary of Irenseus, became an ascetic, and a Gnostic of the 
Valentinian school. Respecting his Diatessaron, Theodo- 
ret, as we have formerly remarked,* speaks of his having 
found two hundred copies of it among the Christians of his 
diocese, which he removed, and supplied their place by copies 
of the Gospels. He says, "Tatian put together what is 
called The Gospel out of the Four " (that is, a gospel com 
posed out of the four Gospels, a Diatessaron), " cutting 
away the genealogies, and all else which shows that the Lord 
was born of the race of David according to the flesh. And 
this book is used, not only by those of his sect, but by those 
who adhere to the doctrines of the apostles ; they not know 
ing the fraud in its composition, but using it, in their simpli 
city, as a compendious book." f It is evident, that Theodoret, 
with the book before his eyes, regarded it as a history of 
Christ compiled from the four Gospels ; nor does he object 
any thing to it but the omissions which he specifies. Euse- 
bius gives the same account of the composition of the book 
from the four Gospels ; remarking in connection, that the 
Encratites (of which sect, he says, Tatian was the founder) 
used the Gospels. $ But, in opposition to all testimony and 
probability, it was fancied by Eichhorn that Tatian did not 
use our present four Gospels, but four others very like 
them, so like them, it appears, that they were mistaken 
for them. There is not a sufficient show of argument in 
support of this conjecture to admit of any particular confuta 
tion. It may be worth while to discuss it, when the suppo 
sition can be rendered plausible, that, in the time of Irenaeus, 
simultaneously with our four Gospels, four other gospels 
existed very like them, but not the same. || 

* See p. 32. t Hseret. Fab , lib. i. n. 20, Opp. iv. 208. 

J Hist. Eccles., lib. iv. c. 29. Einleit. in das N.T., i. 110-113. 
|| " Tatian s Gospel," says Eichhorn, " was called by many the Gospel of 
the Hebrews; " and he asks, " Whence could this name have arisen, except 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 387 

The Diatessaron of Tatian, then, is one among the abun 
dant proofs which the theosophic Gnostics made of the four 
Gospels, and of the authority which they ascribed to them. 

We proceed to the supposed gospel of Cerinthus. Eich- 
horn quotes, concerning this, two passages from Epiphanius, 
who is his sole authority. 

That writer, in his account of the Cerinthians, affirms that 
they " used the Gospel of Matthew, not complete, however, 
but in part only ; " * and, in his account of the Ebionites, he 
says that Cerinthus used the same Gospel of Matthew with 
the Ebionites, except that he retained the genealogy for the 
purpose of proving from it that Jesus was the son of Joseph 
and Mary.f 

Regarding Epiphanius as a trustworthy writer, and as 
being alone a sufficient representative of Christian antiquity, 
Eichhorn asserts that " it is undeniable that Christian anti- 

from the circumstance that that gospel served for its basis?" The only 
authority for his assertion is a passage of Epiphanius. 

Epiphanius, as his text now stands, says (Hseres., xlvi. 1, Opp. i. 391), 
"From Tatian, those who are called Encratites derive their origin, partaking 
of the same venom; and it is said that The Gospel out of the Four, which 
some call The Gospel according to the Hebrews, was made by him." But 
there can be no doubt that the Diatessaron of Tatian and the Gospel of the 
Hebrews were very different books ; and the supposition that the Hebrew 
Gospel of the Jewish Christians was written in Greek by a Gnostic, toward 
the close of the second century, is too gross an absurdity for any one to have 
entertained. Nor is there the least probability that the title of " The Gospel 
according to the Hebrews " was ever common to the book to which it prop 
erly belonged and to Tatian s Diatessaron. If the text of Epiphaniu* be 
correct, his assertion can only be reckoned as one among his numberless 
blunders. But it seems most probable, that his text is corrupt; and that, 
instead of Kara Ei3paiav$, " according to the Hebrews," we should read 
KO.TU, Eycpanraf, " according to the Encratites." This will accord with his 
speaking of Tatian s Diatessaron in immediate connection with his mention 
of the Encratites as deriving their origin from him. They, of course, were 
likelv to rn ake particular use of his Diatessaron; and this therefore might 
naturally be called by some " The Gospel according to the Encratites." 
Hajres., xxviii. 5, f. 113. | Haeres., xxx. 14, p. 138. 



388 EVIDENCES OP THE 

quity ascribed to Cerinthus the use of Matthew s Gospel, but 
with a shorter text;"* and he infers that the Gospel of 
Cerinthus was an earlier gospel than that of Matthew ; that 
is to say, the Gospel which we now call Matthew s in a yet 
imperfect state.f 

It is needless to inquire by what process this might be 
inferred from the words of Epiphanius, supposing him to be 
a writer of good authority. As we have formerly seen, $ 
he is entitled to no credit in his account of the Cerinthians. 
He has manufactured a sect, to which, ascribing the doctrines 
of the Ebionites, he has likewise ascribed the use of the 
Gospel of the Ebionites. 

But there is another passage of Epiphanius, which Eich- 
horn has omitted to notice. It is in his account of the Alogi. 
" Luke," he says, in the first words of his Gospel, " since 
many have undertaken," that is, to write gospels, " points 
to some undertakers, as Cerinthus, Merinthus, and others." 
He had before told us that Cerinthus arid his followers used 
the Gospel of Matthew, with some omissions. He here tells 



* Einleit. in das N.T., i. 110. It may be worth while here to take notice 
of what we might call an extraordinary oversight of Eichhorn, if such over 
sights did not often occur in the works of the modern theologians of Ger 
many. Cerinthus is represented, by all the ancient writers who pretend to 
give an account of him, as teaching that Jesus was the son of Joseph and 
Mary. But Eichhorn, after quoting his authority, Epiphanius, to this effect, 
proceeds, a few lines after (p. 108), to observe, that, as the gospel of Cerin 
thus had the genealogy of Jesus, so " it probably had also the whole evanye- 
lium infantue (gospel of the infancy) which is now contained in the first two 
chapters of Matthew." That is to say, Eichhorn supposes, that, though 
Cerinthus rejected the belief of the miraculous conception of our Lord, he 
received the account of it as authentic. 

It is by conjectures which have more or less of a like character, and by 
critics equally inconsiderate, that the genuineness and authenticity of the 
Gospels have been assailed in modern times in Germany. Among thosa 
critics, I know of none who is to be ranked higher than Eichhorn for theo 
logical knowledge, clearness of mind, and power of reasoning. 

t Einleit. in das N.T., i. 10. f See pp. 199, 200. 

Haeres., li. 7, p. 428. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 389 

as that Cerinthus wrote a gospel before Luke wrote his. 
Following him, therefore, as a well-informed and credible 
writer, and putting his different accounts together, we must 
conclude that Cerinthus was the original composer of Mat 
thew s Gospel. Reasoning after a fashion with which every 
one acquainted with modern German theology must be famil 
iar, we might go on to infer, as highly probable, that Merin- 
thus was the author of the Gospel of Mark. But here we 
should be met by a difficulty, arising from what Epiphanius 
elsewhere says, that he did not know whether Cerinthus and 
Merinthus were different persons, or only different names of 
the same person.* But the existence of the very early 
gospel of Merinthus, which, I believe, no one has yet under 
taken to patronize, rests on as good ground as that of the 
gospel of Cerinthus. 

In pursuing the inquiry concerning the supposed existence 
of Gnostic gospels, we have enabled ourselves to form a 
correct judgment of the character and importance of all 
those books which have been called apocryphal gospels, and 
of their bearing on the genuineness and authenticity of those 
four books which in ancient times were universally recognized 
as the original histories of Christ s ministry, given by his 
immediate followers, or those who derived their knowledge 
from them. On the subject of apocryphal gospels, there 
have been vague and incorrect notions, that have continued, 
in one form or other, down to our time, among those who 
have been disposed to invalidate the authority of the four 
Gospels. They cannot, perhaps, be more clearly or more 
briefly explained than in the words of the Jew Orobio, in his 
celebrated controversy with Limborch respecting the truth 
of Christianity. " There were," he says, " besides the four 
Gospels many others, some of which are referred to by 

* Ilseres., xxviii. 8, p. 115. 



390 EVIDENCES OP THE 

Jerome* and other fathers, which were the foundation of 
different heresies. Such were the gospel to the Egyptians, 
that to the Hebrews, that of Thomas, that of Bartholomew,! 
that of the Twelve Apostles, $ that of Basilides, that of Har- 
pocras, and others that it would be superfluous to mention, 
every one of which had its adherents, and gave occasion to 
dispute. All these gospels, conflicting with one another in 
regard to the truth of the history, were in the course of time, 
and by the authority of councils, rejected ; the four only being 
admitted in Europe, as corresponding best with each other." || 
On the ground of such statements, it has been argued, in 
effect, that there were originally many various accounts of 
Christ s ministry, differing much from one another, so that 
the truth was altogether unsettled ; and that our four Gospels, 
which had no particular claim to credit, obtained general 
currency, to the exclusion of other works of the same kind, 
in consequence only of their finding favor with the prevalent 
party among Christians, and hence being sanctioned by the 
decrees of councils. Respecting this supposition, it is here 
unnecessary to recur to that evidence for the universal recep 
tion of the four Gospels by the great body of Christians, 
which shows it to be altogether untenable. In the present 



* The imperfect and erroneous view of the subject taken by Orobio is 
sufficiently evident from this reference to Jerome. Books which could have 
come into competition with the four Gospels must have been very conspicu 
ous books long bef ore the time of Jerome. 

f This title is first mentioned by Jerome in his Proem to Matthew s Gos 
pel. The existence of any book answering to it is doubtful. 

J This was another title for the Gospel of the Hebrews. See before, 
p. 369, note. 

By Harpocras must, it would seem, be meant Carpocrates; and Orobio 
probably had in mind an indistinct recollection of the story of Epiphanius 
(Haeres., xxx. 14, p. 138), that Carpocrates used the Gospel of Matthew, 
corrupted, in common with the Ebionites. Except this title, and that of 
" The Gospel of Bartholomew," the others enumerated by Orobio have been 
already remarked upon. 

|j The passage is quoted by Fabricius, i. 146. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 391 

chapter, we have examined, or adverted to, every book, real 
or supposed, passing under the name of a gospel, the title of 
which is mentioned by any writer before Epiphariius. Among 
them are the Gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of 
Marcion. The existence of neither of these books can 
weaken the proof of the authority and general reception of 
the four Gospels. But it would be idle to suppose that any 
other of those which have been mentioned was brought into 
competition with the four Gospels as a different history of 
Christ s ministry ; and still more idle to suppose this of any 
book, the very title of which is not mentioned till after the 
middle of the fourth century.* 

The main purpose of our inquiry respecting the Gnostics 
has been to determine whether they afford evidence for the 
genuineness of the Gospels. That they do afford such evi 
dence has abundantly appeared. But something remains to 
be said. In the next chapter, we shall conclude with bring 
ing into one view the facts already adduced, in connection 
with others not yet adverted to, and attending to the relations 
and bearings of the whole. 

* A degree of confusion and misapprehension respecting the subject of 
apocryphal gospels may have been produced by the fact, that Fabricius 
gives an account of such gospels under fifty titles, which, as the same book 
Bometimes passed under two or more different titles, he supposes may repre 
sent about forty books (i. 335,* note). But in making this collection he has 
taken a very wide range. He has included writings which have no claim to 
the title of "gospel," either in the ancient or modern sense of the word; and 
he has brought his catalogue down to the year 1600, mentioning a Historv 
of Christ in Persian, published that year by the missionary Jerome Xavier, 
for the benefit of his converts. Many of the titles collected by him rest on 
no good authority. Some evidently had their origin in ignorance and mis 
apprehension. With the exception of those which have been remarked upon, 
they are to be found only in writers from Epiphanius downward. Their 
alphabetical arrangement, however, tends, at first view, to give the impres 
sion, that one deserves as much attention as another. But, of the works 
mentioned by Fabricius, all that can with any reason be supposed to have 
been extant before the middle of the third century have been taken notice 
of in this chapter 



CHAPTER IX. 

CONCLUDING STATEMENT OF THE EVIDENCE FOR 1HE GENU 
INENESS OF THE GOSPELS AFFORDED BY THE GNOSTICS. 

THE facts that have been brought forward show in what 
manner the Gospels were regarded by the Gnostics. It has 
appeared, that the theosophic Gnostics recognized the author 
ity of the four Gospels in common with the catholic Chris 
tians ; while the Gospel used by the Marcionites was essentially 
the same with the Gospel of Luke. But we will now review 
those facts in connection with some others which have not 
yet been stated, and consider more particularly what infer 
ences may be drawn from the whole. In pursuing the 
subject, we will first confine our attention to the Marcion 
ites. 

An unjustifiable application of a principle common to all 
the Gnostics * led the Marcionites to reject certain passages 
from the text of Luke, and to decline any appeal to the 
authority of the three remaining Gospels. But the very 
principle on which they proceeded, that the apostles and 
their followers were under the influence of Jewfsh prejudices, 
implies that they recognized the genuineness of the passages, 
and of the Gospels, which they rejected. It may be further 
remarked, that their having recourse to the mutilation of 

* See before, p. 332, seqq. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 393 

Luke s Gospel shows that no other history of Christ s minis 
try existed more favorable to their doctrines ; that in the 
first half of the second century, when Marcion lived, there 
was no Gnostic gospel in being, to which he could appeal. 

The fact, that Marcion s gospel was founded on that of 
Luke, proves the existence and authority of Luke s Gospel at 
the t me when Marcion lived. We may therefore recur to 
the reasoning which has before been used, to show that the 
existence and authority of any one of the four Gospels at a 
particular period implies the contemporaneous existence and 
authority of the other three.* In proving their genuineness, 
if that reasoning be correct, they may be regarded as virtually 
one book. Had any other of the Gospels not existed together 
with that of Luke at the commencement of the second cen 
tury, or had it not then been regarded as of authority, it 
never could afterward have attained to the high estimation in 
which Luke s Gospel was held. 

We will next attend to the broad distinction that was made 
between the Marcionites and the theosophic Gnostics in con 
sequence of the fact, that the Marcionites admitted, as of 
authority among the Gospels, only their mutilated copy of 
Luke. On this ground Irenseus, as we have seen,| declined 
controverting their opinions in connection with those of the 
other Gnostics ; and Tertullian, in confuting them, expressly 
limited himself to the use of their own gospel. The distinc 
tion was, that the Marcionites recognized only the authority 
of their own gospel ; while the other Gnostics, as is thus 
testified by their opponents, appealed equally with the catho 
lic Christians to the authority of all the four Gospels. 

This is the concession of their opponents. But we will go 
on, and see what further evidence of the fact exists. 

I have repeatedly had occasion to refer to the letter of 

* See pp. 102-107. t P- 209 



394 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Ptolemy, the Valentinian, to Flora, in which he gives an 
account of his doctrines respecting the Supreme Being and 
the Creator. In this letter he says, that he shall prove what 
he asserts " by the words of the Saviour, which only are an 
infallible guide to the apprehension of the truth;" and he 
accordingly confirms his positions throughout by quotations 
from the Gospels. In the conclusion of the letter, he intro 
duces the mention of those apostolic traditions to which the 
Gnostics appealed, but speaks of them only as an additional 
and subordinate means of knowledge. He promises to give 
further explanations, founded " on the doctrine of the apostles 
received by tradition ; every thing at the same time being 
confirmed by the teaching of the Saviour, which must be 
taken as the standard." Heracleon, another Valentinian, who 
lived in the second century, and was highly esteemed, as we 
are told, by those of his own sect, wrote a commentary on 
the Gospel of John, which is often quoted by Origen. The 
views of the Basilidians respecting the Gospels may be in 
ferred from the fact, that Basilides himself wrote a commen 
tary on the Gospels.* Tatian, who was a Gnostic, composed, 
as we have seen, a Harmony of the Gospels. f And, in the 
Doctrina Orientalis, the Gnostic writer appeals to the Gos 
pels to countenance his opinions as freely as a catholic Chris 
tian might have done, and appeals to no other history of 
Christ. It is throughout to be kept in mind, that the theo- 
sophic Gnostics, while they thus used the Gospels, used no 
other books of the same class as of like authority ; that they 
did not, any more than the catholic Christians, bring any 
other history of Christ s ministry into competition with 
them. 

In treating of the doctrines of the theosophic Gnostics, 1 
have incidentally given examples of the use made by them 

* See before, pp. 352, 353. f See before, pp. 385-38T. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 395 

of passages of th?, Gospels. Many more might be adduced. 
But a particular enumeration of passages to which they 
appealed is unnecessary, since their use of the Gospels is 
fully acknowledged by their catholic opponents. 

Irenams begins his work by charging them with deceiving 
men by " corrupting the oracles of the Lord, being evil inter 
preters of what has been well spoken." * He often remarks 
on their ingenuity in perverting the Scriptures. Speaking 
particularly of the Valentinians, he says, " You see the 
method they use to deceive themselves, wresting the Scrip 
tures, and endeavoring to find support in them for their 
fictions." f He gives connectedly many passages from the 
Gospels, which they applied to the proof of their doctrines, 
and afterwards confutes their interpretations, t He speaks 
of them as making use of every part of the Gospel of John. 
I have already quoted a passage, in which he says, that those 
heretics, in putting together detached passages of Scripture, 
resemble one who should separate the stones of a mosaic 
representing a king, and employ them to make the figure of a 
fox or a dog ; || and another, in which he compares their abun 
dant use of Scripture language to the labor of one stringing 
together verses of Homer to form a cento. IT " There is such 
assurance," he says, " concerning the Gospels, that the her 
etics themselves bear testimony to them, and every one of 
them endeavors to prove his doctrine from them. . . . As, 
then, those who oppose us bear testimony in our favor, and 
use these Gospels, it follows that what we have shown that 
the Gospels teach is established and true." ** 

"Thsre could not be heresies," says Tertullian, "if the 



Lib. i. Pracfat., 1, p. 2. f Lib. i. c. 9, 1, p. 43. 

} Lib. i. cc. 8, 9, pp. 35-47. Lib. iii. c. 11, 7, p. 190. 

|| Lib. i. c. 8, 1, p. 36. 

Tl Lib. i. c. 9, 4, pp. 45, 46. Tertullian uses the same comparison, D 
Prescript. Haretie., c. 39, p. 216. 
** Lib. iii. c. 11. 7, pp. 189, 190. 



396 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Scriptures were incapable of being misinterpreted."* " They 
could not venture to show themselves without some pre 
tence from the Scriptures." | " The heretics plead their 
cause from the Scriptures, and draw their arguments from 
ihe Scriptures. Whence, indeed, could they draw their argu 
ments concerning the subjects of faith, except from the books 
of the faith ? " * 

It appears, then, that the theosophic Gnostics abundantly 
appealed to the Scriptures, and particularly to the Gospels, in 
eiipport of their opinions. The passages I have quoted, and 
others of a similar character, are not to be considered as mere 
common testimony to this fact. They are the admissions of 
their opponents. So far as there was any ground for it, the 
catholic Christians were eager to charge the Gnostics with mu 
tilating, rejecting, and undervaluing the writings of the New 
Testament. In the case of the Marcionites, this accusation 
was strongly urged. But, as respects the theosophic Gnos 
tics, we have the testimony of the earliest and most elaborate 
writers against them, of Irenneus and Tertullian, that they 
made use of the Gospels, and other writings of the New 
Testament, and constantly appealed to them for proof of 
their doctrines, as freely as the catholic Christians. 

The Marcionites made similar use of those portions of the 
New Testament the authority of which they admitted. This 
is abundantly apparent from Tertullian s whole controversy 
with them ; and might be inferred simply from the fact, thai 
they did acknowledge the authority of those portions which 
they retained. 

But the evidence which has been brought forward of the 
facts just stated, however conclusive, is not perhaps the most 
striking that may be adduced. There is a remarkable work 



De Resurrectione Carnis. c. 40, p. 349. | Ibid., c. 63, p. 365. 

De Prescript. Haeret, c. 14, p. 207. 



GENUINENESS Of THE GOSPELS. 397 

of Tertullian, entitled "De Proescriptione Haereticorum." 
The word prcescriptio, used in this title, was a forensic term, 
denoting an exception taken by a defendant to the plaintiff s 
right to maintain an action. The title of Tertullian s work 
might be rendered, "On the Plea in Bar against the Here 
tics." Its purpose is to show that the heretics should not be 
allowed to argue their cause from the Scriptures. The posi 
tion which he maintains is, that the history of the catholic 
doctrine, and of the doctrines of the heretics, alone determines 
the former to be true, and the latter false, without further 
inquiry. His argument proceeds as follows : 

Christ, whoever he was, of whatever God he was the son, 
whatever was the substance of his divine and of his human 
nature, whatever faith he taught, whatever rewards he prom- 
aed, declared, while on earth, what he was, what he had been, 
the will of his Father, and the duty of man, either publicly to 
the people, or apart to his disciples. He sent forth his 
apostles, who had been chosen by him for this purpose, to 
preach to the world the same doctrine which he had taught. 
They founded churches in every city where they went, 
from which other churches had been and were still derived. 
These all traced back their origin to the apostles, and 
formed one great apostolic Church, held together in brother 
hood by the reception of the same religion handed down 
to all. 

But, if Christ gave authority to his apostles to preach his 
religion, no other expositors of it are to be listened to. What 
they preached is what he revealed; and, in order to ascertain 
what they preached, we must recur to the churches which 
they founded, and instructed orally and by their epistles 
Whatever doctrine is held by those churches is true, as 
derived from the apostles, and through them from Christ, and 
through Christ from God. Every other doctrine is false. 
But we, says Tertullian, hold communion with the apos 
tolic churches; there is no difference of belief between us 



898 EVIDENCES OF THE 

and them ; and this is the proof of the truth of our doc 
trines.* 

The argument stated in its most concise form, it will be 
perceived, is this, that it was matter of history that the 
catholic churches had, from the days of the apostles, held the 
same doctrines as they did in the time of Tertullian ; and 
that these doctrines, therefore, were the original doctrines of 
the religion derived through the apostles from Christ. It 
was equally a matter of history, he continues, that the 
founders of the principal heretical sects, Valentinus and Mar- 
cion, for instance, had lived after the times of the apostles, 
and had introduced new doctrines not before held by the 
churches. If their doctrines were true, the churches had 
before been in error from the beginning. " Thousands of 
thousands had been baptized into a false religion." "Let 
them show me," says Tertullian, " by what authority they 
have come forward. . . . Let them prove themselves to be 
new apostles ; let them affirm that Christ has again descended, 
has again taught, has again been crucified, has again died, 
and has risen again. It was thus that he formed his apos 
tles ; giving them, moreover, the power of working the same 
miracles which he did. I wish them to produce their mira 
cles." f 

The main scope of the reasoning of Tertullian is apparent. 
It is, he maintains, a well-known historical fact, that the 
catholic doctrine, as opposed to that of the Gnostics, has been 
held from the beginning by the churches which the apostles 
founded, and by all other churches in communion with them. 
This fact precludes the necessity of any further argument 
with those heretics. They have no claim to be heard in 
appealing to the Scriptures in support of their opinions. 

Tertullian remarks at length upon the various objections 
which were made to his argument by different individuals, or 

* Cc. 20, 21, pp. 208, 209. f Cc. 29, 30, pp. 212, 213. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 399 

by the same at different times. All of them, it may be 
observed, are founded on passages of the New Testament. 
With the exception of the last to be here mentioned, they 
have already been spoken of. The Gnostics sometimes said, 
that the apostles did not know all things ; * sometimes, that 
the apostles had a public and a private doctrine, and did not 
communicate all truths openly to all ; t and, finally, they con 
tended, that the catholic churches, from the earliest times, had 
fallen into error through not understanding what the apostles 
taught. 

It is not necessary to dwell on the answers of Tertullian to 
these objections. His main argument, considering the early 
period when it was adduced, and its application as against the 
doctrines of the Gnostics, is evidently conclusive. I have 
given this brief account of it for .the purpose of introducing 
the reason which he assigns for urging it. This reason is, 
that in the controversy between the catholic Christians and 
the Gnostics, when the Gnostics were allowed to appeal to 
the Scriptures in proof of their doctrines, they argued so 
plausibly as to leave the victory uncertain ; to make converts 
of some, and to instil doubts into others. 

" We come, then," he says, "to the subject proposed." " Our 
opponents put forward the Scriptures, and their boldness has an 
immediate effect upon some. In the first encounter, they fatigue 
the strong, they take captive the weak, and dismiss others with 
doubts. Here, then, I meet them at the onset : they are not to be 
admitted to argue from the Scriptures." J 

"Will he for the sake of whose doubts you engage in an argu- 
itent from the Scriptures, be inclined in consequence more to the 
tiuth or to heresy? When he sees that you make no advance; 
that, the other party maintaining his ground, you both equally 
deny and defend, he will surely go away from this conflict more 

* See before, pp. 332, 333. f See before, pp. 327-332. 

I Cap. 15, p. 207. 



400 EVIDENCES OP THE 

uncertain than before, and ignorant on which side the heresj 
lies." * 

" The appeal, therefore, is not to be made to the Scriptures, 
nor is the decision of the controversy to be rested on them ; for 
they will afford no victory, or an uncertain one, or one no better 
than uncertain. Even though the mutual appeal to Scripture 
should not leave each party on an equality, f yet the order of 
things demands that that consideration should be first brought 
forward which is the sole subject of the present argument, To 
whom does the faith [the religion] itself belong ? Whose are the 
Scriptures ? From whom, and through whom, and when, and to 
whom, was the instruction delivered, by which men are made 
Christians ? For, wherever it may appear that the true Christian 
instruction and faith are to be found, there will be the true Scrip 
tures, and their true exposition, and all true Christian traditions." J 

Thus it appears, that, whatever difficulties the theosophic 
Gnostics found in reconciling their doctrines with the New 
Testament, they recognized the necessity of doing so ; that 
they were ready to meet their opponents on this ground; 
that they furnished plausible explanations of those difficulties, 
and drew from the New Testament plausible arguments in 
their own favor. But this is but a partial statement. The 
theosophic Gnostics appealed to the Gospels as freely and as 
confidently as did the catholic Christians ; contending that 
they alone had the true key to their meaning, and that other 
Christians, not being spiritual, could not comprehend their 
hidden and higher senses. They believed, indeed, that the 
apostles and evangelists were not infallible ; that they were 
liable to human errors, and that they were affected by preju 
dices and false opinions, common to their countrymen, which 
had been implanted in their minds in childhood, had grown 
witn their growth, and had not been wholly eradicated. But 



* Cap. 18, p. 208. 

f I adopt the reading, " ut utramque partem parem sisteret." 

$ Caj . 19, p. 208. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 401 

the theosophic Gnostics, who allegorized and spiritualized the 
words of the Gospels, had not the same occasion to misapply 
this principle as the Marcionites, who were not allegorists. 
The Marcionites regarded the Gospels as colored throughout 
by the Jewish prejudices of their writers. But, by taking 
the work of him whom they considered as the most en 
lightened of the evangelists, St. Luke, and rejecting from 
it some errors, they thought themselves able to obtain a 
history altogether correct ; and this was the basis of then 
system. 

Still, had any seemingly credible history of Christ s minis 
try existed, more favorable to the opinions of the Gnostics 
than the four Gospels, there can be no doubt that they would 
have used that history in preference. The manner, therefore, 
in which they appealed to the four Gospels, or to the history 
of Christ as contained in the Gospel of Luke, without bring 
ing any Gnostic history into competition with them, is proof 
that no such history existed. All Christians, the catholics, 
the theosophic Gnostics, the Marcionites, and, as we have 
before seen, the Hebrew Christians, were equally ignorant 
of any history of Christ s ministry different from that given 
by the evangelists. No party relied on any other : no party 
had any other to produce. 

But it has been suggested, or implied, that the early 
founders of the Gnostic sects drew their systems from their 
philosophy, and connected them only with some general be 
lief that the coming of Christ was a manifestation of the 
Supreme God for the purpose of delivering men from moral 
evil and its consequences ; and that it was merely by way of 
reasoning ad hominem with the catholic Christians, that the 
Gnostics made use of the Gospels.* Let us try the probabil- 



* See, for example, Walch s Historic der Ketzereien, i. 374; Matter, 
flistoire du Gnosticisme, ii. 172, 190. 



40:2 EVIDENCES OP THE 

ity of this supposition by applying it to a particular case, 
that of the Valentinians. 

We have seen, that the Valentinians so fully, and in such 
various ways, professed their belief in the truth of the Gos 
pels, that their opponents did not accuse them of denying it ; 
though this charge would unquestionably have been brought 
against them, had there been a foundation for it. But they 
made use of the Gospels, it may be said, not in good faith ; 
they quoted them oiily " to satisfy those who demanded 
proofs from Scripture," * or undertook to explain them by 
way of answering the objections of those who regarded the 
Gospels as of authority. The statements already made show 
that these suppositions have no probability to recommend 
them ; but let us examine a little farther. According to this 
hypothesis, the Valentinians did not believe the authenticity 
and genuineness of the Gospels ; they did not sincerely rec 
ognize their authority ; they did not believe them to favor 
their own opinions; and, consequently, they did not believe 
them to teach what they thought true Christianity. At the 
same time, it is evident that these books were principally 
relied on by their opponents as a storehouse of arguments 
against them. We have, indeed, no reason to doubt that 
there was a foundation for the strong language which has 
been quoted from Tertullian, respecting their skilful and suc 
cessful use of the Scriptures. We may believe that the 
Gnostics sometimes made converts from among the catholic 
Christians, and showed much talent, after the fashion of their 
times, in reconciling their doctrines with the New Testament, 
and in persuading themselves and others that they were indi 
cated in the parables or supported by the declarations of 
Christ, as recorded in the Gospels. But, after all, it is evi 
dent that the Gospels do not teach the Gnostic doctrines, but 
do teach what is irreconcilable with those doctrines. It is 

* Walch, ubi sttpra. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 403 

equally certain, that this fact was recognized by a great 
majority of early believers (for the catholic Christians far 
outnumbered the Gnostics), and even by a very large and 
respectable portion of the Gnostics themselves, the Marcion- 
ites, as appears from the expedient to which they had 
recourse, of rejecting the use of three of the Gospels, and 
mutilating that which they retained. Would the Valentin 
inns, then, have professed to regard those books as authentic, 
had there been good reasons for questioning their authen 
ticity ? Is it credible, that they would, with such a consistent 
show of conviction as to deceive and silence their opponents, 
have professed their belief in the truth of the Gospels, had 
they not believed them true? So far from it, they would 
at once have seized on the triumph, or at least the advantage, 
which was evidently in their power, could the genuineness 
and authoiity of the books relied on by their opponents have 
been fairly denied or fairly questioned. The course to be 
pursued would have been clear ; and neither an honest man, 
nor a controvertist of common ability, could have neglected to 
take it. The Valentinians, and the other theosophic Gnos 
tics, would not have persisted in dishonestly affirming or 
implying their belief of the authenticity of books which they 
did not believe to be authentic, and which furnished their 
opponents with arguments against their doctrines, conclusive 
in themselves, and by most regarded as conclusive. 

Let us view the subject under another aspect. The Gos 
pels were either known to Valentinus himself, or they were 
not. If they were known to him, they were either regarded 
by him as genuine and authentic, or they were not. He 
lived at so early an age, in the first half of the second century, 
that no question could have existed in his time, whether they 
were entitled to that character. The fact must have been 
known, either that they were, or that they were not, entitled 
to it. If he regarded them as genuine and authentic, there 
can be no doubt that they were so regarded by his folio wera 



404 EVIDENCES OF THE 

and by the great body of contemporary Christians ; and our 
inquiry is at an end. Let us suppose, then, either that 
they were not known to him, that they were not in existence, 
or that, being known to him, they were rejected by him as 
unworthy of credit. In either case, he built his system on 
other foundations, and supported it by other arguments, thai, 
what those books might afford. In either case, it is evident 
that his followers would never have admitted or implied the 
truth of the Gospels. They would never have consented to 
receive, as genuine and authentic, books not known to their 
master, or which he had rejected, books which they them 
selves must have believed to be the fabrications of opponents 
who had excluded him and them from their community, and 
which furnished those opponents with the strongest arguments 
against what they regarded as true Christianity. They 
would not have exposed themselves to such expostulations as 
those of Tertullian : " If they are heretics, they are not 
Christians, not deriving their doctrine from Christ. . . . Not 
being Christians, they have no property in the books of 
Christians. It may justly be said to tfiem, Who are you? 
"When and whence did you come ? What are you, who do 
not belong to me, doing on my premises ? By what right, 
Marcion, do you cut down my woods ? By what license, 
Valentinus, do you divert the water of my springs? By 
what authority, Apelles, are you removing my landmarks ? 
How is it, that you others are sowing and pasturing here 
at your pleasure ? It is my possession ; I have possessed it of 
old ; I trace back my title to its original source ; I am heir 
of the apostles." * To such language it would have required 
neither an acute nor an angry controvertist to give the an 
swer, that this disputed possession was not worth claiming, 
could such an answer have been given with truth. 

* De Prescript. Haeretic., c. 37, p. 215. 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 405 

In examining (in the Second Part of this work) the direct 
historical evidence of the genuineness of the Gospels, we 
have seen, that it does not mainly consist, as in the case of 
other books, of assertions and implications of individual 
writers concerning their authorship. It rests on the fact, that 
they were universally received, as the works of those to 
whom they are ascribed, by the great body of catholic Chris 
tians, at so early a period that no mistake on the subject 
could have been committed ; and on another consideration of 
equal weight, that this general reception of the Gospels as 
genuine, wherever Christianity had been preached, is a phe 
nomenon which can be accounted for only on the supposition 
of their genuineness. 

But, in turning from the catholic Christians to the Gnos 
tics, it might not be unreasonable to apprehend, considering 
the opposition in which the two parties stood to each other, 
that something would appear to cloud the testimony of the 
former, and perhaps to shake our confidence in it as conclu 
sive. Certainly, had there been, during the first ages of 
Christianity, any doubt concerning the genuineness of the 
Gospels, we should have learned it from the Gnostics. But, 
so far from any doubt being suggested by the examination 
which we have gone through, we find the Gnostics strongly 
confirming the testimony of their catholic opponents. Vak-ii- 
tinus and Basilides carry us back to the earlier part of the 
second century ; * and they, in common with the catholic 
Christians, received the Gospels as the authentic histories ot 
the ministry of Christ. About the same period, Marcion 
affords his evidence to the general reception of one of the 
Gospels, and consequently, as we have seen, proof of the re 
ception of the other three.f On the Gospels, or, to include 
the case of the Marcionites and the Hebrew Christians, on a 
history of Christ, such as is found in one of the Gospels, 

* See pp. 204, 205. f See before, p. 393. 



406 EVIDENCES OF THE 

every form of Christian faith rested as its foundation. No 
history presenting a different view of his ministry was in 
existence. 

Here, then, we conclude our statement of the historical 
evidence, both direct and subsidiary, of the Genuineness of 
the Gospels. The catholic Christians. bear testimony to their 
having been written by the particular individuals to whom 
they are ascribed. The Gnostics confirm this testimony by 
the proofs which they afford of their general reception and 
authority. 

We have pursued this investigation carefully and at length, 
as if there was some intrinsic improbability in the proposition, 
that the Gospels were written by the authors to whom they 
are ascribed ; some presumption against it, such as to re 
quire a patient removal of difficulties, and an accumulation of 
strong evidence, to establish its truth. But, on the contrary, 
it is apparent that the Gospels were written by early be 
lievers in our Lord ; there is not a show of evidence that 
they were written by any other believers than those to whom 
they have been ascribed ; and nothing is more probable, than 
that some of his immediate disciples, or of their intimate com 
panions, should have left us such narratives of his life. 

The Founder of our religion, whether one believe or not 
that he was authorized by God to speak in his name, was 
unquestionably the most wonderful individual who ever ap 
peared on earth. A Jew, a Galileean, in humble life, poor, 
without literary culture, without worldly power or influence ; 
teaching but for a short time (probably not more than two 
years) ; wandering about the shores of the Lake of Galilee and 
of the Jordan ; scarcely entering Jerusalem but to be driven 
away by persecution, till at last he went thither to perish 
under it , collecting during his lifetime only a small body of 
illiterate and often wavering followers; addressing men 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 407 

whose incapacity, prejudices, or hatred continually led them 
to mistake or to pervert his meaning ; surrounded, and 
apparently overpowered, by his unbelieving countrymen, who 
regarded him as a blasphemer, and caused him to suffer the 
death of the most unpitied of malefactors, this person has 
wrought an effect, to which there is nothing parallel, on the 
opinions and on the condition of the most enlightened portion 
of our race. The moral civilization of the world, the noblest 
conceptions which men have entertained of religion, of their 
nature, and of their duties, are to be traced back directly to 
him. They come to us, not from the groves of the Academy, 
not from the walks by the Ilissus which Aristotle frequented, 
nor from the Painted Portico of Athens where Zeno taught : 
but from the mountain on which Jesus delivered his first 
recorded discourse ; from the synagogue and the streets of 
the small town of Capernaum, of which not a ruin remains to 
fix its site ; from fishing-boats on the Lake of Galilee ; from 
the less inhabited tracts the deserts, as they have been 
called of Palestine ; from the courts of the Jewish temple, 
where he who spoke was confronting men plotting his de 
struction ; from the cross of one expiring in agony amid the 
savage triumph of his enemies. After witnessing such a 
death, his disciples lost all their doubts. They affirmed their 
Master to be the Saviour of the world, the Son of God. 
They devoted themselves to labor and suffer, and, if need 
were, to die, in making him known to men. What they 
strove to impress upon the minds of others was what, as they 
asserted, he had done and taught. They " knew nothing but 
Jesus Christ and him crucified." It was the history, real or 
pretended, of his ministry on earth, which was the basis of all 
their teaching; the essential instruction to be first commu 
nicated to all who were summoned to put their trust in him, 
to take up their cross, and follow him in the new path 
which he had opened from earth to heaven. Now, there can 
be no supposition more irrational, than that the history of 



408 EVIDENCES OF THE 

Christ, which was thus promulgated by all his first disciples, 
and received by all their first converts, was lost before the 
beginning of the second century, and another history substi 
tuted in its place. But, if the Gospels contain the history of 
Christ as it was promulgated by his apostles, there can be no 
ground for doubting that they were written by the authors to 
whom they are ascribed, by apostles, and companions of 
apostles. 

To all the weight of evidence that the Gospels were written 
by the authors to whom they have been ascribed, what other 
account of their origin has been or may be opposed ? The 
genuineness of the Gospel of John has been directly im 
pugned by some modern German theologians. Their hypoth 
eses are, necessarily, only developments of one essential 
proposition, that this Gospel is a spurious work, fraudulently 
ascribed to the apostle by its original writer, or by some 
other individual or individuals. There can be no direct evi 
dence of the truth of this supposition ; and with it another 
must be connected, namely, that this imagined fraud was so 
successful as to impose on all Christians, catholic and hereti 
cal, from the beginning of the second century. But, if this 
be a moral impossibility, then there is a moral certainty that 
the Gospel ascribed to John was the work of that apostle. 
Yet this brief statement, decisive as it may be, gives but a 
very imperfect view of those facts and considerations, hereto 
fore presented, which show that any other supposition is alto 
gether incredible. 

In respect to the other three Gospels, the attacks on their 
genuineness and authenticity by many of the modern German 
theologians have been more elaborate. But, if their genuine 
ness be denied, there are only two fundamental suppositions, 
one or the other of which must be made. One is of the same 
nature with that which has been advanced concerning St. 
John s Gospel. It may be asserted that each of them is a 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 409 

spurious work of some one unknown author. But this suppo 
sition has been generally felt to be too indefensible. Recourse 
has therefore been had to different hypotheses, which may all 
be resolved into one fundamental supposition, that the first 
three Gospels are, respectively, aggregates of stories by differ 
ent hands, brought together by different compilers. In the 
First Part of this work, we have examined this supposition 
under as plausible a form as any in which it has appeared ; 
and, if the view there taken of the subject be correct, there is 
something like mathematical demonstration of its falsity. 
But so far as those hypotheses are connected, as they have 
been, with the supposition that the narratives contained in 
the first three Gospels are distorted and discolored by tradi 
tion, there is a moral demonstration of their falsity. The 
character of Jesus Christ as exhibited in any one of the first 
three Gospels, or in all of them taken together, is equally 
consistent and wonderful. It is, at the same time, a charac 
ter to which nothing in human history, before or after, pre 
sents a parallel or a resemblance. He appears as one acting 
under the miraculous conviction, that he was the instrument 
of God, to assure men, on His authority, of their relations to 
Him and to eternity ; and this conception of his character is 
fully sustained. In the midst of men who appear, as we 
should expect the Jews of that age to appear, ignorant, nar 
row-minded, dull in their perceptions, indocile, many of them 
hating him with all the hatred of bigotry ; throughout trials 
of every sort ; under external circumstances so humiliating 
that we shrink from the thought of them, he shows always 
the same unalterable elevation of character, requiring no 
human support. We feel that he was not to be degraded by 
any insult ; and that no praise could have been addressed to 
him, had it come from the highest of men, which would not 
have been a strange impertinence. If our natural feelings 
have been unperverted, we follow him, if not with the convic 
tion, that conviction has been resisted, but certainly 



410 EVIDENCES OF THE 

with a sentiment, continually prompting us to say., " Truly 
this was the Son of God." But it is folly to suppose, that 
such a portraiture of character could have been the result of 
an aggregation of fabulous traditionary stories which had 
been moulded by different minds, Jewish or Gentile. The 
comparison is unworthy of the subject ; but it would not be 
more absurd to imagine, that the finest works of ancient 
plastic art, the display of perfect physical beauty in the 
Apollo Belvidere, had been produced by putting together 
the labors of different artists at different times, all work 
ing without a model, this making one part or member, and 
that another. 

We may enter on the inquiry respecting the genuineness 
of the Gospels merely as scholars and critics, without any 
previous opinion respecting their contents. To a thinking 
man, whatever may be his opinion, it must appear an object 
of great curiosity to determine the authorship of books so 
extraordinary, and which have had such vast influence. In 
treating the historical evidence for their genuineness, we deal 
with historical facts, and our reasoning is of a kind with 
which we are familiar, and which is fully within the cogni 
zance of our judgment. But if, from the preceding examina 
tion of this evidence, it appears that the Gospels are the 
works of those to whom they have been ascribed, then the 
argument we have pursued, and which we ought to pursue, 
me) ely as scholars and critics, or, I may better say, as intelli 
gent men, capable of understanding the force of reasoning, 
leads to results of the deepest moment. Upon arriving at 
the end of our journey, on quitting the detail of history and 
criticism, through which it has lain, considerations of another 
class present themselves to view: we see rising before us 
objects the most solemn and sublime ; we have been brought 
to the contemplation of all that is of permanent and essential 
interest to man. Let us examine the reasoning thoroughly as 



GENUINENESS OP THE GOSPELS. 411 

logicians ; but, if it will bear this examination, then the con 
clusion to which it leads is to be regarded with very different 
feelings from what may have been called forth during its 
process. If the Gospels were written by the authors to whom 
they are ascribed, two of them by individuals who were inti 
mate companions of Jesus, eye-witnesses of his ministry, who 
knew the facts, whatever they were, of his public life, and 
the other two by those who received their accounts immedi 
ately from such eye-witnesses, then the narrative of his min* 
istry contained in the Gospels is true. The apostles could 
not have been deceived respecting the facts which they pro* 
fess to relate. If Jesus Christ did not, by a series of miracles 
performed before crowds of spectators, by his doctrines, and 
by an exhibition of character altogether conformed to his 
claims, give full evidence of his being authorized to speak in 
the name of God, then the* Gospels are not a collection of 
legends, the growth of tradition in an ignorant and marvel- 
loving age, that supposition is excluded by the proof of 
their genuineness: they are throughout a tissue of mon 
strous and inexplicable falsehoods. If the Gospels be gen 
uine, there but two conclusions which are possible. The 
narrative of the public life of Jesus contained in them is 
either essentially false, or it is essentially true; and, if 
false, it is so thoroughly false, that we know nothing 
concerning his character and actions. His immediate fol 
lowers have buried his history under a mass of prodigious 
fictions ; and these fictions they propagated, in the face of his 
enemies and their own, among those whom they affirmed to 
have witnessed the pretended events which they related. 
The true history of Jesus Christ, of him who really has 
wrought such vast changes in the condition of men, is un 
known ; and, instead of it, we have a fiction of inexpressible 
grandeur, the conception of some Jews of Galilee, fishermen, 
tax-gatherers, and others, who were shamelessly and reck 
lessly destitute of veracity. But we have brought the argu- 



412 EVIDENCES OP THE 

ment to an absurdity so repulsive, that it would be equally 
offensive and unprofitable to dwell on it longer. 

It follows, then, that the history of Jesus contained in the 
Gospels is true. The essential facts of religion have been 
expressly made known to men on the authority of God. 
They are facts, glorious, solemn, overwhelming, but as real as 
the ordinary objects of every-day life, certain as nothing 
future in life can be. In our day, the belief of these facts is 
openly rejected; the evidence of them is continually as 
sailed, directly and indirectly ; baseless and thoroughly irre 
ligious speculations are confidently put forth and widely 
received as substitutes for Christian faith, of which, as in 
mockery, they assume the name ; and there are many who 
acquiesce in a general notion that religion may be true, and 
who regard this notion as a source of consolation and hope, 
without any such settled conviction of its truth as may essen 
tially affect their characters. But if there be a God in whose 
infinite goodness we and all things are embosomed ; if there 
be a future life which spreads before us, and all whom we 
love, exhaustless scenes of attainable happiness ; if that Infi 
nite Being who so eludes the grasp of human thought, have 
really brought himself into direct communication with man 
kind ; if the character of Jesus Christ be not an inexplicable 
riddle, but a wonderful reality, these are truths of which a 
wise man may well desire fully to assure himself. And per 
haps there is no way in which he may attain a stronger 
feeling of certainty, than when he approaches them, as we 
have done, through reasoning conversant about ordinary sub 
jects of thought, requiring no exercise of judgment beyond 
the common capacity of every intelligent man, not taking us 
into the dim light of metaphysical inquiry, involving the use 
of no uncertain language, and calling forth no doubts from 
that region which lies on every side beyond the bounds of 
our knowledge and our powers. The way which we have 
travelled is such, that it may by contrast heighten the effect 



GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS. 413 

of the prospect on which it opens. It is somewhat as if, by 
an easy ascent, we found ourselves standing on a vast height, 
with the unbounded ocean spreading out before us. 

But, however convinced we may be of the genuineness of 
the Gospels, one distinct and very important branch of the 
evidence of that fact has not yet been treated. It is the evi 
dence founded on the intrinsic character of the Gospels them 
selves, evidence in which the proofs of their genuineness 
and their truth are essentially blended together. The main 
proposition to be established by it is, that the Gospels are of 
such a character, that they could have been written only by 
individuals of such a character, and so circumstanced, as those 
to whom they are ascribed. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES. 



NOTE A. 

(See pp. 15,16, 18.) 

FURTHER REMARKS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THK 
TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 

SECTION I. 

On the Character and Importance of the Various Readings of tut 
New Testament. 

WHEN attention was first strongly directed to the number of vari 
ous readings upon the Received Text of the New Testament, and 
the critical edition of Mill was published, which was said to con 
tain thirty thousand,* two classes of individuals were very differ 
ently affected. Some sincerely religious men, among whom was 
Whitby, who wrote expressly against the labors of Mill, were 
apprehensive that the whole text of the New Testament, the foun 
dation of our faith, would be unsettled ; while the infidels of the 
age, among whom Collins was prominent, were ready, with other 
feelings, to adopt the same opinion. The whole number of various 
readings of the text of the New Testament that have hitherto been 
noted exceeds a hundred thousand, and may perhaps amount to a 
hundred and fifty thousand. 

* That is to say, thirty thousand variations from the Received Text. 
But, when the Received Text varies from other authorities, its readings 
should also be considered as various readings of the text of the New Testa 
ment. Including these, therefore, Mill s edition presents about sixty thousand 
various readings. 

27 



418 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

But this number is, I presume, less in proportion than that of 
the various readings extant upon most classic authors, when com 
pared with the quantity of text examined, and the number of 
manuscripts and other authorities collated in each particular case.* 

* Bentley, in his "Remarks on Free-thinking," in answer to Collins, 
Bays: 

"Terence is now in one of the best conditions of any of the classic 
writers. The oldest and best copy of him is now in the Vatican Library, 
which comes nearest to the poet s own hand ; but even that has hundreds 
of errors, most of which may be mended out of other exemplars, that are 
otherwise more recent and of inferior value. I myself have collated several, 
and do affirm that I have seen twenty thousand various lections in that little 
author, not near so big as the whole New Testament ; and am morally sure, 
that, if half the number of manuscripts were collated for Terence with that 
niceness and minuteness which has been used in twice as many for the New 
Testament, the number of the variations would amount to above fifty 
thousand. 

" In the manuscripts of the New Testament, the variations have been 
noted with a religious, not to say superstitious, exactness. Every difference 
in spelling, in the smallest particle or article of speech, in the very order or 
collocation of words, without real change, has been studiously registered. 
Nor has the text only been ransacked, but all the ancient versions, the 
Latin Vulgate, Italic, Syriac, ^Ethiopic, Arabic, Coptic, Armenian, Gothic, 
and Saxon ; nor these only, but all the dispersed citations of the Greek and 
Latin fathers in a course of five hundred years. What wonder, then, if, with 
all this scrupulous search in every hole and corner, the varieties rise to thirty 
thousand ; when, in all ancient books of the same bulk, whereof the manu 
scripts are numerous, the variations are as many, or more, and yet no ver 
sions to swell the reckoning? 

" The editors of profane authors do not use to trouble their readers, 01 
risk their own reputation, by an useless list of every small slip committed 
by a lazy or ignorant scribe. What is thought commendable in an edition 
of Scripture, and has the name of fairness and fidelity, would in them be 
deemed impertinence and trifling. Hence the reader not versed in ancient 
manuscripts is deceived into an opinion, that there were no more variations 
in tne copies than what the editor has communicated. Whereas, if the like 
scrupulousness was observed in registering the smallest changes in profane 
authors, as is allowed, nay required, in sacred, the now formidable number 
of thirty thousand would appear a very trifle. 

" It is manifest that books in verse are not near so obnoxious to varia 
tions as those in prose ; the transcriber, if he is not wholly ignorant and 
stupid, being guided by the measures, and hindered from such alterations aa 
do not fall in with the laws of numbers. And yet, even in poets, the varia- 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 419 

How such an amount of various readings exists upon the text 
of ancient works, we may understand, when we consider, what 
every one who has had experience on the subject is aware of, that 
no written copy of an exemplar of any considerable length, if 
made only with ordinary care, is without variations and errors. 
Notwithstanding the extreme care which has in some cases been 
taken, it is doubtful whether even a printed book exists which 
corresponds throughout to its proposed archetype, or which, in 
other words, is wholly free from errata. There is no hazard in say 
ing, that the variations in the printed copies of King James s version 
of the Bible, such variations as are noted in the manuscripts of 
the New Testament, are to be reckoned by thousands, and if, as 
in the case of the Greek text of the New Testament, we were 
to take the quotations of different writers into account, by tens of 
thousands. But, in producing copies by transcription, the num 
ber of errors resulting will be vastly greater than in producing the 



tions are so very many as can hardly be conceived without use and experi 
ence. In the late edition of Tibullus, by the learned Mr. Broukhuise, you 
have a register of various lections in the close of that book, where you may 
see at the first view that they are as many as the lines. The same is visible 
in Plautus set out by Pareus. I myself, during my travels, have had the 
opportunity to examine several manuscripts of the poet Manilius; andean 
assure you that the variations I have met with are twice as many as all the 
lines of the book." (pp. 93-95, 8th ed ) 

To take a few books immediately at hand, I perceive, by a loose compu 
tation from a table at the end of Wakefield s Lucretius, that he has collected 
about twelve thousand various readings of that author (exclusive of mere 
differences of orthography), from five printed copies only. Weiske s edition 
of Longinus presents more than three thousand various readings of the 
" Treatise on the Sublime," a work of about the length of the Gospel of Mark, 
collected from eight manuscripts and two early editions. And Bekker has 
published variations from his text of the writings contained in his edition of 
Plato, which fill seven hundred and seventy-eight crowded octavo pages, 
and amount to I know not how many more than sixty thousand; the 
manuscripts used on each of the different writings being on an average 
about thirteen. The various readings of the New Testament, it is to be 
remembered, have been collected from a very great number of manuscripts 
of the original, manuscripts of numerous ancient versions, in which it is 
not to be supposed that the translator always rendered in a manner scrupu 
lously literal, and also from the citations of a long series of fathers, who, we 
know, were not commonly attentive to verbal accuracy in quoting. 



420 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

same number of copies by the press ; since far more liability to 
error will exist in the case of every particular copy transcribed, 
than exists in regard to a whole edition of printed copies. With 
these general views, it is not necessary to dwell on the particular 
causes of mistakes and errors in ancient manuscripts, which are 
more numerous than may at first thought be supposed. They have 
been often pointed out by different writers. 

I proceed, then, to observe, that, of the various readings of 
the New Testament, nineteen out of twenty, at least, are to be 
dismissed at once from consideration ; not on account of their 
intrinsic unimportance, that is a separate consideration, but 
because they are found in so few authorities, and their origin is so 
easily explained, that no critic would regard them as having 
any claim to be inserted in the text. Of those which remain, a 
very great majority are entirely unimportant. They consist in 
different modes of spelling ; in different tenses of the same verb, 
or different cases of the same noun, not affecting the essential 
meaning ; in the use of the singular for the plural, or the plural 
for the singular, where one or the other expression is equally 
suitable ; in the insertion or omission of particles, such as uv and 
<5e, not affecting the sense, or of the article in cases equally unim 
portant ; in the introduction of a proper name, where, if not in 
serted, the personal pronoun is to be understood, or of some other 
word or words expressive of a sense which would be distinctly 
implied without them; in the addition of "Jesus" to "Christ," 
or "Christ" to "Jesus;" in the substitution of one synonymous 
or equivalent term for another ; in the transposition of words, 
leaving their signification the same ; in the use of an uncom- 
pounded verb, or of the same verb compounded with a preposition, 
th3 latter differing from the former, if at all, only in a shade of 
moaning ; and in a few short passages, liable to the suspicion of 
having been copied into the Gospel where we find them from some 
other evangelist. Such various readings, and others equally unim 
portant, compose far the greater part of all, concerning which 
there may be, or has been, a question whether they are to be ad 
mitted into the text or not ; and it is therefore of no consequence 
in which way the question has been, or may be, determined. 

But after deducting from the whole amount of various readings, 
first those of no authority, and next those of no importance, a 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 421 

number will remain which are objects of a certain degree of curi 
osity and interest. To three of them an extravagant importance 
has been attached, from their supposed bearing upon the theologi 
cal doctrine of the Trinity. But the principal of these, the 
famous passage in the first Epistle of John (chap. v. 7), is a mani 
fest interpolation. In the case of this and of most other passages, 
where the true reading is a matter of any interest, we may com 
monly arrive at a satisfactory judgment concerning it; and, in 
regard to the cases in which we cannot, it is clear, that no opinion, 
nor any inference whatever, respecting the meaning of the writer, 
is to be founded on an uncertain reading. 

The Received Text, as it has been called, of the New Testa 
ment that is, the text which for almost two centuries, till after the 
time of Griesbach, was found with little variation in the common 
editions of the New Testament was formed during the sixteenth 
century, with comparatively few helps, and in the exercise of no 
great critical judgment. But the chief value of the immense 
amount of labor which has since been expended upon the text of 
the New Testament does not consist in its having effected im 
provements in the Received Text. Its chief and great value 
consists in establishing the fact, that the text of the New Testa 
ment has been transmitted to us with remarkable integrity ; that 
far the greater part of the variations among different copies are 
of no authority or of no importance; and that it is a matter 
scarcely worth consideration, as regards the study of our religion 
and its history, whether, after making a very few corrections, we 
take the Received Text formed as it was, or the very best which 
the most laborious and judicious criticism might produce. 

In his edition of the New Testament, Griesbach presents the 
Received Text in constant comparison with his own. He notes 
conspicuously, as preferable, or probable, or deserving attention, 
all those variations from it which he so regards, when he docs not 
admit them into his text. The comparison between all the read 
ings, which have in his view any grade of probability > is thus 
rendered a mere matter of ocular inspection. As a fair specimen 
of the whole, I will give all those which he thus presents on the 
first eight chapters of Matthew. When it may be done, I will 
express the change in English ; but, in some cases, the variation is 
BO trilling as to admit of no corresponding variation in a trausla- 



422 



ADDITIONAL NOTES. 



tion. The first column of the following table contains the read 
ings of the Received Text ; the second, the variations from it. 
Those unaccompanied with any note (except here and there a 
remark of my own) are what Griesbach has admitted into his text. 
In other cases, I have noted with sufficient distinctness the degree 
of probability that he assigns to them.* 



RECEIVED TEXT. 



Chap. i. 1. 
6. 



18. Jesus 
19. 



(generation) 
(to 

expose to shame) 
22. rov 

Chap. ii. 8. carefully search out 
9. EOTJI 

11. they found 
15. rov 

17. <m-d 

18. lamentation and 
22. bcl 

Cliap. iii. 1. # 
3 imb 
8. fruits worthy 

10. Kal 

11. with fire 



12. his wheat 
Chap. iv. 4. a man 

tnl (upon) 



Aavtd 



VARIATIONS ADOPTED OR SUGGEST 
ED BY GRIESBACH. 

The names of David 
and Solomon differ 
ently spelt. 

perhaps to be omitted. 

yeveais (birth) 

perhaps, dEtyuarioai (to expose) 

perhaps to be omitted. 

perhaps, search out carefully 

perhaps, ioTuOrj (no change in the 
sense.) 

they saw 

perhaps to be omitted. 

perhaps, OLO. 

probably to be omitted. 

perhaps to be omitted. 

perhaps to be omitted. 

perhaps, dia 

ffuit worthy 

perhaps to be omitted. 

perhaps to be omitted. (If go, it 
was borrowed from Luke iii. 16, 
where there is no doubt of its 
genuineness.) 

perhaps, the wheat 

perhaps, man (6 being added be 
fore UV0pW7TOf.) 

probably, ev (by) 



* I have used both Griesbach s last critical edition and his manual edition ; 
but of course have not quoted those readings of the latter which he notices 
only as on some account remarkable, and which are not such as he admits 
between the lines below the text of his critical edition. 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 



423 



Chap. 



6. sets ("sets him on the 
pinnacle of the 
temple") 
10. Go from me, Satan 



12. Jesus 

13. KaTtepvaoitp 



18. Jesus 
. 9. avrol 



11. 



(speaking 



20. TJ dcKOioavvj] i>fj.(Jv 
25. whilst thou art in the 
way with him 

27. to them of old time 

28. avrf/f 

81. flu 

82. whoever shall put away 
44. bless those who curse 

you, do good to those 



In the last clause, if 
it be retained, for 



despitefutty use you 
(rather, harass you) 
and 

47. brethren 
publicans 
do thus 

48. uonep 

your Father in heaven 
Chap. vi. 1. alms 

4. ai)rbc("he will re ward 

you") 
openly 

6. when thou prayest, thou 
shalt not be 



perhaps, set 



Go behind me, Satan (the words 

omau fwv being added by Gries- 

bach.) 

probably to be omitted. 
probably, Katyapvaovu (a different 

spelling of the name of the city, 

Capernaum.) 
omitted. 
perhaps to be omitted. (No change 

can be made in a translation.) 
perhaps to be omitted. 



perhaps, vu&v 

perhaps, whilst thou art with him in 

the way 
omitted. 
probably, avTrjv 
perhaps to be omitted. 
perhaps, every one putting away 
probably to be omitted. (If so, it 

was borrowed from Luke.) 



TOif fUOOVOlV 

perhaps to be omitted. (If so, it 
was borrowed from Luke.) 

perhaps, friends 

gentiles 

perhaps, do the same 

perhaps, wf 

probably, your heavenly Father 

righteousness (The propriety of 

this change is doubtful.) 
perhaps to be omitted. (So as to 

read " will reward you," only.) 
probably to be omitted, 
perhaps, when ye pray, ye shall not 

be 



424 



ADDITIONAL NOTES. 



that ("that they hare 

their re ward") 
6. TW (" pray to thy Fa 
ther who is in se 
cret") 

openly 

18. For thine is the king 
dom and the power 
and the glory for 
ever. Amen. 



15. their offences 

16. that ("that they have 

their reward ") 
18. /cpu7rr (twice) 



openly 

21. your treasure 
your heart 

24. fMzuuovd 

25. and what ye may drink 

84. TO, (in the Common 
Version rendered 
" the things of") 
Chap. vii. 2. avTiueTprjOfiaETat (it 
shall be measured 
in return) 
9. IOTLV 
12. ovrof (this) 
14. "On ( "Because strait 

is the gate ") 
Chap.Yiii.2. kMv (coming) 

8. Jesus 

4. Mwff^f 

6. TV Ij7<7ot) ("as Jesus 

was entering " ) 
8. 
18. 



probably to be omitted. 
that, probably to be omitted. 

perhaps to be omitted. (So as to 
read "pray to thy Father in 
secret.") 

probably to be omitted. 

omitted. (When our Lord s pray 
er was used in the liturgies of 
the ancient Church, this doxol- 
ogy was subjoined; and tran 
scribers, being accustomed to it 
in this connection, introduced 
it into their copies.) 

probably to be omitted. 

that, probably to be omitted. 

perhaps KpvQaiy (an improbable 

suggestion.) 
omitted. 

perhaps, thy treasure, 
perhaps, thy heart. 
uauuva 
probably to be omitted. (If so, it 

was borrowed from Luke.) 
probably to be omitted. 



fteTpTjOfjoerai (it shall be measured) 



perhaps to be omitted. 

perhaps, OVTUC (thus) 

Ti ("How straight is the gate") 

perhaps, TrpoaehOwv (coming up, 

namely, to him.) 
perhaps to be omitted, 
perhaps Mwvojyf 
avrcJ ("as he was entering") 



TEXT OP THE GOSPELS. 425 

16. avTolf ("waited upon perhaps, airy ("waited upon 

them") him") 

26. avrov ("his disci- omitted ("the disciples ") 

pies") 

28. Gergesenfis probably, Gerasenes ; perhaps, Go- 

29. Jesus omitted. [darenes. 
81. suffer us to go send us 

32. the herd of swine the swine 

" the herd of swine " of swine, omitted. 

Such are the various readings which have been represented by 
other critics beside Griesbach as rendering one text different from 
another in its whole conformation and entire coloring. 

Of the passages of more importance in the Gospels, concerning 
which there is reason to think that they did not proceed from the 
evangelists, I shall speak in a following section. Those, how 
ever, in the Gospel of Matthew are not various readings, nor is 
there any reasonable doubt that they always made a part of our 
present Greek Gospel. Whether they likewise were to be found 
in the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, as it came from the pen of the 
evangelist, is another question. But, before proceeding to its 
examination, we will attend to the questions respecting the origi 
nal language of Matthew s Gospel, and its use by the Hebrew 
Christians. 

SECTION II. 

On the Original Language of Matthew s Gospel, and its Use by the 
Hebrew Christians. 

We believe that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, meaning 
by that term the common language of the Jews of his time, because 
such is the uniform statement of all ancient writers who advert to 
the subject. To pass over others whose authority is of less weight, 
he is affirmed to have written in Hebrew by Papias,* Irenaeus,f 
Origen, J Eusebius, and Jerome ;|| nor does any ancient author 

* See before, p. 139. t See before, p. 72. J See before, p. 82. 

Hist. Eccles., lib. iii. c. 24. Quaestiones ad Marinum, ap. Mail Scrip- 
torum Veterum Nov. Collect., torn. i. p. 64. 

|| The fact is stated or implied by Jerome in passages so numerous, that 
it is not worth while to refer to them particularly 



426 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

advance a contrary opinion. This testimony is of the more weight, 
because, if there had been any prejudice on the subject, it would 
have operated against the common belief, as the prejudices of 
modern Christians have done. It would have led the great body 
of ancient Gentile Christians, from whom we receive the account, 
to prefer considering their Greek Gospel of Matthew as the origi 
nal, not as a translation. 

If we will not, then, reject the testimony of all Christian anti 
quity to a simple fact, in which there is no intrinsic improbability, 
we must believe that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew. Noth 
ing has been objected to that testimony which I can regard as of 
sufficient force to justify a protracted discussion. On the con 
trary, it is confirmed by the corresponding evidence of the fathers, . 
that the Hebrew original of Matthew was in common use (either in 
a pure or a corrupt form) among Jewish Christians. 

One of the last notices of the Jewish Christians in the New 
Testament is in the words addressed by the other apostles to 
St. Paul, during his last visit to Jerusalem : " Thou seest, brother, 
what multitudes of Jews there are who believe ; and they are all 
zealous for the Law. But they have heard concerning thee, that 
thou art teaching all the Jews living among the Gentiles to become 
apostates from Moses ; telling them not to circumcise their children, 
nor to observe the ancient customs." * The same attachment to 
their Law continued to distinguish the great body of Jewish Chris 
tians, though there were freethinkers among them, who, as Origen 
says, ** relinquished the ancient customs under the pretext of ex 
positions and allegories." f Even these, however, there is no 
reason to doubt, retained the rite of circumcision. And, on the 
other hand, the more bigoted among them contended that the literal 
observance of the Jewish Law was not only binding upon Jewish, 
but equally upon Gentile Christians. As a general distinction, the 
Jewish Christians believed Christ to have been only a man, in 
opposition to the doctrine of his divine nature, which, in some 
sense or other, began very early to be maintained by the Gentile 
fathers. Some of their number at the same time received, and 
others rejected, the belief of his miraculous conception. And, 

* Acts xxi. 20, 21. t Origen. cont. Celsum, lib. ii. u. 3; Opp. i. 388. 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 427 

besides the differences which have been mentioned, the separation 
between the Jewish and Gentile Christians was undoubtedly in a 
great degree produced and perpetuated by the feelings with which 
Jews and Gentiles had previously, for an indefinite time, regarded 
each other. In the second century, the Jewish Christians, gener 
ally, were considered as heretics, and denominated Ebionites. 

It appears from the language in which Matthew wrote, and 
from the internal character of his Gospel, that he intended it par 
ticularly for Jewish Christians. Conformably to this, we have 
satisfactory evidence, that, as an heretical sect, they used it exclu 
sively of the other three Gospels from the second century down 
wards. 

Irenaeus, speaking of the Jewish Christians under the name of 
Ebionites, repeatedly mentions briefly, as if it were a fact of com 
mon notoriety, that they used the Gospel of Matthew alone.* 

Symmachus, one of the ancient well-known Jewish translators 
of the Old Testament into Greek, was an Ebionite. He wrote 
commentaries in defence of the doctrine of his sect, which are 
mentioned by Eusebius (with whom his translator Ilufinus is to be 
compared), Jerome, and others, who speak of his reference to, or 
use of, the Gospel of Matthew, without intimating his use of any 
other book. Jerome says, that his commentaries were written on 
the Gospel of Matthew. f 

By the name of Ebionites, the Jewish Christians, generally, con 
tinued to be denominated till the time of Epiphanius in the fourth 
century. Epiphanius divides them into Ebionites and Nazarenes, 
being the first writer who uses the latter name as that of an heret 
ical sect. His unsupported authority deserves no credit, when he 

* Cont. Haeres., lib. i. c. 26, 2; lib. iii. c. 11, 7. 

t See Lardner, Works, 4to, i. 447. Eusebius (H.E., lib. vi. c. 17) says, 
as I suppose his words should be literally rendered, that Symmachus main 
tained his heresy, " strongly contending against the Gospel of Matthew ;" 
from which, may be inferred the peculiar authority of the Gospel of Matthew 
with the Ebiouites. The meaning of Eusebius apparently was, that Sym 
machus contended strongly against the true sense of the Gospel of Matthew. 
Rufinus, rendering the passage, as I conceive, somewhat loosely, makes 
Eusebius say, that Symmachus " endeavored to maintain his heresy from 
the Gospel of Matthew." 



428 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

relates what is improbable, or attacks the character of those whom 
he assails, or was under any temptation to falsehood. But then* 
is no ground for distrusting the main truth of his assertions 
respecting the use which the Hebrew Christians made of the Gos 
pel of Matthew. Of those whom he calls Nazarenes, he says, 
They have the Gospel of Matthew very complete ; for it is well 
known, that this is preserved among them, as it was first written, 
in Hebrew." * Of those whom he calls Ebionites, he says that 
they used the Gospel of Matthew alone, in the original Hebrew, 
calling it the Gospel according to the Hebrews ; and the truth is, 
he adds, that Matthew alone, of all the writers of the New Testa 
ment, composed in Hebrew. f 

About the end of the fourth century, Jerome states that Mat 
thew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew ; and that he had obtained leave 
to transcribe a copy of the Hebrew original from the Nazarenes of 
Bercea in Syria, by whom it was used.f Afterwards, speaking of 
this same work under the name of the Gospel according to the 
Hebrews, he mentions that he had translated it both into Greek 
and Latin, and repeatedly observes that it was generally consid 
ered (ut plerique autumant) as the Gospel of Matthew. 

The original of Matthew s Gospel, being used by the Hebrew 
Christians, naturally obtained the name of " the Gospel according 
to the Hebrews." But copies of it were extant containing spuri 
ous additions and variations. The fathers, with rare exceptions, 
such as Origen and Jerome, from their ignorance of the Hebrew 
could have known but little of the contents of any copy except by 
report. Jerome particularizes certain additions, which he found 
in that used by him. But we have no assurance, that there were 
not other copies extant, even in his time, more conformed to the 
original text. No father, it may safely be presumed, had collated 

* Opp. i. 124. Epiphanius s want of accuracy, however, appears in what 
he immediately subjoins: " But I do not know whether they take away the 
genealogy from Abraham to Christ; " from which words we may conclude, 
likewise, that he had not seen the book of which he speaks. 

t Opp. i. 127. 

J Gatal. Vir. Illust. in Matth. ; Opp. torn. iv. pars ii. col. 102. 

Advers. Pelagianos, lib. iii. ; Opp. torn. iv. pars ii. col. 633. Comment 
in Slaith. xii. 13; Opp. torn. iv. pars i. col. 47. 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 429 

different copies. But the spurious additions of which the fathers 
had heard, and which a very few of their number may have seen 
in some particular copy, and the omission in many copies of the 
first two chapters ascribed to Matthew (of which we shall here 
after speak), threw a suspicion on the work ; and, under the name 
of the Gospel of the Hebrews, it came to be regarded as not a 
canonical book. Hence, in modern times, the opinion has been 
maintained that the Gospel of the Hebrews was originally a dif It-r 
ent work from the Gospel of Matthew. This opinion has been 
strengthened by a false account given by Epiphanius of the Gospel 
of the Hebrews, as he pretends that it existed among those whom 
he calls Ebionites. 

But in regard to those interpolations and changes found in the 
Gospel of the Hebrews, of which we have any authentic informa 
tion, there seems to be no difficulty in explaining their origin. 
The Ebionites, generally, were illiterate. Very few of them, it is 
likely, were acquainted with other books than those of the Old 
Testament and the Gospel of Matthew. Probably there were 
none among them who were transcribers by trade, and none, 
therefore, who had acquired those habits of accuracy and consider 
ation, and that feeling of responsibility, which might be found in a 
regular transcriber. It was to be expected, therefore, that the 
Gospel of Matthew would suffer in their hands. It was, we may 
suppose, carelessly copied ; the number of copies was small, and 
they were not compared together for the sake of correcting one by 
another; marginal additions, by a common mistake of transcribers, 
of which I have before spoken, and which I shall have repeated 
occasion to notice, were introduced into the text ; and it would 
not be strange if there were transcribers who sometimes allowed 
themselves to insert a passage which they had derived from tradi 
tion, or from some other source, and which they regarded as true 
and to the purpose. 

Putting aside the fabulous account of Epiphanius, there are no 
variations in the Gospel of the Hebrews from the Gospel of Mat 
thew but such as may be thus explained. There is no appearance, 
that the Jewish Christians, or any portion of them, undertook to 
refashion the Gospel of Matthew. Nor are the interpolations or 
changes specified such as have the appearance of being made to 
favor their peculiar opinions. 



430 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

In regard to the essential identity of the Gospel of the Hebrews 
with the Gospel of Matthew, it is to be observed, that all the inter 
polations and changes in the former, of which we have any credible 
account, bear but a very small proportion to the contents of the 
Gospel of Matthew. Yet it is probable that Jerome has noticed 
all or nearly all the remarkable variations existing in his copy of 
the Gospel of the Hebrews. It appears, therefore, that, through 
out far the greater part of their contents, they coincided with each 
other. This must have been the fact, or it would not have been 
believed that they were originally the same book. Thus agreeing 
together in far the greater part of their contents, they were the 
same book. The variations found in copies of the Gospel of the 
Hebrews can be considered only as variations in particular copies 
of a common original. The supposition, therefore, is altogether 
groundless, that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of the 
Hebrews were different works, by different authors. 

Matthew wrote in the native language of the Jewish Christians. 
He wrote particularly for their use. There was nothing in his 
Gospel to offend their national prejudices. It is not to be be 
lieved, therefore, that they rejected his Gospel, and substituted an 
anonymous gospel in its stead. 

It was, as we have seen, the common belief of the Gentile Chris 
tians, that the Jewish Christians used the original of Matthew s 
Gospel in a pure or a corrupted state. The Jewish Christians, 
consequently, affirmed that they used Matthew s Gospel ; for other 
wise such a belief could not have prevailed. But no probable 
reason can be given why one party should have affirmed this fact, 
or why the other party should have believed it, except its truth. 

We conclude, then, that Matthew s Gospel was originally 
written in Hebrew ; and that it was preserved in this language, in 
copies with a text more or less pure, by the Jewish Christians till 
about the fifth century, when the traces of their existence as a 
sect disappear from history. 



TEXT OP THE GOSPELS. 431 



SECTION III. 

On some Passages in the Received Text of the Gospels, of which the 
Genuineness is doubtful. 



THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS OP THE PRESENT GREEK GOSPEL Of 
MATTHEW. 

The first passage to be examined consists of the first two chap 
ters of Matthew s Gospel. There is no doubt that they have 
always made a part of our Greek translation ; but this does not 
decide the question, whether they proceeded from the apostle. 
As has been already suggested,* they may have been an ancient 
document, written in Hebrew, originally a separate work, but 
which, on account of its small size and the connection of its sub 
ject, was transcribed into manuscripts of the Hebrew original of 
Matthew, till in time it became blended with his Gospel as a part 
of it, in some copies, one or more of which came into the hands of 
his translator. 

The first point, then, to be attended to in this inquiry is, that a 
large portion of the Jewish Christians did not believe the miracu 
lous conception of our Lord, and had not the account of it, that is, 
the two chapters in question, in their copies of Matthew s Gospel. 
There was nothing in their prejudices or habits of mind which 
could have led them to reject the belief of that fact, and especially 
to mutilate their Gospel in order to get rid of the account of 
it. But if this be so, as it is altogether improbable that the two 
chapters would be lost by accident from any number of copies, it 
follows that they were an addition to the original in the copies in 
which they were found, and not an omission in those in which they 
were wanting. 

The chapters themselves are next to be examined, in order to 
determine whether the narrative contained in them is such as we 
can believe to have proceeded from the apostle ; and, in doing so, 
we must compare it with the account of the nativity given by 

* See before, p. 16. 



432 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

Luke, which, there is no plausible reason for doubting, always 
made a part of his Gospel. Respecting this account, however, a 
few preliminary remarks are necessary. 

I agree with many critics in supposing, that it existed in a 
written form in Hebrew, previously to the composition of Luke s 
Gospel, in which he inserted a translation of it, perhaps his own, 
perhaps one already made. The language differs from that of the 
rest of his Gospel, as being more conformed to the Hebrew idiom ; 
and the cast of the narrative has something of a poetical and even 
fabulous character, very different from the severe simplicity with 
which he, in common with the other evangelists, relates events in 
his own person. But his adopting this narrative proves that he 
regarded it as essentially true ; and he would not have so regarded 
it, had not the main fact of the miraculous birth of Jesus been 
believed to be true by the apostles and other early Christians with 
whom he associated. Now, considering that two, and probably 
three, of the apostles * were relatives of Jesus, and that others of 
their number, as John, were familiar with his mother and family, 
there can be little doubt that the belief of the apostles rested on 
information derived from them. 

The account of Luke, then, being in its more important features 
conformable to the belief of the apostles, any other account incon 
sistent with this, or contradictory to it, cannot be received as pro 
ceeding from an apostle. Let us apply this test to the two 
chapters in question. 

We are first struck with the discrepance between the two gene 
alogies given ; the one by the author of those chapters, and the 
other by Luke. I shall not enter into an examination of the 
various attempts that have been made to show that both may be 
true. They are all conjectural ; and each is exposed to particular 
objections, of a nature to prevent its being received. If, for in 
stance, according to a common notion, Luke had intended to give 
the genealogy of Mary, he would have said so. He would not have 
indicated his meaning so ambiguously and circuitously as by affirm 
ing that Joseph was the son of Heli, when he meant only that he was 
his son-in-law, Heli being Mary s father. But there is a general 



* James the son of Alpheus and his brother Jude, and probably Simon 
the Canaanite. 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 433 

remark which applies to them all. If Matthew were the author of 
the two chapters, the genealogy given by him was regarded as cor 
rect by the other apostles. So also we may infer, with equal confi 
dence, that the genealogy given by Luke was regarded by them as 
correct. It follows, then, that the apostles were acquainted with 
two genealogies, both correct, but at firsc view irreconcilable with 
each other, and the apparent contradiction of which has been re 
garded since the second century as presenting a serious difliculty. 
In giving either of the two, an apostle or evangelist, aware that 
it might be confronted by another, entitled to equal credit, would, 
we may reasonably believe, have had regard to this fact, and 
inserted a few words of explanation. The supposition, it may be 
added, is very unlikely, that, according to the usages of the Jews, 
there should have been two modes of reckoning the descent of the 
same individual, both equally proper. We know nothing to coun 
tenance such an opinion. 

If, then, the genealogy contained in the two chapters be irrec 
oncilable with that of Luke, it cannot have proceeded from Mat 
thew. The most probable conjecture, perhaps, is, that we owe 
it, in common with the remainder of the two chapters, to somo 
Hebrew convert, who composed the narrative shortly after the 
destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews, and who, 
having found a genealogy of some individual by the name of 
Joseph, represented as a descendant of David, mistook it for the 
genealogy of Joseph the husband of Mary. 

As we proceed, the discrepance between the account of the 
nativity of Jesus, as contained in the two chapters, and the ac 
count of Luke, continues to be very striking. 

According to Luke, Joseph and Mary dwelt in Nazareth. On 
the occasion of a proposed census, they both journeyed to Beth 
lehem, where Jesus was born, and where he was visited by shep 
herds, to whom his birth had been announced by angels. Forty 
days after his birth, that is, when the days of Mary s purification, 
according to the Jewish Law, had been accomplished, he was 
presented in the temple, when his high destiny was publicly an 
nounced. Then, after performing all the rites of the Law, Joseph 
and Mary returned to Nazareth. 

The author of the two chapters, without mentioning any pre 
vious residence of Joseph and Mary at Nazareth, relates, that 

28 



434 ADDITIONAL NOTES - 

Jesus was born at Bethlehem ; that certain Magi from the East, 
having seen his star, came to pay him reverence ; that their in 
quiries at Jerusalem concerning the new-born king of the Jewa 
threw Herod and the whole city into commotion ; that they were 
directed by Herod to inform him when they had found the child, 
but were divinely warned not to do so ; and that Joseph was at 
the same time warned that the child s life was in danger, and 
directed to fly with him and his mother into Egypt, which he 
accordingly did, and remained there till after the death of Herod. 
In the account of Joseph s return, the writer shows that he sup 
posed Bethlehem to have been his previous place of residence ; for 
he represents him as prevented only by a new divine warning 
from returning to that city, and as led in consequence to take up 
his abode at Nazareth. 

As it may be a matter of curiosity to those not familiar with the 
subject, I will mention the manner in which it has been attempted 
to reconcile these two accounts. Luke says (ii. 39), that after the 
purification of Mary in the temple, "when they [Joseph and 
Mary] had performed all things according to the Law of the Lord, 
they returned to Galilee, to their own town, Nazareth." But it is 
contended, that, though Luke has so expressed himself, yet the 
return to Nazareth actually meant by him was that following the 
flight into Egypt ; that Joseph and Mary did not go from Jerusa 
lem to Nazareth, but for some reason or other went to reside at 
Bethlehem ; that, during this residence at Bethlehem, the visit of 
the Magi took place ; and, consequently, that it was after the mi 
raculous display of angels at the birth of Jesus, and after the pre 
dictions which accompanied his public presentation in the temple, 
that Jerusalem was first thrown into commotion, and the jealousy 
of Herod excited, by the reports and inquiries of those strangers. 

This, then, is the second very improbable solution of an ap 
parent contradiction between the account in the two chapters and 
the account of Luke ; and it is to be observed, that the improb 
ability of the truth of any narrative increases in a very rapid ratio 
to the number of such solutions required. 

We must consider, that, if the account of Luke respecting the 
birth of Jesus be authentic in its essential features, it must have 
been derived from the mother and family of Jesus, as its original 
source; for they only could furnish an authentic account. But 






TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 435 

the circumstances related in the two chapters are of such a charac 
ter, that they could not have been forgotten or -omitted in their 
narrative, had they taken place ; nor can we refer to the same 
authentic source two narratives apparently so contradictory, which 
coincide in scarcely a single circumstance, and which, in their gen 
eral complexion, present an aspect so different. The account 
of Luke being that received by the apostles, we cannot Lelieve 
another so unlike it to have proceeded from the Apostle Mat 
thew. 

To the narrative in the two chapters, there are other objections, 
arising from its intrinsic character. In the story of the Magi we 
find represented a strange mixture of astrology and miracle. A 
divine interposition is pretended, which was addressed to the 
false opinions of certain Magi, respecting the significance of the 
stars, and for which no purpose worthy of the Deity can be 
assigned. They are represented as having been guided by a star, 
which at last stood over the place where the child was ; though an 
object but a little elevated in the heavens changes its apparent 
position in reference to objects seen on the earth, according to the 
point of view of the spectator. Distrusting, however, the guid 
ance of the star, which had led them as far as Jerusalem, and 
which finally, as we are told, guided them right, they are repre 
sented as inquiring in that city where the object of their search 
was to be found ; and, in making this inquiry, we find them using 
language Where is the new-born king of the Jews ? that must 
have been altogether unintelligible to those not equally favored 
with themselves by a divine communication respecting his birth. 
These inquiries, according to the account, excited great alarm ia 
Herod, who was fast approaching the grave, worn out with insane 
passions, disease, and old age ; and whose want of faith in the 
Jewish religion, and natural temperament, would have led him 
to regard with derision the Jewish expectations of a Messiah. He 
could not have apprehended, that the remainder of his life would 
be disturbed by the future claims to his throne of an infant just 
born in obscurity ; and his solicitude about what might happen, 
years after his death, to those of his children whom he had not 
destroyed, was little likely to disturb him. Yet he is represented 
as having been so carried away by fear and passion, as to act, not 
only with the greatest barbarity, bat the greatest folly, to have 



436 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

ordered an indiscriminate massacre, from which his intended victim 
actually escaped ; when it is clear, that if the preceding circum 
stances related by Luke, or even those related by the author of the 
two chapters, be true, that victim had become far too conspicuous 
not to be very easily identified. 

But, if we reject the two chapters, a difficulty arises ; as the 
original Hebrew Gospel could not have commenced with the first 
words of the third chapter, "But in those days." The diffi 
culty, however, is removed by considering, that these words 
may have been added as a form of transition to a new subject, 
when the two chapters were blended with the Gospel, and that 
the Gospel may originally have begun with the words that fol 
low, "John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of 
Judea ; " that is, in a manner corresponding to the commencement 
of Mark s Gospel. Or the first words may originally have been, 
J In the days of Herod," meaning Herod the tetrarch of Galilee, 
which supposition is, perhaps, countenanced by the story of Epi- 
phanius, before mentioned, that the Gospel of the Ebionites began, 
" In the days of Herod, king ofJudcea;" the addition of which last 
words, king of Judcea, seems to have been a blunder of his own. 

But the commencement of the third chapter, " In those days," 
presents a more serious difficulty upon the supposition that what 
precedes was written by Matthew. The last events mentioned at 
the close of the second chapter are the accession of Archelaus as 
ruler of Judasa, and Joseph s going to reside at Nazareth. But it 
was not in the time of those events, it was not " in those days," 
on the contrary, it was about thirty years afterward, that 
John the Baptist was preaching in the wilderness of Judaea. 

The reasons that have been given may, I think, satisfy us that 
the two chapters in question did not proceed from the Apostle 
Matthew. When we turn to the narrative of Luke, no important 
difficulties will, I think, present themselves to the mind of one 
who has not determined to reject the belief of all miraculous inter 
position. The narrative is, as I have said, in a style rather poetical 
than historical. It was probably not committed to writing till 
after the death of Mary, and of all the other individuals particu 
larly concerned. With its real miracles the fictions of oral tradi 
tion had probably become blended ; and the individual by whom 
it was committed to writing probably added what he regarded af 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 437 

poetical embellishments. It is not necessary to believe, for exam 
ple, that Mary and Zachariah actually expressed themselves in the 
rhythmical language of the hymns ascribed to them ; or to receive 
as literal history the whole account respecting the birth of John 
the Baptist, or of the different appearances of an angel announcing 
himself as Gabriel. With our present means of judging, however, 
we cannot draw a precise line between the truth, and what has 
been added to the truth. But in regard to the main event related, 
the miraculous conception of Jesus, it seems to me not difficult to 
discern in it purposes worthy of God. Nothing could have served 
more effectually to relieve him from that interposition and embar 
rassment in the performance of his high mission, to which he 
would have been exposed on the part of his parents, if born in the 
common course of nature. It took him from the control of Mary 
and Joseph, and made them feel, that, in regard to him, they 
were not to interfere with the purposes of God. It gave him an 
abiding sense, from his earliest years, that his destiny on earth 
was peculiar and marvellous ; and must have operated most pow 
erfully to produce that consciousness of his intimate and singular 
connection with God, which was so necessary to the formation of 
the character he displayed, and to the right performance of the 
great trust committed to him. It corresponds with his office ; 
presenting him, to the mind of a believer, as an individual set 
apart from all other men, coming into the world with the stamp 
of God upon him, answerably to his purpose here, which was to 
speak to us with authority from God. 

n. 

MATTHEW, CHAP. XXVIL 3-10. 

In reference to the original text of our present Greek transla 
tion of Matthew, I know of nothing extant in any considerable 
number of copies, which can be considered as an interpolation of 
any importance. The most remarkable, perhaps, is the doxology 
at the end of our Lord s prayer, already noticed.* But, beside 
the two chapters that have been discussed, there are other pas 
sages which are liable to the suspicion of having been interpolated 

* See before, p. 424. 



438 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

in the copy, or in copies, of the original Hebrew, used by the 
transJator. 

It is to be remarked, that, for determining the text of Matthew s 
Hebrew Gospel, we have but a single authority, the Greek transla 
tion, the representative perhaps of but one manuscript, probably 
not of many. But, where we have but a single manuscript for 
determining the text of an author, and our single authority, the 
Greek translation, amounts to but little more, its evidence is not 
of great weight against a strong presumption of the spuriousness 
of a passage. 

Of the passages referred to, the genuineness of which is suspi 
cious, one is the account of the conduct and fate of Judas on the 
morning after the apprehension of Jesus. I will give it with the 
context, Matt, xxvii. 1-11 : 

" But in the morning, early, all the chief priests and the elders 
of the people met in council to devise how they might procure the 
death of Jesus. And, having bound him, they carried him before 
Pilate the governor, to deliver him up to him. [Then Judas, who 
had put him in their power, seeing that he was condemned, re 
pented, and carried back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief 
priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in betraying the blood of 
an innocent man. But they said to him, What is that to us ? Do 
you look to it. And he threw down the money in the temple, and 
withdrew, and went and hanged himself. But the chief priests, 
taking the money, said, It is not lawful to put it into the sacred 
treasury, since it is the price of blood. And, after consulting 
together, they determined to purchase with it the Potter s Field, as 
a burial-place for strangers. Hence that field has been called the 
Field of Blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what was said by 
Jeremiah the prophet : And they took the thirty pieces of silver, 
the price of him who was appraised, whom the children of Israel 
appraised ; and they gave them for the Potter s Field, as the Lord 
had appointed for me.] Then Jesus stood before the governor, 
and the governor questioned him, saying, Art thou the king of the 
Jews?" 

At first view, this account of Judas has the aspect of an interpo 
lation. It is inserted so as to disjoin a narrative, the different 
parts of which, when it is removed, come together as if they had 
been originally united. Whether it be or be not an interpolation. 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 439 

it is clearly not in a proper place. The whole story apparently 
refers to a period subsequent to the point of time where it is intro 
duced. Between the evening in which Jesus was apprehended 
and early in the morning, no circumstance could have occurred 
to produce a great change in such a mind as that of Judas, or in 
any other. When he betrayed his Master, he knew that he was 
delivering him into the hands of his enemies, whose immediate 
purpose it was to take his life. As the account is now placed, it 
is said, that, in the morning, Judas was affected with bitter remorse, 
because he saw that " Jesus was condemned. 1 But no condemna 
tion had yet been passed upon him by the Roman governor, and 
Judas could have had no new conviction that the Sanhedrim would 
use all their efforts to procure his death. Though it may be pos 
sible to put a different meaning on the words, yet the account, 
according to its obvious sense, represents Judas as having had an 
interview with the chief priests and the elders (that is, with the 
Sanhedrim) in the temple, which is irreconcilable with the course 
of events as represented by Matthew, in the context of the pas 
sage, as well as by the other evangelists. Matthew could not 
have described the Sanhedrim as holding a council in 4he house of 
Caiaphas, and proceeding thence to the house of Pilate, and also 
as being in the temple, where Judas returned them their money, 
and they deliberated what they should do with it. 

The account of Judas we are considering is irreconcilable with 
that given by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles (chap. i. 18, 19). 
Luke says : 

* This man purchased a field with the reward of his iniquity, and, 
falling headlong, burst asunder, so that all his bowels gushed out : 
and this was known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the 
field was called in their language Aceldama ; that is, The Field of 
Blood." 

When Luke says that " this was known to all the inhabitants 
of Jerusalem," we understand him as meaning that it was a com 
mon report in Jerusalem, and that he himself believed it. I will 
not remark on the attempts which have been made to force his 
account into correspondence with that now found in Matthew s 
Gospel. To me it seems clear, that, if Luke s be correct, that 
which we are examining must be erroneous in every particular. 
But there is no doubt that the passage quoted from the Acts 



440 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

is genuine ; and Luke, in giving the common report, may be pre 
sumed to have stated what was believed by the apostles, as well as 
others. 

In the conclusion of the account found in Matthew s Gospel, 
there is an extraordinary misuse of a passage of Zechariah, which 
the writer professes to quote from Jeremiah. I put out of view 
the notion, that he may have found words answering to what he 
has given in an apocryphal book ascribed to Jeremiah, of which 
we nowhere find mention except in a single passage of Jerome, 
more than three centuries after the Gospel of Matthew was 
written. The mistake of the name Jeremiah for Zechariah seems 
to show that the writer quoted from memory ; and this may serve 
in part to explain the strange use which he makes of the words of 
the latter. The changes of sense, which could not have had this 
origin, may be accounted for by the allegorical and cabalistical 
modes of interpreting the Old Testament that existed among the 
Jews. The passage of Zechariah (chap. xi. 12, 13), may be thus 
translated : 

" Then I said to them, If it seem good in your eyes, give me 
my wages. If not, keep them. And they weighed for my wages 
thirty shekels of silver. And Jehovah said to me, Cast it into the 
treasury, the goodly price at which I was valued by them. And I 
took the thirty shekels of silver, and cast them into the house of 
Jehovah, into the treasury." * 

The word here rendered "treasury" commonly means "pot 
ter ; " and the only reason for not so rendering it in the present 
case is the difficulty of explaining why a potter should be spoken 
of as being in the house of the Lord. In the quotation found in 
Matthew, " the potter" is changed into " the Potter s Field." 

The inapplicability of the words of Zechariah to the purpose for 
which they are cited in the passage under consideration needs no 
illustration. Similar perversions of the Old Testament, by chan 
ging the words and sense of the original, may be found in the Rab 
binical writings ; but no other quotation of the same character is 



* I give the translation of my friend, the Rev. Professor Noyes (New 
Translation of the Hebrew Prophets, iii. 210). Jehovah considers the wages 
of the prophet as his own wages, and the contempt of the prophet the same 
as the contempt of himself. 



TEXT OP THE GOSPELS. 4 il 

adduced by Matthew. If we believe the first two chapters to be 
the work of another hand, we may say that he has nothing resem- 
oling this quotation from Zechariah. On the contrary, in the 
quotations which are found elsewhere in his Gospel, the appli 
cability of the words of the original to the subject about which he 
has used them is apparent. This fact indicates the habit of his 
mind, from which we conclude that it is not probable the quo 
tation in question was made by him. 

IIL 

MATTHEW, CHAP. XXVTL, PART OF VEK. 52 AND 63. 

Another passage which one may believe to have been interpo 
lated in the copy, or in copies, of the original Hebrew used by thp 
translator, is that answering to the words of the following quota 
tion which are included in brackets. 

" And lo ! the veil of the temple was torn asunder from the top 
to the bottom; and the earth was shaken, and the rocks were 
rent, and the sepulchres laid open ; [and many bodies of saints 
who slept were raised, and, leaving their sepulchres, after his res 
urrection, entered the holy city and appeared to many.] " 

Who, it may be asked, were these saints? Not disciples of 
Christ ; for many of them had not died. Not unconverted Jews 
of that time ; for to them such a title would not be applied. How 
long had they lain in their sepulchres ? We cannot but suppose, 
that corruption had done its work on the larger portion ; and is it 
to be thought, that God would re-create, as it were, those moulder 
ing bodies without some purpose far different from what can be 
discerned? What purpose, indeed, can be discerned? They 
appeared, it is said, to many ; but we do not find that any converts 
were made in consequence, nor can we perceive that any good 
whatever followed, directly or indirectly, from their appearance. 
Supposing the story to be true, many to whom they did not appear 
would regard it as a fable ; and its circulation would only tend to 
throw discredit on the testimony to the resurrection of Christ 
himself. Were those saints in fact recalled to life, and did 
they die again, and their bodies resume their places, wht.u 
their supposed mission to the living was accomplished? Is it 
possible, if such an astonishing miracle had been performed, p 



442 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

miracle more adapted to excite consternation than any in the 
whole history of the evangelists, that one really acquainted with 
such a fact should have known nothing of the consequences that 
must have resulted from it, or that, knowing those consequences, 
he should not have thought it worth while to record them ? Is it 
likely, that so strange a marvel, about which all Jerusalem must 
have been full of excitement, should have been mentioned but by 
one evangelist, and that so slightly ? Is it credible, that when, as 
far as we know, but three individuals were restored to life by 
Jesus himself, and this in solemn attestation of his divine mission, 
many bodies of saints should have been raised under such circum 
stances as that the fact should contribute little or nothing to estab 
lish the truth of our religion ? 

After Chris fs resurrection, it is said, they left their sepulchres, 
and went into the holy city. In this extraordinary statement we 
may recognize, I think, the fabrication of some relater of the 
story. He apprehended, that, if the saints were represented as 
rising and appearing on the day when Christ was crucified, it 
might seem to deprive him of the title of First-born from the 
dead ; and therefore had recourse to the not very successful expe 
dient of postponing their appearance till after his resurrection. 

If these views are correct, the story must be regarded as a 
fable ; probably one which, in common, perhaps, with others now 
utterly forgotten, was in circulation among the Hebrew converts 
after the destruction of Jerusalem. Some possessor of a manu 
script of Matthew s Hebrew Gospel may be supposed to have 
noted it in the margin of his copy, whence it found its way into the 
text of others, one or more of which fell into the hands of the 
Greek translator. 



In connection with the mention of supposed interpolations in the 
Gospels, I have referred to the words ascribed to our Lord, in the 
fortieth verse of the twelfth chapter of Matthew.* On this pas 
sage I remark below. f 



* See before, p. 17, note. 

t I do not speak of the passage in the text, because I do not believe it 
to be an interpolation. I give the words in brackets, with those preced 
ing : 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 443 

IV. 

TILE CONCLUSION OF MARK S GOSPEL. (CHAP. XVI 9-20.) 

We pass to the Gospel of Mark. In this there is but one pas 
sage that demands consideration. It consists of the last twelve 
verses of his Gospel, from the ninth verse of the sixteenth chapter, 
inclusive, to the end. 

" A wicked and apostate race would have a sign ; but no sign will be 
given it, except the sign of Jonah the prophet. [For as Jonah was three 
days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so will the Son of man be 
three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.] " 

The words of our Lord are thus reported by Luke, chap. xi. 29, 30 : 

" This is a wicked race. It would have a sign ; but no sign will be given 
it, except the sign of Jonah. For such a sign as Jonah was to the Ninevites 
will the Son of man be to this generation." 

If we regard what is given by Luke as a correct report of what was said 
by Jesus, we may suppose, that the explanation of the sign of Jonah, by 
a comparison of his being three days and three nights in the belly of a 
fish with our Lord s being three days and three nights in a tomb, which 
is found in Matthew, but not in Luke, was introduced into our Lord s 
discourse during the time that it was preserved by oral tradition. His own 
brief words leaving his meaning undefined, they were understood by some 
as referring to the extraordinary marvel related in the story of Jonah ; and, 
being so understood, this explanation became connected with them. There 
seems to be no reason for supposing, that it was inserted in Matthew s Gos 
pel by any other than the evangelist himself. 

But it cannot readily be believed, that our Lord would have represented 
his being three days and three nights in the heart of the earth as the only 
sign of his divine mission to be given to the Jews. This would have been 
admitting what they had just implied, that no sign of his divine mission 
had already been given them. 

Nor, if we regard as fabulous the story that Jonah remained alive for 
three days and three nights in a fish by which he had been swallowed, is it 
credible that our Lord would have referred to a fiction of this sort in the 
manner represented; especially as it does not appear from the narrative con 
cerning Jonah, that the supposed miracle was any sign to the Ninevites, or 
was even known to them. 

It may be added, that our Lord is made to say, that he would be three 
days and three nights in the tomb. He was, in fact, laid in the tomb on the 
night of Friday, probably late at night, and rose before the dawn of 
Sunday morning; and no use of language can be produced which may justiry 
the calling of such a period of time three days and three nights. Its being 



444 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

It is remarkable, that while Griesbach does not, in his New 
Testament, affix to them any mark of doubt, he argues at length 
against their genuineness in his Commentarius Criticus. The 
state of external testimony respecting them is as follows : 

They are not found in the Vatican manuscript. In the Codex 
Stephani rj, after the eighth verse, it is said, The following also is 
extant, which words precede a short conclusion undoubtedly spu 
rious, and then come the words, This also is extant; after which 



so called can, I think, be accounted for only by the loose manner in which 
the Jews were wont to accommodate together passages of the Old Testa 
ment, and events of which they regarded those passages as descriptive, 
prophetic, or typical. Of this it is not a remarkable example. 

The meaning of the words of Jesus, as reported by Luke, and also by 
Matthew, with the omission of those under consideration, may be thus ex 
plained : 

Jesus was surrounded by men full of bigotry, evil passions, and mortal 
hatred towards himself, men who were resisting the strongest evidences of 
his divine mission, ascribing his miracles to the agency of Satan, and de 
manding in mockery some sign of hie divine mission, some manifestation of 
God s power in attestation of it, as if the most striking attestations of it had 
not been already given. His view turned to that destruction of their nation 
which was impending over the Jews, as the punishment of their rejection of 
him. No sign, he says, will be given to this wicked and apostate race, no 
manifestation of God s power will be made to them which they will believe 
and feel to be such, except a prophet of destruction such as Jonah was to the 
Ninevites, whose warnings to pursue the train of thought which was in 
the mind of our Lord will be disregarded, and whose predictions of ruin 
will be accomplished. 

Thus he immediately subjoins: " The men of Nineveh will rise up before 
the judgment-seat with this race, and condemn it: for they reformed upon the 
preaching of Jonah ; and lo ! one greater than Jonah is here." 

However fabulous may be the story of Jonah, there was nothing unsuit 
able to our Lord s character in thus using it. Speakers and writers of every 
age and country have recurred to well-known works of fiction as readily as 
to authentic history for analogies and exemplifications fitted to affect the 
imaginations of their hearers or readers. It would be folly to suppose, that, 
in doing so, they meant to vouch for the truth of the books which they 
have thus quoted. It is only in the reasonings of divines that these facts 
have been overlooked, in those reasonings in which our Lord and the 
writers of the New Testament have been considered as giving their authority 
for the truth and for the genuineness of all books referred to or quoted by 
them. 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 445 

follow the twelve verses in question. In more than forty other 
manuscripts, they are accompanied by various remarks, to the 
effect " that they were wanting in some, but found in the ancient 
copies ; " " that they were in many copies ; " * that they had been 
considered spurious, and were wanting in most copies ; " " tliat they 
were not in the more accurate copies ; " and, on the other hand, 
" that they were generally in accurate copies." 

In the other manuscripts of the Gospels boside those mentioned, 
the passage in question is found without remark ; and likewise in 
all the ancient versions, with the exception of the Armenian (in 
the manuscripts of which, as appears, it is either omitted or 
marked as of doubtful credit) , and likewise of the copy of an Arabic 
version preserved in the Vatican Library. 

The nineteenth verse is distinctly quoted by Irenseus as from 
the Gospel of Mark ; * and the passage in question appears to 
have been recognized as genuine by some other fathers. f But no 
part of it is quoted by Origen. According to Eusebius, almost all 
the copies of Mark s Gospel, including the most accurate, ended 
with what is now the eighth verse. J Gregory of Nyssa states, 
that the passage was not found in the more accurate copies ; and 
Jerome says, that it was but in few, being wanting in almost all 
the Greek manuscripts. || I pass over other authorities against it 
of less importance. 

This state of the external evidence is such as to render the 
genuineness of the passage suspicious ; especially when we con 
sider, that it was the natural tendency of transcribers rather to 
preserve than to reject what they found in an exemplar before 
them. They had the feeling, that it rendered their copy more 
complete. To reject was to assume responsibility ; to retain was 
yielding to authority ; and, in addition, there has always been 
a strong, however irrational, sentiment, that, when there is a 
doubt whether a passage may not be a portion of Sacred Writ, it 

* Cent. Haeres., lib. in. c. 10, 6, p 188. 

t Not, however, by Clement of Rome, nor Justin, who are cited as quot 
ing it in the editions of the New Testament by Griesbach and Scholz, nor 
I think, by Clement of Alexandria, who is also adduced. 

| Quaestiones ad Marinum, pp. 61, 62. 

Orat. ii. in Christi Resurrect.; Opp. iii. 411. 

U Ad Hedibiam, de Quaestiouibus ; Opp iv. pars i. col. 172. 



446 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

is profane to reject it, a sentiment of which we have had full 
proof in our day ; the manifest corruptions found in the Received 
Text of the New Testament being, some of them, still inserted in 
editions of the -original, and all of them retained in the Common 
English Version, as published by authority. The dread of taking 
from Scripture any thing which might be a part of it has been far 
stronger than the apprehension, at least equally reasonable, of 
adding to Scripture something not belonging to it. Thus, Euse- 
bius, after mentioning that some rejected the passage under con 
sideration, as wanting in most copies, and among them the most 
accurate, adds, that "others, not daring to reject any thing whatever 
that is extant, through any circumstance, in the manuscripts of the 
Gospels, say that there is here a double reading, as in many other 
places, and that both are to be received, because the faithful and 
pious will not undertake to decide in favor of one rather than tho 
other." * 

But, in addition to this common feeling, transcribers must have 
been peculiarly reluctant to reject the passage before us ; for, if 
struck off, it leaves the Gospel of Mark, in its conclusion, strange 
ly incomplete and unsatisfactory. This, which every one feels, 
must have been felt by them. It is, I conceive, the main argu 
ment for the genuineness of the passage, and one which at first 
view may seem almost conclusive. 

Before, however, considering this argument, we will attend to 
the internal character of the passage, to ascertain what proof this 
may afford respecting the point at issue. 

There is, then, a difference so great between the use of lan 
guage in this passage, and its use in the undisputed portion of 
Mark s Gospel, as to furnish strong reason for believing the pas 
sage not genuine. I give examples in a note below. f 

* Quaestiones ad Marinum, p. 62. 

t There are various words and modes of expression peculiar to this pas 
sage, not connected with the expression of any thing peculiar to its subject; 
but, on the contrary, of such a character, that, if they had been familiar to 
Mark, they would probably have occurred elsewhere in his writings. Such 
are the following: 

Ver. 9. 7rpd>rr/ aa66urov, instead of ^ilq. oa66uTcjv, the expression used by 
Mark a little before, and by all the other evangelists, in speaking of the day 
Hpd)T7] ca66inov occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 447 

To proceed to other considerations : In the ninth verse (the 
6rst of the disputed passage), Mary Magdalene is described as if 
unknown to the reader, " Mary Magdalene, from whom he cast 
out seven demons." Now, as she had been mentioned by Mark 
several times within a few preceding pages, it is not likely that this 
mode of designating her, to be expected only concerning an indi 
vidual first introduced to notice, should have been used by him. 
It seems to have been the work of the author of the addition, 
writing with too little reference to what preceded in the Gospel. 

The words ascribed to our Saviour in these verses differ so 
much in their character from any elsewhere recorded as his, either 
by Mark or any other of the evangelists, that it is difficult to 
believe them to have been uttered by him. " And he said t his 
disciples, Go to all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole 
creation. He who believes and is baptized, shall be safe; he who 
disbelieves, shall be condemned. And these signs shall accom 
pany those who believe : in my name they shall cast out demons ; 
they shall speak new languages ; they shall take up serpents ; if 
they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay 
their hands upon the diseased, and they shall be well." In these 
words, represented as the last that Jesus addressed to his apostles, 
there appears a want of that moral dignity which is characteristic 
of his discourses, and which we should above all expect upon this 
occasion. The particular enumeration of miracles to be performed 
is not in his manner. He would not, in giving his last solemn 
charge to his apostles, have turned away their thoughts from a 



Ver. 10. innvrj, and ver. 11. ay-nnvoL. This use of cKelvoc, not demon 
strative nor emphatical, occurs nowhere else in Mark s Gospel. 

Ver. 10 The expression ol [IET avrov yevofj-evot, to denote the disciples 
of Jesus, of which use of the words there is no other example in the New 
Testament. 

Ver. 19. 6 nvpioe, and ver. 20. rov Kvpiov. Mark in his own person no- 
Mr tere else applies this title to Christ. 

Passing over the words peculiar to this passage, the use of which may be 
accounted for from something peculiar in its subject, the follfwing nowhere 
else occur in the Gospel of Mark : 1. 7ropeio//ai, the participles of which are 
used three times; 2. &euofj.nt t used as a verb, and likewise as its participle; 
3. umaTEU, verb and participle; 4. fiera ravra; 6. Srepof ; 6. varepov; 
7. irapaKohovdEU ; 8. fiXaTrrw ; 9. {Jvrlv; 10. iravra^ov ; 11. 
12. fotfaww; 13. 



448 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

consideration of their high duties to an anticipation of the various 
miraculous powers which they and other believers were to possess. 
Some of the miracles enumerated are of a kind very different frorr 
those which he and his apostles were accustomed to perform. 
They do not, like their works of mercy, bear in their very charac 
ter the stamp of a divine mission. They were liable to be con 
founded with the tricks of pretended magicians. Some of the 
powers promised could be of no use to others, and of none to the 
possessor, except in case of a rare accident. But, above all, if, as 
I think is certain, miraculous powers were not granted to be 
lievers generally, then this promise that they would be so granted 
" These signs shall accompany those who believe" could not 
have been uttered by Christ, and, we may conclude with almost 
equal confidence, could not have been ascribed to him by the 
evangelist. 

There is, throughout these verses, an extraordinary conciseness 
of narration, very different from the common manner of Mark, 
who usually details facts in more words and with more circum 
stances than any other of the evangelists. It is the manner of one 
adding only what he thought necessary to form some proper con 
clusion to the Gospel. 

But on the other hand, to recur to the argument before men 
tioned, it may be said, that it is incredible that Mark should have 
left his Gospel with so abrupt and unsatisfactory an ending as it 
must- have had, if he had broken off with the eighth verse of the 
last chapter ; and that this consideration alone is sufficient to do 
away the whole force of the preceding remarks. I allow it to be 
incredible that Mark should thus have ended his Gospel design 
edly and by choice ; but it is not incredible that he should have 
been interrupted in his labors by accident. What that accident 
was, must be a matter of conjecture. But there is nothing incred 
ible or improbable in supposing, that some accident may have 
occurred to prevent him from finishing his Gospel as he intended ; 
and there are historical circumstances which afford ground for 
conjecturing what that accident may have been. 

According to ancient accounts, of which there is no reason for 
doubting the essential correctness, the apostle Peter, near the 
close of his life, went to Rome, with Mark for his companion. He 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 419 

there preached the gospel, while Mark, as is related, composed, at 
the request of his hearers, a written gospel, of which his preaching 
was the basis. But the terrible persecution of the Christians 
under Nero broke out in the year 64 ; and in that or the following 
year, as appears probable, Peter was crucified. Here all authen 
tic accounts of Mark end ; for the story of his going from Home 
and preaching at Alexandria can be traced no higher than to a 
hearsay of Eusebius, and is connected with relations of a nature 
wholly to destroy its credit. In that persecution, Mark may have 
perished also ; or, if he did not, the anguish of mind which he must 
have suffered, or imprisonment, or a rapid flight from the city, or 
some other cause connected with that period of frightful distress 
and anxiety, may have prevented him from completing his work. 
Copies of it, however, being taken in its imperfect state, we may 
suppose, that, at an early period, some individual possessing one 
of these, who was procuring new transcripts to be made, added the 
brief conclusion which we now find, in order to complete the 
work. As the history is in fact unfinished without it, it soon came 
to be considered by very many as a part of the original Gospel, or 
as a proper addition to it ; and it has thus, we may suppose, found 
Tts way into a great majority of our present copies. 



V. 

LUKE, CHAP. IX. 55, 56. 

When our Lord and his disciples were refused hospitality by 
the Samaritans of a certain village, which was an act of peculiar 
disrespect according to the notions of that age and country, James 
and John, in common, doubtless, with the other disciples, were 
indignant at such treatment. They recollected what, according to 
the Jewish history, had been the dealings of prophets of old with 
those who offended them ; they were disposed, on this as on other 
occasions, to take the lead among the disciples ; and, under the 
excitement of the moment, they addressed Jesus with the ques 
tion, "Master, shall we call down fire from heaven and destroy 
them ? as Elijah did. 

"But he turned and rebuked them; [and said, Ye know not 
of what spirit ye are. For the Son of man came not to destroy 

29 



450 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

men s lives, but to save them.] And they went to another vil 
lage/ 

We can conceive of no words more appropriate to the occasion, 
more suitable to the character of our Lord, or better fitted to 
repress and correct the wrong feelings of his disciples. They 
conveyed a reproof full of instruction, expressed at once in the 
mildest and the most effectual form. 

One who is not a critical student of the New Testament may 
therefore be surprised to learn, that these words were probably 
not in the Gospel of Luke as written by him. They are wanting 
in a large majority of the oldest and most important manuscripts. 

The omission of a passage which was part of the original text 
of a work must be the result either of accident or of design. No 
accident can be supposed which would lead to the concurrent 
omission of a passage in many manuscripts, which, like those in 
the present case, were written independently of one another ; that 
is, of which one was not copied from another. There is only one 
class of accidents of omission which admits of any particular ex 
planation, such as may justify us in supposing the possibility, that 
an accident of this class, affecting a particular passage, might 
occur in a few unconnected copies. The omissions referred to are 
those which proceed from the circumstance, that one clause ends 
with the same word or the same series of syllables as another 
following it, so that the eye of a transcriber may glance from the 
former to -the latter ending, and omit the intervening words, 
omissions in consequence of an homoioteleuton (that is, "like 
ending " ), as they are technically called. But this cause of omis 
sion does not exist in the passage before us. 

If, then, the words ascribed to Jesus originally made a part of 
Luke s Gospel, they must have been omitted by design ; and this 
supposition has been resorted to. It has been suggested, that they 
were struck out by catholic Christians, that the Marcionites might 
not use them in defence of their opinions.* 

As I have elsewhere (ante, pp. 170, 171) more fully ex 
plained, the Marcionites, in common with the other Gnostics, 
regarded Judaism as a very imperfect dispensation, with which 



* " Orthodoxi haec videntur delevisse, ne Marcionitae haberent quo se tue- 
rentur." Wetstein, ad locum. 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 451 

Christianity in many respects stood in contrast ; they conceived 
of it as proceeding, not from the true God, but from an inferior 
god, who had fashioned this material world ; and they believed, 
that the apostles generally, through their Jewish prejudices, did 
not fully comprehend the character of Christianity. In the pas 
sage before us, our Lord is represented as saying to two of the 
principal apostles, " Ye know not of what spirit ye are : " that is, 
as I doubt not that the words should be understood, * Ye know 
not the spirit of my religion ; " and in his own conduct he pre 
sents the spirit of Christianity in contrast with what was conceived 
to be the spirit of Judaism, as exemplified in the story concerning 
Elijah.* The passage, therefore, is one which the Marcionites 
might naturally have thought to be very much to their purpose. 

But we cannot thus account for its omission. Nor can we 
adopt any other supposition, which is designed to explain its 
absence from so many copies, on the ground of there being some 
thing obnoxious in its character. 

There is no evidence, and no probability, that transcribers 
among catholic Christians were accustomed to omit passages 
through the influence of any theological prejudice, or because they 
might seem to them to present a difficulty, of whatever kind that 
might be. If such had been the fact, there must have been abun 
dant evidence of it in the present state of the authorities for 
settling the text of the New Testament ; but such evidence does 
not exist. Catholic Christians, to say nothing of their reverence 
for the Scriptures, were not so deficient in honesty and in good 
sense as to adopt or countenance such a course. In regard to the 
passage before us, every transcriber must have shrunk from thus 
dealing with the words of Jesus himself. Without doubt, like 
wise, the generality of those engaged in the transcription and sale 
of books pursued their business as a trade, and troubled them 
selves little about the bearing of particular passages. 

But should we admit that some few transcribers were so alarmed 
at the use which the Marcionites might make of the passage, that, 
though they could not expunge it from the copies of the Marcion 
ites, they struck it out of their own ; or that they were, for any 
other reason, so scandalized at the words of our Lord, that they 

* The story is told in 2 Kings, chap. i. 



452 ADDITIONAL NOTES 

resolved not to be concerned in preserving them, yet their mis 
conduct could affect only the copies which they transcribed. li* 
we suppose the omission to have been made after the controversy 
with the Marcionites had commenced, it could not have affected 
many thousands of copies already spread over the world, nor 
those copies which might be made by more trustworthy tran 
scribers ; nor could it have counteracted the constant tendency 
there would have been to fill up the gap which had been left, 
the tendency among transcribers, of which I have before spoken, 
to insert, and not to omit. We cannot, therefore, account for the 
absence of the passage from so many copies on the ground of in 
tentional omission. 

But it is further to be observed, that the Marcionites made no use 
of the words of our Lord, though apparently so much to their pur 
pose. If they had done so, we should have evidence of the fact in 
the writings of their opponents, particularly of Tertullian. But 
nothing to that effect appears. This i the more remarkable, as 
Tertullian, in his long work against Marcici, twice notices the use 
which the Marcionites made of the narrative, by contrasting the 
conduct of Jesus and Elijah,* but refers to no appeal made by 
them to the words of Jesus. Had those words been generally 
recognized as genuine in the time of the earlier Marcionites, they 
could hardly have failed to use them. 

In discussing the question, whether a passage omitted in cer 
tain manuscripts should or should not be considered as a part of 
the original text, it has not been uncommon to array on one side 
the authorities which recognize it as genuine, and on the other 
side those which do not. The intrinsic value of one class of au 
thorities, considered in reference to their general character, is 
then weighed against that of the other class, and the passage is 
judged to be genuine or not, according as either class preponder 
ates, except, indeed, that a zeal for defending the Received 
Text often causes the critic to lay a heavy hand upon the scale in 
which are placed the authorities for retaining it. But this mode 
of reasoning is wholly fallacious. If a passage be genuine, we 

* Advers. Marcion., lib. iv. c. 23, p. 438; c. 29, p. 446. 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 453 

may reasonably exj ect to find it, not in a majority of the copies 
of the work to which it belongs, but in all the copies, except so 
far as in particular cases a satisfactory reason may be assigned for 
its omission. If there be any copy in which it is not found, this is 
a fact to be accounted for. An interpolation may be extant in a 
majority of copies. It may have been originally inserted incon 
siderately or fraudulently. It may by mistake have been taken 
from the margin into the text, a mistake of so very frequent 
occurrence, that I am obliged often to refer to it.* Having been 
once inserted, its spread from one copy to many is easily explained 
by the uncritical habits of transcribers, and their disposition to 
retain whatever they found given as a part of the text before 
them. The noted passage interpolated in the Jewish Antiquities of 
Josephus, in which mention is made of Jesus, is not only quoted by a 
series of Christian fathers from Eusebius downward, but is extant 
at the present day in all the manuscripts of that work. It appears, 
therefore, that the genuineness of a passage is not established by 
its being found in a majority of the most important copies of the 
work of which it may be supposed to be a part. To satisfy the 
conditions of proof required, it should be found in all ; unless (as 
I have said) a sufficient and probable cause can be assigned for 
its absence. 

These are general principles of criticism, to be kept in view in 
regard to the passage before us, and others which we are about to 
consider. The present passage, indeed, is not found in a majority 
of the most important manuscripts ; but it is found in a large ma 
jority of the manuscripts of Luke s Gospel, taken indiscriminately, 
and in many of the versions. 

* A marginal note has crept into the text, says Porson in his Letters to 
Travis (pp. 149, 150), "not merely in hundreds or thousands, but in millions 
of places. Naturd, says Daille, ita comparatum est, ut auctorum jyrobatornm 
libros j)lerique omnes amplos quam breves malint ; verentes scilicet, ne quid sibi 
desit, quod auctoris vel sit vel esse dicatur. To the same purpose Bengelius: 
Non facile pro superjluo aliquid hodie habent complurcs docti viri (he might 
have added, omnesque indvcti), eddemque mente phrique quondam librarii 
fuere. From this known propensity of transcribers to turn every thing into 
text which they found written in the margin of their manuscripts or between 
the lines, so many interpolations have proceeded, that at present the surest 
canon of criticism is, Prceferatur lectio brevioi ," 



454 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

Its omission in the copies in which it is not found cannot, as we 
have seen, be accounted for as having been caused either by acci 
dent or by design. We must conclude, therefore, that it did not 
make a part of the original text of Luke s Gospel. 

But, on the other hand, the words carry with them strong in 
trinsic proof that they were spoken by Jesus. Nor can we 
imagine any reason why, if not uttered by him, they should have 
been invented and ascribed to him. 

In this state of the case, the only solution of the appearances 
that present themselves seems to be, that the words ascribed to 
our Lord were spoken by him ; that they were preserved in the 
memories of those who heard him, and communicated by them to 
others ; and that, not having been recorded by Luke, they were 
first written in the margin, and then introduced into the text 
of his Gospel. 

But the appearances are such, that, this general explanation 
being given, we must enter further into particulars. The Cam 
bridge manuscript and some other authorities omit only the last 
words ascribed to our Lord, and preserve the first; namely, " Ye 
know not of what spirit ye are." And some manuscripts, in 
cluding the Vatican and the Codex Stephani J?, which omit all our 
Lord s words, omit also the words, "As Elijah did." It may 
seem, therefore, that the account of the words of our Lord and his 
disciples was not introduced in a complete form at once, but that 
the text owes its present state to marginal additions made at 
three different times; first, the words, " As Elijah did" being 
written down, as these are wanting in the smallest number of 
manuscripts, then those first spoken by our Lord, and then his 
remaining words. 

VI. 

LUKE, CHAP. XXII. 43, 44. 

In thi Gospel of Luke there is but one other passage of any 
importance, the genuineness of which there seems good reason for 
doubting. It consists of the forty-third and forty-fourth verses of 
the twenty-second chapter. 

"And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strength 
ening him. And. being in an agony, he prayed the more ear- 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 455 

nestly ; and his sweat was as great drops of blood falling to the 
ground." 

Not to mention some other authorities of little consequence, 
these verses are wanting in the Alexandrine and Vatican manu 
scripts. They are likewise not in the Sahidic version. In ten 
manuscripts, three of them in uncial letters, they are marked as 
doubtful. 

They are not quoted by Origen or by Tertullian. The fact 
is remarkable, especially as regards the latter writer, in whose 
earnest arguments against those heretics who denied that Christ 
had a body of flesh and blood, no passage in the Gospels would 
have seemed more to his purpose. 

In the fourth century, Hilary, Bishop of Poictiers, says, " We 
ought not to be ignorant, that in very many Greek and Latin 
manuscripts (in Greeds et in Latinis codicibus complurimis) 
nothing is to be found concerning the coming of the angel, or the 
bloody sweat." * 

Jerome, in writing against the Pelagians, reproaches them with 
believing that men can will what is good without the grace of God, 
when even the Saviour was strengthened by an angel. " In some 
copies," he says, both Greek and Latin (in quibusdam exemplari- 
bus tarn Greeds quam Latinis), we find that " there appeared to 
him an angel from heaven strengthening him," &c., to the end of 
the passage. f Jerome was not of a temper to understate facts 
from which he was reasoning ; and, when he says that it was found 
in some copies, we may conclude, that it was, as Hilary says, want 
ing in very many. 

Epiphanius likewise reasons from the passage, his purpose being 
to prove the double nature of Christ. But he says of it, "It is 
found in Luke s Gospel, in those copies which have not been sub 
jected to a revision ; and the holy Irenaeus, in his work against 
Heresies, uses it as an argument to confute those who denied the 
real body of Christ : J but orthodox persons struck it out through 
fear, not understanding its bearing and its great force." 



* De Trinitate, lib. x. 41 ; Opp. col. 1062. 
t Adversus Pelagianos, lib. ii. ; Opp. iv. pars ii. col. 521. 
t It is referred to by Irenseus, lib. iii. c. 22, 2, p. 219. 
Ancorat, xxxi.; Opp. ii. 36. 



466 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

Epiphanius does not assert that it was found in many copies 
of his time. It was found, he says, in those which had not 
been revised, that is, inspected, after the transcriber had done 
his work, by some person responsible for the correctness of 
the text, a care which was undoubtedly taken of all copies 
pretending to accuracy. It was found in so few, that, in order 
to prove its genuineness, he appeals to its being quoted by 
Irenaeus ; and not venturing to assert, as he undoubtedly would 
have done if he had dared, that it had been expunged by heretics, 
he lays the charge upon "orthodox persons, 11 a charge utterly 
improbable. 

After the prevalence, in the fifth century, of the MonopJiysite 
heresy, the heresy which ascribed but a single nature to Christ, 
and that the divine, the passage became a favorite text with the 
orthodox, as proving his double nature. It had, much earlier, 
been used by Irenaeus against those who denied the real body of 
Christ. Thus recommended to the favor of the early Christians, and 
of the orthodox of later times, it readily made its way into a great 
majority of our extant authorities, assisted, doubtless, by the oper 
ation of the principle which led those who had the care of the 
transcription of manuscripts rather to admit what was of doubtful 
credit, than to reject what might be a part of Scripture. We have 
proof from writers of the ninth and tenth centuries of its use in the 
Monophysite controversy, and, at the same time, of its continued 
absence from many copies ; for they charge its omission upon the 
Monophysite Christians of Syria and Armenia.* 

The objections which present themselves to the passage, con 
sidered in its intrinsic character, are the following : The agony 
of Christ is represented as existing after the angel had been sent 
to strengthen him. The bloody sweat described is such as we 
have no authority for believing was ever produced by mere distress 
of mind, if it have been by any other cause. The account appears 
at variance with the character of Christ, and especially with that 
calmness, self-possession, and firmness which he manifested during 
the evening and night previous to his apprehension, before and 
after separating from his disciples on Mount Olivet ; and with 
which his expressions of great suffering, recorded by the other 

* Vide Wetsten. Nov. Test., ad locum. 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 457 

evangelists, present nothing inconsistent. It does not appear bow 
any one could have witnessed, or become acquainted with, the 
events related ; for Jesus had removed to a distance from hig dis 
ciples, and, when he returned, found them asleep. There is noth 
ing improbable in the supposition, that, even amid the horror of 
those moments, he told them, for their benefit, in a few brief words, 
what had been the purport of his prayer; and he might, indeed, 
have also communicated the facts in question, supposing them to 
have occurred. But had they really been made known by him, 
under such circumstances, they were adapted to produce so deep 
and lasting an impression upon the feelings, that an apostle, as 
Matthew, could hardly have forborne to relate them. We should 
expect to find them mentioned, not by one evangelist only, but 
by all. 

It may be observed further, that, if this passage be struck out, 
the parts of the text which it separates come together, as if the 
passage had been interposed between them, without any appear 
ance of a chasm. 

We may suppose, then, that it was a passage first written in the 
margin of some very early manuscript, and subsequently, through 
the mistake of transcribers, taken into the text of other copies. 
The narrative perhaps owes its present form to a misunderstand 
ing of language. It having been said, that Jesus, in his agony, 
received strength from on high, and angels being regarded by the 
Jews as the ministers of God, it was inferred, we may suppose, 
that he was strengthened by the mission of an angel. There is 
likewise ground for believing, that " to weep blood " was anciently 
an expression for weeping bitterly, and that "to sweat blood" 
was used to denote a violent struggle ; and the account before us 
may have arisen from taking such figurative language in too literal 
a sense. 

If the passage were, as I think, originally a marginal addition, 
it must have been made in an early age, and have soon been taken 
into the text of some manuscripts ; for it is quoted by Justin Mar 
tyr in the following words, which are remarkable from apparently 
involving a reference to Luke, as one of the companions of the 
apostles: "In those Memoirs which I affirm to have been com 
posed by apostles of Christ and their companions, it is said 
that sweat like drops of blood flowed from him while pray" 



458 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

ing" * A little later, as we have seen, it was quoted by Irenseus. 
It is said to have been alleged by Hippolytus, not long afterwards, 
in proof of the human as well as divine nature of Christ. f But I 
find no reference to its appearing in the writings of any other of 
the fathers, before the notice of it already quoted from Hilary, 
about the middle of the fourth century. 



VII. 

JOHN, CHAP. V. 3, 4. 

We proceed to the Gospel of John. The first passage to be 
noticed is the account of the descent of an angel into the Sheep- 
pool at Jerusalem. I will give the words which are probably 
spurious in their connection, putting them within brackets. 

JOHN v. 1-8. " After this there was a festival of the Jews ; 
and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now,- there is at Jerusalem, by 
the Sheep-gate, a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five 
porches. In these lay a number of diseased persons, blind, lame, 
withered, [waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel, 
at certain times, descended into the pool, and troubled the water ; 
then whoever first entered it, after the troubling of the water, 
was cured of whatever disease afflicted him.] And there was a 
man there who had been diseased for thirty-eight years. This 
man Jesus saw lying, and, knowing that his disease had now con 
tinued for a long time, said to him, Wilt thou be made well? 
The sick man answered him, Master, I have no one to put me 
into the pool when the water is troubled. But, while I am going, 
some other descends before me. Jesus says to him, Rise, take 
up thy bed, and walk." 

The whole of the doubtful passage is omitted in the Vatican 
manuscript, in the Ephrem as first written, in two others of less 
note, in manuscripts of the Coptic version, and in some one or 
more of the Sahidic ; and Nonnus, who, about the beginning of 
the fifth century, wrote a metrical paraphrase of the Gospel of 



* Dial, cum Tryph., p. 361. 

t Hippolytus is quoted to this effect by Theodoret in his Eranistes, Dial 
ii. j Opp. iv. p. 89. 



TEXT OP THE GOSPELS. 459 

John, says nothing of the descent of an angel, but speaks of the 
water as rushing forth in spontaneous jets. 

The fourth verse, beginning, For an angel, &c., is omitted in 
the Cambridge manuscript and one other, and is marked as 
doubtful in more than fifteen others. It is wanting in the manu 
scripts of the Armenian version generally, and in several of the 
old Latin versions. 

On the other hand, this verse being retained, the last clause 
of the third, waiting for the moving of the waters, is wanting 
in the Alexandrine manuscript, as first written, the Codex Ste- 
phani y, and one other. 

I find no historical remarks respecting the omission or insertion 
of the story of the descent of an angel. It is referred to by Ter- 
tullian,* but it is not noticed in the extant works of any other Chris 
tian writer before Ambrose and Chrysostom in the fourth century. 
The pool spoken of in the passage appears to have been fed by 
an intermitting spring. The story of the descent of the angel was 
founded on the superstition of the Jews, who, in common with the 
Heathens, were accustomed to ascribe any remarkable natural 
phenomenon to supernatural agency. What the former accounted 
for by the descent of an angel, the latter might have explained 
by some mythological fable. The circumstances of the case alto 
gether preclude the supposition, that, in giving this solution, there 
was any pretence that the descent of the angel was visible. 

In the simple narrative, which alone, I conceive, is to be 
ascribed to St. John, something, as is not uncommon with the 
evangelists, is left unexplained ; namely, what is meant by the 
moving of the waters, and why it was supposed that then only they 
had a sanative power. This, I presume, led some early possessor 
or transcriber of a manuscript of his Gospel to write the popular 
account in its margin, whence it was assumed into the text of 
others. But for its omission, or the marks of doubt with which it 
is inserted, no satisfactory reason can be given, supposing it to 
have been originally written by St. John.f 

* De Baptismo, c. 5, p. 226. 

t In the passage the following words occur, not elsewhere used by John : 
iKdexopai, STJKOTE, /care^w, and voarj/Lta, beside KIVTJOIS and /card xatpov, 
the use of which in this passage alone may be accounted for by the nature 
of its subject. 



460 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

We have reason to believe that St. John did not adopt the 
error of his countrymen respecting the agency of an angel in 
the case in question, because he appears to have been free from 
another much more general. He ascribes no diseases to demonia- 
*al possession. 

VIII. 

JOHN, CHAP. VH. 53 VHI. 11. 

The narrative of the woman taken in adultery is omitted in so 
oiany copies, and marked as doubtful or spurious in so many 
others, that, reasoning on the principles which have been laid 
down, we may conclude with confidence that it was not written by 
rft. John. But I perceive no ground for questioning the truth of 
the account : it is related in a striking and natural manner, and 
bears an intrinsic character of probability. 

There are, in different copies of this narrative, great variations 
of language, expressive of the same essential meaning. This may 
be accounted for in several ways. We may supppose that the 
story was first written in some other language than the Greek, and 
translated into this by two different hands ; or that, being first 
written in Greek, and then translated into Latin, it is found in . 
some copies, as the Cambridge manuscript for example, retrans 
lated from the Latin into the Greek; or, what is perhaps as 
probable a solution as any, that it was written down in Greek by 
two different individuals, from the oral narration of St. John, and 
afterwards appended to his Gospel, in which it had not been 
inserted by himself. The passage may be thus rendered, according 
to what are perhaps the most probable readings : 

"And every one went to his house; and Jesus went to the 
Mount of Olives. But in the morning he was again in the temple, 
and all the people came to him ; and, having sat down, he was in 
structing them, when the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees 
brought a woman taken in adultery, and, placing her in the midst, 
said to him, Teacher, this woman was taken in the very act of 
adultery ; and, in the Law, Moses commands us that such should 
be stoned to death : what now dost thou say ? This they asked 
with a design to ensnare him, that they might have an accusation 
against him. Then Jesus, bending down, wrote with his finger 



TEXT OF THE GOSPELS. 461 

upon the ground. But, as they persisted in questioning him, he 
raised his head, and said to them, Let him among you who is with 
out sin cast the first stone at her. And, bending down again, he 
wrote upon the ground. And, hearing this, they went out one by- 
one, beginning with the oldest ; and Jesus was left alone with the 
woman standing in the midst. Then Jesus, raising his head, said 
to her, Woman, where are they ? Did no one sentence thee ? 
She said, No one, Master. Then Jesus said to her, Neither do 
I sentence thee : go and sin no more." 



IX. 

JOHN, CHAP. XXI. 24, 25. 

It may seem that the words with which John s Gospel now 
concludes could hardly have been written by the apostle. He, I 
conceive, ended his Gospel thus : 

" This is the disciple who testifies concerning these things, and 
has written them." 

The addition follows : 

["And we know that his testimony is true. And there are 
many other things that Jesus did, which, if they were severally 
written, I do not think that the world itself would contain the 
books written."] 

It is hardly to be supposed, that the apostle would say of him 
self, " We know that his testimony is true," subjoining immedi 
ately after, I do not think." This is not the style of any writer 
in speaking of himself. The extravagant hyperbole in the second 
sentence, also, is foreign from the style of St. John. The passage 
appears to be an editorial note, which, written probably at first 
a little separate from the text, became incorporated with it at a 
very early period. 

According to ancient accounts, St. John wrote his Gospel at 
Ephesus, over the church in which city he presided during the 
latter part of his long life. It is not improbable, that, before his 
death, its circulation had been confined to the members of that 
church. Thence copies of it would be afterwards obtained ; and 
the copy for transcription was, we may suppose, accompanied by 
the strong attestation which we now find, given by the church, or 



462 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

the elders of the church, to their full faith in the accounts which i 
contained, and by the concluding remark made by the writer 
of this attestation in his own person. 

There is no external authority, properly speaking, for rejecting 
this passage. In one manuscript, the last verse is omitted ; and, 
in several others, it is said to have been thought by some to be an 
addition. The character of the language, however, is different 
from that of John.* 

I have thus gone through with all the passages of length or 
importance, in the Received Text of the Gospels, the genuineness 
of which appears to me improbable. It is obvious, that, should 
we adopt all the conclusions proposed, nothing would be detracted 
from the value of the Gospels. On the contrary, we should, I 
think, only remove from their text some blemishes and discord 
ances by which it has been corrupted. 

* The use of baa (whatever}, as equivalent simply to the relative a 
(which, that), is not common, and does not occur elsewhere in John. It was 
accordingly changed to a by Origen, Chrysostom, and Cyril; and a is sub 
stituted for it in the Vatican and other manuscripts. It is such a use of foof 
as a native Greek might fall into from meeting with its frequent occurrence 
in the New Testament, without appreciating its exact force. Ka$ Iv is no 
where else found in what was probably written by the apostle. (It occurs 
once in the Apocalypse ; and eZf icad eZf is a various reading in the inter 
polated passage in the eighth chapter of his Gospel.) It is here used illogi- 
cally, its proper meaning being one by one, severally ; whereas the meaning 
intended is all. Oifiat (in this form) occurs nowhere else in the New Testa- 
meat or Septuagint; tior is any form of olofiai elsewhere used by John. 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 463 



NOTE B. 

(See pp. 61, 94, 100.) 

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE CORRESPONDENCES AMONG TH1 
FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 

SECTION I. 
Preliminary Statement. 

THE remarkable agreement among the first three Gospels has 
given occasion to many attempts to explain its origin. But gen 
erally, in the hypotheses that have been framed, it has not been 
sufficiently kept in mind, that its occurrence with so much that is 
dissimilar is one of the principal phenomena to be accounted for ; 
and that, though our ultimate purpose be to solve the problem 
of the correspondences among those Gospels, it must embrace 
likewise a solution of their differences. Together with this, the 
appearances to be explained are as follows : 

Many portions of the history of Jesus are found in common in 
the first three Gospels ; others are common to two of their num 
ber, but not found in the third. In the passages referred to, there 
is generally a similarity, sometimes a very great similarity, in the 
selection of particular circumstances, in the aspect under which the 
event is viewed, and the style in which it is related. Sometimes, 
the language found in different Gospels, though not identical, is 
equivalent, or nearly equivalent ; and, not unfrequently, the same 
series of words, with or without slight variations, occurs through 
out the whole or a great part of a sentence, and even in larger 
portions. 

The occurrence of passages verbally the same, or strikingly 
coincident in the use of many of the same words, which appear 
ances I shall denote by the term verbal coincidence, or verbal 
agreement* particularly demands attention. In maintaining the 



464 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

hypothesis that the evangelists copied from common documents, 
much stress has been laid upon it; but its importance, as a 
ground of argument for that hypothesis, disappears, when the 
subject is more thoroughly examined, and viewed in a proper 
light. By far the larger portion of this verbal agreement is found 
in the recital of the words of others, and particularly of the words 
of Jesus. Thus, in Matthew s Gospel, the passages verbally coin 
cident with one or both of the other two Gospels amount to less 
than a sixth part of its contents ; and, of this, about seven-eightlis 
occur in the recital of the words of others, and only about one- 
eighth in what, by way of distinction, I may call mere narrative, 
in which the evangelist, speaking in his own person, was unre 
strained in the choice of his expressions. In Mark, the propor 
tion of coincident passages to the whole contents of the Gospel 
is about one-sixth, of which not one-fifth occurs in the narrative. 
Luke has still less agreement of expression with the other evan 
gelists. The passages in which it is found amount only to about 
a tenth part of his Gospel ; and but an inconsiderable portion of 
it appears in the narrative, in which there are very few instances 
of its existence for more than half a dozen words together.* In 
the narrative, it may be computed as less than a twentieth part. 

These definite proportions are important, as showing distinctly 
in how small a part of each Gospel there is any verbalcoincidence 
with either of the other two ; and to how great a degree such 
coincidence is confined to passages in which the evangelists pro 
fessedly give the words of others, particularly of Jesus. 

The proportions should, however, be further compared with 
those which the narrative part of each Gospel bears to that in 
which the words of others are professedly repeated. Matthew s 
narrative occupies about one-fourth of his Gospel, Mark s about 
one-half, and Luke s about one-third. It may easily be com 
puted, therefore, that the proportion of verbal coincidence found 
in the narrative part of each Gospel, compared with what exists in 
the other part, is about in the following ratios : in Matthew as 
one to somewhat more than two, in Mark as one to four, and in 
Luke as one to ten. 



* The most remarkable example is Luke ix. 16, where Luke coincides 
with both Matthew and Mark, through more than half a verse. 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 465 

As a preliminary, then, toward accounting for the agreoment 
of language in the first three Gospels, we must divide each of 
them into two portions ; the one consisting of that part in which 
the evangelist speaks in his own person, and the other of words 
professedly not his own. Having done this, it appears from the 
statements before made, that the same cause could not have 
operated alone, in both these different portions, to produce coin 
cidence of language. We cannot explain this phenomenon by the 
supposition, that the Gospels were transcribed either one from 
another, or all from common documents ; for, if such transcrip 
tion had been the cause, it would not have produced results so 
unequal in the different portions into which the Gospels naturally 
divide themselves. 

But, in regard to the words of Jesus, other causes were in 
operation, that may account for the verbal coincidences among 
the evangelists, in their reports of what he said. There was, in 
this case, an invariable archetype, to which each writer would 
endeavor to conform himself. Events may be correctly related 
in many forms of language different from each other. Words 
can be repeated with accuracy only in one form. But each of the 
first three evangelists intended to give the words of his Master 
as they were uttered by him. Nor is it to be supposed, that the 
evangelist, while writing, merely recollected those words as having 
been formerly uttered by Jesus, and repeated them for the first 
time. He had often, without doubt, quoted them in his oral 
discourses, and heard them quoted by his fellow-preachers of 
Christianity. From the nature of the case, they must, many 
of them, have become formularies in which the doctrines and 
precepts of our religion were expressed. The agreement of the 
first three evangelists, in their reports of the words of Christ, is 
no greater than these considerations would lead us to anticipate. 
There is no ground for any other hypothesis concerning it. 

Some of the same considerations will explain also the agree 
ment of the evangelists, so far as it exists, in their reports of 
the words spoken by others beside their Master, particularly such 
as were connected with his own, as leading to some reply or re 
mark from him. 

There is another case in which the first three evangelists repeat 
the words of others. It is in their quotations from the Old Testa- 

30 



466 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

ment. These are commonly derived from the Septuagint version, 
without direct reference to the Hebrew text. Those which they 
have in common all appear to have been taken from that version ; 
whether they are found in our Greek translation of St. Matthew s 
Gospel, or in the Greek originals of Mark and Luke. Now, as 
far as the evangelists verbally agree at once with the Septuagint 
and each other, or as far as they verbally differ from eiich other 
in their quotations, no explanation is required as regards our 
present purpose. Neither circumstance can prove a connection 
among them of any kind. But there are several instances in 
which either two or* all three of the evangelists agree with each 
other, and at the same time differ from our present copies of the 
Septuagint. In regard to this fact, it is to be observed, that 
the text of the Septuagint has, from various causes, undergone 
very considerable changes ; and we cannot conclude, that, because 
a reading is not found in any of our present copies, it was not 
extant in copies in the time of the evangelists.* If there be 
cases, as I believe there are, in which two or all of the evange 
lists agree in a reading, not only varying from the text of our 
present copies, but from that of the copies commonly used by 
them, these cases may be explained by the supposition, that the 
passage, having been frequently used in the oral discourses of 
the apostles and their companions, had undergone a change 
of its original form. This change may have been accidental, as 
verbal accuracy was often neglected in such quotations ; or it 

* This remark may be illustrated by the different readings of two of 
our present copies in a passage (Zech. xiii. 7), which Matthew (xxvi. 31) 
and Mark (xiv. 27) agree verbally in quoting, except that two words are 
added by Matthew. As given by them, it is as follows: TLara^u rbv 
iro!./Liva, teal dLaaKOpmadqaETai ra 7rp6/3ara (Matthew adds, rrjg Troifivrjc) . 
The reading of this passage in the Vatican text of the Septuagint is, 
IIardar roi)f 7roi//evof, Kai kKCTrdcare ra 7rpo/3ara. Here seems a great 
variation in the evangelists; but the Alexandrine text of the Septuagint has 
these words : Tlaral-ov rbv Troifieva, KCU dtaGKOpTriodfjoovrcu ra irpo^ara r^f 
7roi{j.v7). Such differences of reading existing in our present copies of the 
Septuagint, it is not improbable that the copies extant in the age of the 
evangelists had still different readings, to which the quotations in the Gos 
pels may have been conformed in some of the examples of verbal coincidence 
with each other in which they differ from all existing manuscripts of the 
Septuagint. 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 467 

may have been made intentionally, as there sometimes appear 
to be reasons for it. In either case, it would be the form of 
words with which the evangelists were most familiar. 

The preceding remarks respecting the recital of the language 
of others by the first three evangelists will hereafter receive 
further illustration. I make them in this place, that they may 
be kept in view during our examination of those hypotheses, 
according to which the verbal coincidences and other corre 
spondences among the first three evangelists are the result of 
their having copied either one from another, or all from common 
documents. No argument for either supposition can, I think, be 
founded upon their agreement in their reports or citations of the 
words of others. In this portion of their Gospels, the amount 
of verbal coincidence is not greater than what the causes sug 
gested might lead us to expect. 

There is another consideration to be attended to, respecting 
the verbal correspondence of the first three Gospels. Whether 
we take the term in a stricter or looser sense, as denoting either 
sameness, or great resemblance, or equivalence of language, this 
correspondence does not lie together in masses. With rare ex 
ceptions, it does not extend unbroken through passages of any 
considerable length. It is in fragments, scattered here and there, 
and interrupted by a dissimilitude of ideas and language, running 
through far the greater part of each Gospel. As an example of 
this intermixture in a particular passage, we may take the account 
of the cure of the paralytic at Capernaum. As the verbal corre 
spondence of the evangelists may be made as apparent in our 
own language as in the original, I shall in this, and in other 
similar cases, give the passages quoted in a translation. The 
diversity of expression cannot always be equally well represented : 
but this is unimportant as regards our purpose. 

MATT. ix. 1-8. MARK ii. 1-12. LUKE v. 17-26. 

And, going on board And again, after And it happened one 

the boat, he passed over some days, he entered day, that he was teach- 

and came to his own Capernaum; and the ing; and there were 

city news spread that he was sitting by Pharisees and 

in his house there. And teachers cf the Law, 

immediately many were who had couae frora 



468 



ADDITIONAL NOTES. 



MATT. ix. 1-8. 



And lo ! they brought 
to him a paralytic, laid 
ou a bed. 



And Jesus, perceiv 
ing their faith, said to 
the paralytic, Take 
courage, son: thy sins 
are forgiven thee. 

And, behold! some 
of the teachers of the 
Law said within them 
selves, This man blas 
phemes. 



And Jesus, perceiv 
ing their thoughts, said, 
Why are ye thinking 
evil in your hearts? For 
which is easier, to say, 
Thy sins are forgiven, 
or to say, Rise, and 
walk? But that ye may 
know that the Son of 
man has authority on 



MARK ii. 1-12. 

collected, so that there 
was no room for them 
even before the door; 
and he taught them his 
doctrine. 

And they came to 
him bringing a paralyt 
ic, borne by four men. 
And, not being able to 
get near him on account 
of the crowd, they re 
moved a part of the 
awning over where he 
was, and, breaking 
through, let down the 
bed on which the para 
lytic was lying. 



And Jesus, perceiv 
ing their faith, said to 
the paralytic, Son, thy 
sins are forgiven. 

But there were some 
of the teachers of the 
Law sitting there, who 
said in their hearts, 
How is it that this man 
speaks such blasphe 
mies? Who can for 
give sins, except one, 
God? 

But Jesus, immedi 
ately knowing in his 
mind that they thus 
thought within them, 
said to them, Why 
think ye thus in your 
hearts ? Which is 
easier, to say to the 
paralytic, Thy sins are 
forgiven, or to say, 



LUKE v. 17-26. 
every town of Galilea 
and Judaea, and from 
Jerusalem ; and the 
power of the Lord was 
displayed in the healing 
of the sick. 

And lo! some per 
sons brought on a bed 
a man who was a para 
lytic, and were desirous 
to carry him in and lay 
him before Jesus. And 
not finding any way to 
carry him in, on account 
of the crowd, they got 
on the house-top, and 
lowered him down from 
the roof, with his bed, 
into the midst before 
Jesus. 

And perceiving their 
faith, he said, Man, thy 
sins are forgiven thee. 



And the teachers of 
the Law, and the Phari 
sees, began to say in 
their hearts, Who is 
this man who speaks 
blasphemies ? Who can 
forgive sins except God 
alone? 

But Jesus, knowing 
their thoughts, said to 
them, What are ye 
thinking in your hearts ? 
Which is easier, to say, 
Thy sins are forgiven, 
or to say, Rise and walk ? 
But that ye may know 
that the Son of man 
has authority on earth 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 



469 



MATT. ix. 1-8. 
earth to forgive sins, 
then he says to the par 
alytic, Rise, take up thy 
bed,* and go to thy 
house. 



And he rose up, 



and went to his house. 



And the multitude 
who were looking on 
were struck with aston 
ishment, and glorified 
God, who had given 
such power to men. 



MAKK ii. 1-12. 
Rise, take up thy bed, 
and walk? But that 
ye may know that the 
Son of man has author 
ity on earth to forgive 
sins, he says to the 
paralytic, I say to thee, 
Rise, take up thy bed,* 
and go to thy house. 

And he rose up im 
mediately, and, taking 
up his bed, he went out 
before them all ; 



so that they were all 
full of amazement, and 
glorified God, saying, 
We never saw the like. 



LUKE v. 17-26. 
to forgive sins, he said 
to the paralytic, I say 
to thee, Rise, and, tak 
ing up thy bed,* go to 
thy house. 



And directly rising 
up before them, and 
taking up what he was 
lying upon, he went to 
his house glorifying 
God. 

And amazement 
seized upon all; and 
they glorified God, and 
were filled with awe, 
saying, We have seen 
wonderful things to 
day. 



Thus, in other passages, in which there is a verbal correspond 
ence among the evangelists, it sometimes amounts to identity of 
language, though very rarely through a whole sentence, where 
they narrate in their own persons ; sometimes it presents various 
shades of resemblance, but, in either case, is almost always broken 
into short portions, and separated by matter in which the evange 
lists diverge from each other; sometimes into real or apparent 
discrepancies. It is evident, therefore, that no theory to account 
for the agreement of the first three Gospels, one with another, can 
be satisfactory, unless it afford, likewise, an explanation of their 
want of agreement, or, in other words, of the peculiar circumstances 
under which their correspondences present themselves. 

We will now turn to another fact which requires our attention, 
in reference to the agreement and disagreement of the first three 



* The three evangelists use three different terms for bed, Matthew, 
Mark, Kpd66aro<; ; and Luke, 



470 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

Gospels. It is, that, in the order of events related in common by 
the three evangelists, Mark and Luke differ from Matthew, and coin 
cide with each other, particularly in three remarkable instances. 

In the first of them, Matthew (viii. 1-4) represents the cure of 
a leper as having been performed by Christ previously to his being 
in Capernaum on the sabbath, as related in the eighth chapter of 
his Gospel ; while Mark and Luke represent what is obviously the 
same cure as having been performed by Christ after leaving the city.* 

Another discrepance, which is more extraordinary, is as fol 
lows. According to Matthew, Jesus, in the evening (as appears) 
of the sabbath (Saturday) just mentioned, which he spent at 
Capernaum, left the city, crossed the Lake of Galilee in a boat 
with his disciples, miraculously stilled a tempest which befell 
them on their course, arrived in the country of the Gadarenes, and 
there restored sanity to two demoniacs, returned immediately 
after to Capernaum, and on Monday (as appears) cured a per- 
eon afflicted with palsy, called Matthew to be a disciple, was 
present at an entertainment .(in Matthew s house, as we learn 
from Luke), justified his disciples for not fasting, healed a 
woman with an issue of blood, and restored the daughter of 
Jairus to life.f On the other hand, Mark and Luke represent 
the voyage across the Lake of Galilee, and the events of the 
two days following, excepting the cure of the paralytic, the 
call of Matthew, and the entertainment at his house, with the con 
versation about fasting connected with it, J as having taken place 
at a later period of Christ s ministry, after the discourse in which 
he delivered a number of parables near the" shore by Capernaum. 
No reason can be assigned why Matthew should not have related 
all the events mentioned in their proper order. As an apostle, he 
had the best means of becoming acquainted with the time and 
place of different transactions. Mark and Luke, on the other 
hand, were not apostles ; and in Luke s Gospel there are, beside 
the present, many clear indications that he had but an imperfect 



* Mark i. 40-45. Luke v. 12-15. f Matt. viii. 16 ix. 26. 

J To these events they may be considered as assigning the same period 
with St. Matthew, though with less definiteness. See Mark ii. 1-22; Luke 
V. 17-39. 

Mark iv. 35 v. 43. Luke viii. 22-56. 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 471 

knowledge of the succession of events, and was often uninformed 
of the particular place where they occurred.* 

There is, further, what seems a decisive reason for believing 



* Thus, the cure of the leper, mentioned above, is represented by Matthew 
(viii. 1-5) as having been performed just before our Saviour entered Caper 
naum ; but the indefiniteness of Luke s information respecting the place of 
its performance appears in the manner in which he introduces the account 
(v. 12), "And when he was in a certain city, behold! a man full of lepro- 
By." The cure of the paralytic, likewise mentioned above, we learn both 
from Matthew (ix. 1) and Mark (ii. 1) was wrought at Capernaum; while 
Luke (v. 16, 17), after saying, that Jesus withdrew to solitary places to pray, 
immediately proceeds, without note of time or place, to introduce the narra 
tive thus: "And it happened one day." So the voyage across the Lake of 
Galilee to the country of the Gadarenes is related by Matthew (viii. 16, 18) 
as having commenced on the evening of the sabbath when Jesus first pub 
licly appeared at Capernaum, and by Mark (iv. 35) is referred (I suppose 
erroneously) to the evening of the day when Jesus preached in parables; 
but Luke (viii. 22) again commences this narrative in the same manner as 
the last mentioned, " And it happened one day." 

The want of chronological order in Luke s Gospel is a point of some 
importance. It is evident, I think, in the case remarked upon in the text; 
but it may be worth while to add a few more instances. 

I. Matthew (iv. 18-20) and Mark (i. 16-18) relate, that Peter was called 
to be a disciple before the public appearance of Jesus at Capernaum; and 
that Jesus, when at Capernaum, proceeded from the synagogue to Peter s 
house, where he cured his wife s mother of a fever. Luke, who mentions 
the last events, represents the call of Peter as taking place subsequently, 
when Jesus had left Capernaum; and describes Peter as struck with con 
sternation at a miracle then performed by our Saviour (v. 1-11). 

II. It is, I think, likewise evident, that Luke confounded the discourse 
called the Sermon on the Mount, which Jesus, as related by Matthew, deliv 
ered before his public appearance in Capernaum, with that which he ad 
dressed to his apostles immediately after their appointment (Matt. chap. x.). 
Luke (vi. 12-49) represents our Saviour upon this occasion, not as giving to 
his newly appointed apostles the appropriate directions referring to their 
peculiar duties, which according to Matthew, himself an apostle, he actually 
did, but as delivering the Sermon on the Mount; at the close of which he 
relates, that Jesus entered Capernaum, and cured the servant of a centurion. 
To the last events, Matthew assigns the same relative order in reference to 
the Sermon on the Mount. By Luke, the whole appears to have been intro 
duced out of its proper place. 

III. Passing over other examples, of less importance, or which cannot 
be explained in so few words. I will adduce but one more. 



472 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

that Matthew has not misplaced the particular events in question. 
According to his narrative, it appears that they all took place 
during three days, on the last of which he was called to be a 



In the ninth chapter of his Gospel (ver. 51, 52), Luke says, " But, when 
the time was near for his being received into heaven, he set his face steadily 
to go to Jerusalem ; and sent messengers before him, who went into a village 
of Samaritans to prepare for him." The journey, the commencement of 
which is here mentioned, probably occurred some months before our Saviour s 
crucifixion. It was, as I suppose, when he was going up to the Feast of 
Tabernacles, mentioned in the seventh chapter of John s Gospel. But the 
language of Luke implies that it was his last journey to Jerusalem, and is 
therefore inconsistent with the supposition of any subsequent return to 
Galilee. In the tenth chapter (ver. 38), we find Jesus arrived at Bethany (a 
certain town, Luke says, without giving the name), the residence of Martha 
and Mary, a short distance only from Jerusalem. But, in the eleventh 
chapter (ver. 14-23), Luke relates the cure of a demoniac, and the reply of 
Jesus to the charge that he cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub, 
which, according to both Matthew and Mark, occurred in Galilee. In the 
thirteenth chapter (ver. 22), we are told, that Jesus " went through the cities 
and villages, teaching, on his way to Jerusalem; " but, in the same chapter 
(ver. 31, 32), we find him still in the dominions of Herod, probably in 
Peraea ; for the Pharisees are represented as telling him, for the purpose of 
inducing him to leave the country, that Herod, its ruler, was desirous 
of destroying him; while again, in the seventeenth chapter (ver. 11), Luke 
speaks of him as on his way to Jerusalem, " passing along the confines of 
Samaria and Galilee," which implies that he was journeying from Galilee. 

Throughout far the greater part of Luke s Gospel, and in regard to all 
but a few leading events in Christ s history, there seems to me a want of 
chronological order. 

I may here add, that it is far from being the fact, as might be supposed 
from some of the statements on the subject, that, where Mark or Luke differ 
from the arrangement of Matthew in the matter common to all three, they 
uniformly agree with each other. Two examples to the contrary have been 
given in this note: one, in the call of Peter; and the other, in the reply of 
Jesus to the charge, that he cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub 
(Matt. xii. 22-37; Mark iii. 11, 23-30; Luke xi. 14-23). In the account, 
likewise, of the preaching of Jesus at Nazareth (Matt. xiii. 54-58; Mark 
vi. 1-6; Luke iv. 16-30), and in the account of the attempt of his mother 
and relations to obtain access to him while he was teaching the people 
(Matt. xii. 46-50; Mark iii. 31-35; Luke viii. 19-21), Luke differs from the 
arrangement of Matthew, while Mark coincide? with it. The only important 
instances of the agreement of Mark and Luke, in deviating from the order 
of Matthew, are mentioned in the text. 



CORRESPONDENCES OP THE GOSPELS. 473 

disciple. The miraculous cure of Jairus s daughter he relates as 
immediately following the entertainment at his own house. But it 
is impossible that his memory should have deceived him respecting 
the time when such events occurred; and that he should have 
imagined them to have been in so close connection with the most 
important incident in his own life, if they had not taken place till 
a later period of Christ s ministry. The agreement, therefore, 
between Mark and Luke cannot be explained by the supposi 
tion, that they observed the order of time, and that Matthew did 
not ; nor can it well be regarded as a mere accident, consequent 
solely upon their both being ignorant of the real succession of 
events. 

Beside the two already mentioned, there is another instance in 
which Mark and Luke differ in common from the order of Mat 
thew. They place the accounts of his disciples passing through a 
field of grain on the sabbath, and of his curing on the sabbath, in 
a synagogue, a man with a withered hand, before the appointment 
of the apostles ; while Matthew refers both events to a subsequent 
period. 

Among the phenomena of agreement and disagreement in the 
Gospels, the consent of Mark and Luke in differing from the 
arrangement of Matthew is, perhaps, most difficult of explanation ; 
but it may serve as a test of the probability of some of the 
hypotheses which have been formed to account for those phe 
nomena. 

As regards any hypothesis intended for this purpose, beside 
accounting for those phenomena, there are other conditions which 
it must fulfil. It must be consistent with the historical facts 
relating to the early history of the Gospels, and with the intrinsic 
probabilities respecting their composition. Tt must correspond to 
the habits of the age, and particularly to those of the Jews of 
Palestine. If we regard the Gospels as genuine, it must accord 
with the character and circumstances of the first three evangelists, 
and, in any case, with the general character of the works them- 
aelves. It must explain the phenomena, which constitute the 
problem to be solved, consistently with all the other phenomena 
which the Gospels present. These works, for instance, show that 
their authors, whoever they were, had no habits of literary compo- 



474 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

sition, that they were unaccustomed to commit events to writing; 
and whatever supposition we may make should be consistent with 
this obvious fact. And, lastly, any hypothesis, to be admissible, 
must assign a reasonable motive for what it represents the authors 
of the Gospels to have done ; or, to express the same thing in 
other words, must not represent them as acting in a manner un 
reasonable and unaccountable. 

In treating of the hypotheses to be examined, I shall use lan 
guage conformed to the belief of the gertuineness of the Gospels. 
I have already endeavored to show, that no hypothesis for ex 
plaining their correspondences is tenable upon a contrary supposi 
tion ; * nor has it been common to maintain any such hypothesis 
in connection with an explicit denial of their genuineness. I, 
however, adopt the language in question, principally for the sake 
of convenience and perspicuity, to avoid that embarrassment 
and diffuseness of expression which would arise from an attempt 
to present the problem to be solved, in its most general and indefi 
nite form. Many, though not all, of the arguments I shall adduce 
respecting the first two hypotheses examined are equally applica 
ble, whoever may be considered as the authors of the Gospels ; 
BO that they would lose none of their force, if the names of those 
authors were denoted by algebraic symbols, carrying no associa 
tions with them. The hypothesis I shall defend supposes that the 
Gospels have been ascribed to their true authors ; and, if it afford 
the only satisfactory solution of their correspondences, must af 
ford, at the time, additional proof of that fact. But I do not, it 
is to be observed, found the present inquiry upon the conclusion 
which I have before endeavored to establish, that no hypothesis 
can explain the correspondence of the Gospels, except upon the 
supposition that they were written in the apostolic age, or, what is 
equivalent, the supposition of their genuineness : on the contrary, 
I trust that this conclusion will receive new confirmation froi 
what follows. 

With these views of the nature of the facts to be explained, of 
the conditions required in their explanation, and of the form in 

* See before, p. 93, seqq. 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 475 

which the inquiry may most conveniently be pursued, we will now 
proceed to consider the different theories that have been proposed 
to account for the agreement of the first three Gospels. 



SECTION II. 

On the Supposition that Two of the Evangelists copied, One from 
his Predecessor, and the Other from Both his Predecessors. 

The most obvious solution of the phenomenon in question, 
which has formerly been very generally adopted, is that the evan 
gelists copied one from another. In maintaining this hypothesis, 
we must suppose that the latest copied from the two preceding, 
and the second in order of time from his predecessor ; since there 
are agreements between any two of the three Gospels for which it 
will not otherwise account. To determine whether this hypothesis 
be tenable, we will consider a particular form of it, which is as 
plausible as any other. It is the supposition, that Luke copied 
from Matthew, and Mark from both Matthew and Luke. 

I. Now the first consideration is, that, when we ascribe to an 
individual an action of which we have no direct proof, we must 
assign some probable motive for the action ; and there appears no 
reasonable inducement for Mark to have formed such a Gospel as 
his own from those of Matthew and Luke. He could not have so 
deceived himself as to suppose, that he was writing what, to any 
class of men, would be a more valuable history of Christ than 
either of theirs. He could not suppose, that it would supply the 
place, or supersede the use, of either. He could not have written 
his Gospel for the sake of the small additions which he has made 
of original matter ; for they are so small in amount as tc render 
the supposition incredible. Had it been his object to give supple 
mentary matter, he might, without doubt, have collected much 
more ; and, with this purpose, he would not, as he has done, have 
repeated passages which, if he copied, he has only abridged. 

It may perhaps be suggested, that he intended to make a 
Gospel which, being more brief than the other two, might be 
transcribed at less expense, and read in a shorter time ; and which 
would therefore circulate more widely. But this notion, derived 



476 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

from the booksellers 1 trade of modern days, is not to be transferred 
to the times of the ancient Christians. Among their other sacri 
fices, they would not have reckoned that of a few denarii, if given 
as the extra cost of a more complete Gospel ; nor would they have 
been unwilling to spare the additional half-hour required for its 
reading. 

II. If we suppose Mark and Luke to have copied from Mat 
thew, there are discrepances between them and Matthew for which 
we cannot account. The simple fact, indeed, that there are dis 
crepances between two evangelists, does not prove that one may 
not have copied the other ; for the later writer may have intended 
to correct the mistakes of his predecessor. But the discrepances 
may be of such a kind as to render this supposition improbable or 
incredible. Thus, Matthew relates, that two demoniacs among the 
Gadarenes were restored to sanity by Jesus, and that he gave 
sight to two blind men near Jericho ; while Mark and Luke, in 
each case, mention only one. The difference is of no importance, 
considering them all as independent historians ; but it is highly 
improbable, that Matthew would have spoken of two, if there had 
been only one, or that Mark and Luke would have varied from his 
account in this particular, had they been acquainted with it. In 
the narrative of another fact, the withering of the barren fig-tree, 
Matthew represents it as the immediate consequence of the words 
of Jesus, as taking place as soon as they were uttered ; and the 
astonishment and awe felt by the disciples appear in his account 
as expressed at the moment: * And the disciples, seeing it, were 
struck with awe, and said, How suddenly this fig-tree has with 
ered ! " * It may seem, at first view, difficult to account for the 
emotion of the disciples, after all the other astonishing miracles 
which they had witnessed. But we may understand it, when we 
consider the striking visible phenomenon presented, so different 
from any which Jesus had before effected, its startling suddenness, 
and the peculiar character of the miracle, unlike his former works 
of mercy, a symbolical act, a visible parable, as it were, intended 
to indicate the punishment about to fall upon the great body of 
the Jews, to whom Jesus had "come seeking fruit, and had found 

* See Matt. xxi. 18, seqq. 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 477 

none." * The account of Matthew is consistent and probable. 
But Mark f represents the words of our Saviour as having been 
uttered on one morning, and the effect of them upon th<* fig-tree 
as having been first observed by his disciples the following morn 
ing ; when Peter "remembered, and said to him, Master, behold! 
this fig-tree which thou didst curse has withered." That the dis 
ciples remarked upon the event, not only when it occurred, but 
also as they were passing the tree the following morning, is not 
improbable ; and it may have been on the following morning, like 
wise, and not immediately after the occurrence of the event, that 
our Saviour announced to them those miraculous powers, which, 
if they had faith, would be granted to them, as recorded both by 
Matthew and Mark. We may thus account for the manner in 
which Mark has represented the transaction. But there can be 
little doubt, that the astonishment of the disciples was expressed 
directly after the occurrence of the miracle ; nor can we suppose, 
that Mark, with the account of Matthew before him, would have 
given such a one as appears in his Gospel. 

The differences of narration, of which these are specimens, 
afford proof, that neither Mark nor Luke copied from Matthew. 
But the most striking discrepances between the evangelists regard 
the chronological order of events. The voyage, before mentioned, 
across the Lake of Galilee to the country of the Gadarenes, with 
certain facts connected with and following it, is, as we have seen, 
clearly referred by Matthew to a particular period of Christ s min 
istry ; nor can there, I think, be a reasonable doubt, that he has 
assigned to those events their true place. J On the contrary, 
Mark explicitly and circumstantially states them as having oc 
curred at a different time. After relating that Jesus taught by 
the sea-side in parables, he proceeds : " And the same day, in the 
evening, he said to his disciples, Let us cross to the other side ; " 
and then follows an account of the voyage. Now, if Matthew s 
order be correct, as we believe, Mark could have no good reason 
for differing from it ; nor would he have differed from it, had he, 



* See the parable of the barren fig-tree (Luke xiii. 6-9), which is to b 
considered as explanatory of this miracle, 
t Chap. xi. 12-14, 20, seqq. 
\ See before, p. 471, seqq. Mark iv. 35. 



478 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

as has been supposed, taken Matthew s Gospel as his main guide 
in the composition of his own. 

Similar reasoning is equally conclusive against the supposition, 
that Luke transcribed from Matthew s Gospel. Being evidently 
unacquainted with the chronological order of many events, and 
the place of their occurrence, if he had borrowed any assistance 
from Matthew, he would have taken him for a guide in those 
respects. 

HI. Mark s Gospel, though but about three-fifths of the size of 
either of the other two Gospels, has in no other respect the char 
acter of an abridgment or a selection from them. On the suppo 
sition, that he formed his Gospel out of the other two, there is no 
principle of selection which can reasonably be ascribed to him. 
A characteristic distinction between Mark and the other two evan 
gelists is, that he gives comparatively but few of the declarations 
and precepts of Jesus, and his Gospel is more a simple narrative 
of actions and events. Now, this may be explained, if we suppose 
Mark to have written his Gospel with a limited view, for the use 
of individuals already instructed in Christianity, on whose minds 
the words of Christ had been deeply impressed by oral teaching, 
and to whom, therefore, only the framework of his history was 
necessary in order to enable them to define and arrange their 
recollections ; but, if we believe Mark to have been familiar with 
the other two Gospels, we cannot imagine him to have believed 
another history necessary for such a purpose. He must have 
written his own with a view more prospective; and, this being 
supposed, it is not credible that he should have thought it advi 
sable to omit a large portion of the words of our Saviour, and 
many striking incidents in his life, which, being in the books 
before him, it would have cost him only the labor of transcription 
to preserve in his own. As I have said, no rational principle 
of selection can be assigned to account for what he has taken, 
and what he has omitted. Should it be said, that he thought 
the other Gospels would go down to posterity together with his 
own, the question recurs, What was his purpose in writing? 
Why did he undertake this labor, evidently foreign from his habits 
of mind ? 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 



479 



IV. Let us view the subject under another aspect. To the 
accounts which Mark gives in common with the other evangelists, 
he often adds particular circumstances not narrated by them. 
But he who is acquainted with the minor particulars of an event 
is, of course, well acquainted with its principal features. Now, 
the knowledge of those particulars which he has added not being 
derived by him from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, it follows 
that he was not dependent upon those Gospels for a knowledge of 
the main fact itself. Sometimes Mark varies in his accounts from 
one or both of the other evangelists. There is a discrepance 
between them. If he used their Gospels, he would thus have 
varied from them only for the purpose of giving what he believed 
a more accurate account than they had done. In all such cases as 
have been mentioned, it is clear that Mark, believing himself to be 
fully and correctly possessed of the facts, might have written as he 
has done without any knowledge of the other two evangelists. 
When, with the differences that have been mentioned, there is a 
striking difference of language likewise, it becomes apparent, that 
Mark, in such passages, made no use of his supposed predecessors. 
Of passages of this kind, I will give one as an example, placing in 
parallel columns an English version of the text of the three evan 
gelists, as their difference of language may be sufficiently repre 
sented in a translation. The passage is an account of the curing 
of the demoniac boy, immediately after our Saviour s transfigura 
tion. 



MATT. xvii. 14-21. 

And, when they came 
to the multitude, 



MARK ix. 14-29. 

And, when he came 
to his disciples, he saw 
a great multitude about 
them, and the teachers 
of the Law disputing 
with them. And im 
mediately the whole 
multitude, upon seeing 
him, was struck with 
awe, and, running to 
wards him, saluted 
him. And he asked 
them, What are ye dis 
puting about together ? 



LUKE ix. 37-43. 

And, on the follow 
ing day, as they were 
descending the moun 
tain, a great miwnude 
met him. 



480 



ADDITIONAL NOTES. 



MATT. xvii. 14-21. 
a man met him; and, 
falling on his knees be 
fore him, said, Master, 
have pity on my son, 
for he is a lunatic, and 
suffers grievously; for 
he often falls into the 
fire, and often into the 
water; 



and I brought him to 
thy disciples, and they 
could not heal him. 
Then Jesus said, Un 
believing and perverse 
race ! how long shall I 
be with you ? how long 
must I bear with you ? 
Bring him hither to me. 



MARK ix. 14-29. 
And one of the 

multitude answered, 
Teacher, I brought my 
son to thee, who has a 
dumb spirit ; and, when 
it seizes him, it throws 
him down, and he foams 
at his mouth, and 
gnashes his teeth, and 
becomes insensible;* 



and I spoke to thy dis 
ciples to cast it out, 
and they were not 
able. Then Jesus said 
to them, Unbelieving 
race ! how long shall I 
be with you ? how long 
must I bear with you? 
Bring him to me. 

And they brought 
him to him; and, as 
soon as he saw Jesus, 
the spirit convulsed 
him ; and, falling down, 
he rolled upon the 
ground, foaming at his 
mouth. And Jesus 
questioned his father, 
How long has it been 
thus with him? And 
he answered, From a 
child. And often it 
casts him into the fire 
and into water, to de 
stroy him. But, ifthou 
canst do any thing, 
have pity upon us, and 



LUKE ix. 37-43. 

And, behold ! a man 
from the multitude cried 
out, saying, Teacher, I 
beseech thee to look 
upon my son; for he is 
my only child ; and, 
behold! a spirit seizes 
him, and utters a sud 
den cry, and convulses 
him so that he foams at 
his mouth, and hardly 
departs from him, leav 
ing him utterly ex 
hausted ; and I besought 
thy disciples to cast it 
out, and they could not. 
Then Jesus said, Un 
believing and perverse 
race! how long shall I 
be with you, and bear 
with you? Lead thy 
son hither. 

And, while he was 
coming, the demon 
threw him down, and 
convulsed him. 



* Kal t-TjpatveTcu. It is impossible to determine in what sense Mark 
uses this term. Perhaps it should be rendered, " and is wasting away." 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 



481 



MATT. xvii. 14-21. 



And Jesus rebuked 
the demon, so that it 
came out of him; and 
the boy was well from 
that hour. 



Then the disciples 
came to Jesus apart, 
and said, Why could 
we not cast it out? And 
Jesus said to them, 
Through your want of 
faith; for I tell you in 
truth, had ye faith as a 
grain of mustard-seed, 
should you say to this 
mountain, Remove from 
this place to that, it 
would remove ; and 



MARK ix. 14-29. 
help us. Then Jesus 
said to him, What 
means this, If thou 
canst ? All things 
may be done for him 
who has faith. And 
immediately the father 
of the child, crying 
out with tears, said, I 
have faith: help thou 
my want of faith. Then 
Jesus, seeing that the 
multitude was running 
together to the spot, re 
buked the unclean spir 
it, saying to it, Thou 
dumb and deaf spirit, 
I command thee, come 
out of him, and enter 
him no more. And 
uttering a cry, and con 
vulsing him much, it 
came out of him. And 
he was as if dead, so 
that many said, He is 
dead ; but Jesus, taking 
him by the hand, raised 
him, and he stood up. 



And, after he had 
entered a house, his 
disciples asked him, 
privately, Why could 
we not cast it out? 
And he said to them, 



LUKE ix. 37-43. 



But Jesus rebuked 
the unclean spirit, and 
healed the child, and 
delivered him to his 
father. 



And all were aston 
ished at this display of 
the power of God. 



81 



482 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

MATT. xvii. 14-21. MARK ix. 14-29. LUKB ix. 37-43. 
nothing would be im 
possible to you. Cut it By nothing but prayer 
is only through prayer and fasting can this 
and fasting that this race be cast out. 
race may be expelled. 

In this passage, as in others, it is clear, not merely that Mark 
did not copy Matthew or Luke, but that no one of the evangelists 
copied either of the other two. This is not a matter of argument : 
it is only the statement of a fact apparent on inspection. 

V. But it may be said, that no one supposes that Mark derived 
his knowledge of the events in Christ s ministry solely from the 
Gospels of Matthew and Luke ; on the contrary, as a preacher of 
Christianity, he must have been well acquainted with them from 
other sources. Nor is it maintained, that he transcribed from one 
or the other in every case where he relates the same events. But 
what is contended for is, that he made use of their Gospels, partic 
ularly that of Matthew, in composing his own ; and that thia 
supposition is proved by the remarkable correspondences between 
his Gospel and each of the other two, in various passages. These 
resemblances, it may be urged, are so great as to render it 
highly probable that one evangelist copied from another. 

In this reasoning, it is supposed that one evangelist copied from 
another, because the resemblance between them is so great. I 
answer, that very few instances can be pointed out, in which this 
supposition does not require a much greater resemblance than 
exists ; and that most of the passages in which it is found, instead 
of rendering it probable that one evangelist transcribed from 
another, afford strong reasons for an opposite conclusion. I will 
quote, for example, the account of the call of Matthew, the enter 
tainment in his house, and the conversation occasioned by it, as 
given by the three evangelists. 

MATT. ix. 9-17. MARK ii. 14-22. LUKE v. 27-39. 

(Ver. 9.) And Jesus, (Ver. 14.) And, as (Ver. 27.) And, after 

as he was passing he was passing along, this, Jesus went out, 

thence, saw a man, he saw Levi, the son of and saw a tax-gatherer, 

called Matthew, sitting Alpheus, sitting to re- by the name of Levi, 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 



483 



MATT. ix. 9-17. 
to receive the customs ; 
and said to him, Come 
with me. And he arose, 
and went with him. 



(Ver. 10.) And while 
Jesus was at table in 
his house, lo! many 
tax-gatherers and sin 
ners, who had come, 
were at table with Je 
sus and his disciples. 

(Ver. 11.) And the 
Pharisees, seeing this, 
,;aid to his disciples, 
Why does your teacher 
eat with these tax- 
gatherers and sinners? 



(Ver. 12.) But Je 
sus, hearing this, said 
to them, The well need 
not a physician, but the 
sick. 

(Ver. 13.) But go 
ye, and learn what this 
means, I desire goodness 
and not sacrifices. For I 
did not come to give an 
invitation to righteous 
men, but to sinners. 



(Ver. 14.) Then the 
disciples of John came 
to him, and said, Why, 
when we and the Phari 
sees fast often, 



MARK ii. 14-22. 
ceive the customs ; and 
said to him, Come with 
me. And he arose, and 
went with him. 



(Ver. 15.) And while 
Jesus was at table in 
his house, many tax- 
gatherers and sinners 
also were at table with 
Jesus and his disciples; 
fbr there were many 
who had followed him. 

(Ver. 16.) And the 
teachers of the Law, and 
the Pharisees, seeing 
him eating with the 
tax-gatherers and sin 
ners, said to his disci 
ples, How is it that he 
is eating and drinking 
with these tax-gather 
ers and sinners? 

(Ver. 17.) And Je 
sus, hearing this, said 
to them, The well need 
not a physician, but the 
sick. 



I did not come to give 
an invitation to right 
eous men, but to sin 
ners. 

(Ver. 18.) And the 
disciples of John and 
the Pharisees were 
keeping a fast; and 
they came and said to 
him, Why, when the 
disciples of John and 
those of the Pharisees 



LUKE v. 27-39. 
sitting to receive the 
customs ; and said to 
him, Come with me. 

(Ver. 28.) And, leav 
ing ever} thing, he arose 
and went with him. 

(Ver. 29.) And Levi 
made a great entertain 
ment for him in his 
house; and there was a 
great number of tax- 
gatherers and others, 
who were at table with 
them. 

(Ver. 30.) But their 
teachers of the Law, 
and the Pharisees, mur 
mured at this, saying to 
his disciples, Why are 
ye eating and drinking 
with these tax-gather 
ers and sinners? 



(Ver. 81.) And Je 
sus, answering, paid to 
them, They who are 
in health need not a 
physician, but the sick 



(Ver. 32.) I have 
not come to call right 
eous men, but sinners, 
to reformation. 

(Ver. 33.) But they 



said to him, Why, when 
the disciples of John are 
continually fasting and 
making supplications, 



484 



ADDITIONAL NOTES. 



MATT. ix. 9-17. 
do not thy disciples 
fast? 

(Ver. 15.) And Je 
sus said to them, Can 
the companions of the 
bridegroom mourn, so 
long as the bridegroom 
is with them ? 



But the days are com 
ing when the bride 
groom will be taken 
from them; and then 
will they fast. 



(Ver. 16.) No one 
puts a patch of un 
dressed cloth upon an 
old garment; for the 
piece would tear away 
from the garment, and 
a worse rent be made. 

(Ver. 17.) Nor do 
men put new wine into 
old skins; for the skins 
would burst, and the 
wine run to waste, and 
the skins would be 
spoilt But they put 
new wine into new 
ekins, so that both may 
be preserved. 



MARK ii. 14-22. 
are fasting, do not thy 
disciples fast? 

(Ver. 19.) And Je 
sus said to them, Can 
the companions of the 
bridegroom fast, while 
the bridegroom is with 
them ? As long as they 
have the bridegroom 
with them, they cannot 
fast. 

(Ver. 20.) But the 
days are coming when 
the bridegroom will be 
taken from them; and 
then will they fast in 
that day. 



(Ver. 21.) No one 
sews a patch of un 
dressed cloth upon an 
old garment; otherwise 
the new piece would 
tear away from the old 
garment, and a worse 
rent be made. 

(Ver. 22.) And no 
one puts new wine into 
old skins; for the new 
wine would burst the 
skins, and the wine 
would run to waste, 
and the skins would be 
spoilt. But new wine 
must be put into new 
at us. 



LUKE v. 27-S&. 
and likewise those of 
the Pharisees, are thine 
eating and drinking? 

(Ver. 34.) But he 
said to them, Can ye 
make the companions 
of the bridegroom fast, 
while the bridegroom ia 
with them? 



(Ver. 35.) But the 
days are coming when 
the bridegroom will be 
taken from them: then 
will they fast in those 
days. 

(Ver. 36.) Then he 
spake a parable to 
them: No one takes a 
patch from a new gar 
ment to put upon an 
old garment; otherwise 
the new garment would 
be cut, and the patch 
from the new would not 
match with the old. 

(Ver. 37.) And no 
one puts new wine into 
old skins; for the new 
wine would burst the 
skins, and it would rnn 
to waste, and the skins 
would be spoilt. 

(Ver. 38.) But new 
wine must be put into 
new skins, so that both 
may be preserved. 

(Ver. 39.) And no 
one, after drinking old 
wine, immediately wish 
es for new ; for he says. 
The old is better. 



CORRESPONDENCES OP THE GOSPELS. 485 

The preceding is a specimen of the accordance of meaning and 
language which is found among the first three Gospels. It is else 
where mixed with similar diversities. But a comparison of such 
parallel passages from the different evangelists shows, I think, 
that no one of them copied from either of the others. 

As in the example given, so generally in other cases of parallel 
ism among the first three Gospels, variations of expression, omis 
sions, and additions occur, which are not to be accounted for on 
the theory, that the evangelists copied one from another ; because 
they are such as cannot be ascribed to accident, and, at the same 
time, such as would not have been made by design. Thus, in the 
specimen given, if either Mark or Luke had been copying from 
Matthew, it is unlikely that he would have substituted the name 
of Levi, by which that evangelist appears to have been known 
before his becoming a disciple, for the name of Matthew, by which 
he was commonly called afterwards, and which he himself had 
used in this place; or that Luke, if he had Mark before him, 
and had preferred the name of Levi, would have omitted the 
further designation, " the son of Alpheus." Mark, if he had been 
following Luke, would have retained the explicit statement of the 
latter, that the entertainment, at which our Lord was present, was 
made by Matthew ; and, with Matthew for his guide, he would not 
have changed the clear and simple expressions used by him in 
the tenth and eleventh verses for his own more diffuse, and, in the 
original, more obscure language. Luke, it is evident, was, in 
the corresponding verses, neither the original nor the copyist of 
either. The question of the Pharisees respecting Christ s eating 
with tax-gatherers and sinners is given in different terms by each 
of the evangelists ; yet, if any one of them copied from either of 
the others, it does not appear what motive could have induced him 
to change its form. Similar remarks may be made respecting the 
other variations of language among the evangelists, which occur in 
this passage. But there are differences of another kind. The 
first clause of the thirteenth verse of Matthew seems to me essen 
tial to a full understanding of the meaning of Jesus.* But, 

* The words of Matthew are these : " But Jesus, hearing this, said to 
them, The well need not a physician, but the sick. Bui go ye, and learn what, 
this means. / desire goodness, and not $fKr\fices. For I did not come to give 



486 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

whether it oe so or not, neither Mark nor Luke, had they been 
borrowing from Matthew, would have omitted it as they have 
done, copying, at the same time, the words which precede and 
follow. In the next verse (the eighteenth) of Mark, he states 
explicitly, that the disciples of John and the Pharisees were keep 
ing a fast, which is not done by the other evangelists.* It is a 
circumstance which throws a strong light upon their state of feel 
ing when seeing Jesus at the same time present at an entertain 
ment with tax-gatherers and sinners. The fact does not appear in 
the account of the other evangelists. But it is not probable, that, 
if either Matthew or Luke had been transcribing from Mark s 
Gospel, he would have omitted this circumstance by design, or 
passed over it by accident. At the end of the fifteenth verse of 
Matthew, neither Mark nor Luke, if copying his text, would have 
thought it necessary to add the superfluous words, " in that day," 
or " in those days." Luke, in the thirty-sixth verse, borrowed 
from neither Matthew nor Mark, and neither borrowed from him. 
And, with Luke s Gospel before them, there is no likelihood that 
either Matthew or Mark would have omitted the concluding words 



an invitation to righteous men, but to sinners." The words in italics are 
omitted by the other evangelists. But our Saviour s answer, as given by 
Matthew, is, I conceive, to be thus understood: You reproach me for being 
with tax-gatherers and sinners: it is fitting I should be; the well need not 
a physician, but the sick. But do not think that you are less morally dis 
eased than those whom you despise. You, no more than they, perform what 
God requires: while you insist on ceremonies and superstitious observances, 
you neglect what is essential in religion and morality. Go ye, and learn 
what this means, I desire goodness, and not sacrifices. I came to give an 
invitation to all to accept God s mercy; and as regards you, as well as 
them, I did not come to give an invitation to righteous men, but to sinners. 

* It appears from the Talmud, that the more religious Jews fasted on 
Mondays and Thursdays. Thus the Pharisee mentioned in Luke xviii. 12 
is represented by our Saviour as saying, " I fast twice a week." Now we 
have before inferred, from the account of Matthew (see p. 470), that the 
entertainment at Matthew s house took place on Monday. This accords 
with Mark s account, that the disciples of John and the Pharisees were keep 
ing a fast (rjaav vrjarevovTss ). This coincidence between the Gospels, to be 
ascertained only by what we learn from the Talmud, deserves remark, at 
one among many facts of a similar kind which serve to establish thefi 
authenticity. 



CORRESPONDENCES OP THE GOSPELS. 487 

of Jesus, as given by Lukt (ver. 39), which accord so well witl 
the context. 

In order fully to estimate the force of the preceding remarks 
we must recollect, that no copyist, writing in the same style witl 
his original, would designedly change the ideas or expressions of 
the latter, except for the sake of some real or fancied improve 
ment; unless, indeed, his purpose were to conceal plagiarism, ? 
purpose which no one will ascribe to the evangelists. But noth 
ing, that can be supposed a real or fancied improvement, appears 
in the differences that have been mentioned, or in many others 
that might be specified in the parallel passages of the first three 
Gospels. It is particularly improbable, that such changes should 
have been made by any one of the three evangelists, since the 
style and vocabulary of all are essentially the same ; and, except 
so far as Luke may form a partial exception, they obviously had 
little command of language. But for some strong reason, there 
fore, any one of them would have copied literally the already 
well-known narrative, which he found before him, except, perhaps, 
that St. Luke, if he wrote last, might sometimes have retouched 
the style of his predecessors. Certainly, no one of them would 
have made an unimportant addition in one place, and omitted an 
important passage in another ; nor so varied his own account as to 
render it obscure and imperfect, requiring, in order to be fully 
understood, that the Gospel from which he copied should be con 
sulted as a commentary on his own. Yet, however we may 
arrange the order of transcription, all this must be supposed in 
reference to the two evangelists who are represented as tran 
scribers, especially if the two be Mark and Luke. 

These observations are applicable to a large portion of the 
Gospels, but are particularly striking as regards the narrative of 
the closing scenes of our Saviour s life, his death, his resurrection, 
and the events subsequent. Such are the omissions and differ 
ences from one another in the accounts of the three evangelists, 
that, considering these alone, I cannot believe that any one of 
them had seen the work of either of the others. This is a portion 
of the Gospels which has been too little attended to, either by 
those who suppose that the evangelists transcribed one from 
another, or by those who suppose that they transcribed from 
common documents 



488 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

It may appear, then, that, beside the particular objections to 
any particular form that may be given to the supposition that the 
evangelists copied one from another, the general objections" to it 
are these : There is no reasonable principle of selection on which 
they can be supposed to have proceeded. They were, all of them, 
as preachers of Christianity, well acquainted with the transactions 
which it was their purpose to record ; their independent knowl 
edge of them appears in the Gospel of each ; they had, therefore, 
no occasion to copy one from another, and it is a fact, obvious 
simply upon inspection, that far the greater part of each Gospel 
was not thus copied. And, lastly, their Gospels generally, and 
even those very passages on which this theory of transcription has 
been founded, present numerous diversities of such a character as 
the evangelist, whichever may be supposed the copyist, would not 
have made, with the text of his predecessor, or predecessors, 
before him as an archetype. 

SECTION III. 

On the Supposition that the First Three Evangelists made Use of 
Common Written Documents. 

The supposition that the first three evangelists copied one 
from another has found, comparatively, but few defenders in later 
times, and has been superseded, in a great degree, by the suppo 
sition that they all transcribed from common written documents. 
This hypothesis we have had occasion to notice in the text of 
the present work.* I will state it generally, as explained by 
Bishop Marsh, who may be considered as having improved upon 
Eichhorn, from whom he borrowed it. The differences between 
them are not such as to affect its credibility. 

It is supposed, then, that there was an original narrative of the 
life of Christ, an original Gospel,^ which contained, in some form 
or other, all those relations that are common to our first three 
Gospels. This, it is thought, was receiving continual additions 

* See before, pp. 60, 61. 

t I use this term, borrowed from Eichhorn, for the sake of convenience 
and distinctness of expression. It is not employed by Bishop Marsh. 



CORRESPONDENCES OP THE GOSPELS. 489 

from its various transcribers, different in different copies. The 
first three evangelists are supposed each to have used a different 
copy as the basis of his Gospel. Matthew s copy, beside the 
original text, contained likewise the additional matter which he 
has in common with Mark alone, or with Luke alone. Mark s 
copy differed from this, both in wanting the matter which is com 
mon to Matthew and Luke only, and in having additional matter 
not found in Matthew s copy ; namely, that which is common to 
Mark and Luke only. Luke s copy, in like manner, had certain 
additions, which are common to him either with Matthew or 
with Mark, and wanted those passages which are found only in 
the two last-mentioned evangelists.* 

The Original Gospel, and the three modifications of it just 
mentioned, were all written in the Syro-Chaldee, or, as it is more 
popularly termed, the Hebrew language. Matthew s Gospel was 
originally written in the same language. But Mark and Luke 
wrote in Greek, and each translated into that language the docu 
ment which he used as the basis of his Gospel. But the verbal 
harmony between them in that portion of matter which consti 
tuted the Original Gospel, before it had received any additions, is 
believed to be greater than would result from two independent 
translations of the same work. In order to account for it, there 
fore, it is supposed, that the Original Gospel, before any additions 
had been made to it, was translated into Greek ; and that Mark 
and Luke each had a copy of this Greek translation, from which 
he occasionally derived assistance in rendering his Hebrew docu 
ment. Each sometimes adopted its words in the same passage ; 
and in these passages they agree verbally with each other. 

But besides the enlarged copy of the Original Gospel, which 
was in the hands of each of the evangelists, and the Greek trans 
lation of this Gospel, used by Mark and Luke, it is further 
supposed that there was another document, written in Hebrew, 
which was used only by Matthew and Luke ; the former incorpo 
rating it into his Gospel in the original language, and the latter 

* Bishop Marsh distinguishes between those additions, common to two 
of the Gospels, which were made to narratives already extant in the Original 
Gospel, and those additions which were made of new narratives common to 
tiro of the Gospels ; but this is a distinction not important to be attended 
to in reference to our present purpose. 



490 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

translating it into Greek. This was a collection of precepts, 
parables, and discourses, which had been delivered by Christ at 
different times and on different occasions. The name of Qno- 
mologia has been given it, with reference to its supposed character. 
The copies of this document used by Matthew and Luke, though 
generally agreeing, differed in some respects from each other. 
It was not arranged with any regard to chronological order. 
Matthew, being an apostle, is thought to have inserted the dif 
ferent portions of it in different parts of his Gospel; "having 
regard, probably, to the times and occasions when the sayings 
of our Saviour were delivered." * But Luke, who was not pres 
ent at their delivery, did not undertake to do this. With the 
exception of only two portions, "both of which have internal 
notes of time," he inserted in his Gospel the whole collection, as 
he found it; and it constitutes that portion of matter which 
extends from chap. ix. ver. 51 to chap, xviii. ver. 14. But by a 
license which must, I think, be regarded as extraordinary and 
unjustifiable, " he gave," it is said, " to the whole the form of a 
narrative, in order to make it correspond with the rest of his 
Gospel, which was not a collection of unconnected facts, but a 
continued history." f 

In order to explain the verbal harmony between our present 
Greek Gospel of Matthew and the Gospels of Mark and Luke, it 
is supposed that the translator of the former derived assistance 
from the two latter Gospels, and borrowed their language in cases 
where there is a correspondence of matter between them and 
that of Matthew. 

I will briefly recapitulate the steps in this hypothesis. The 
first supposition is of an Original Gospel, written in Hebrew, and 
receiving continual additions from various hands. This is sup 
posed to have been used in three different forms by the first three 
evangelists, being in one of its forms the basis of the work of 
each. Besides this document, it is supposed that there was 
another, a miscellaneous collection of discourses and sayings of 

* Marsh s Dissertation, in the second part of the third volume of his 
Translation of Michaelis s Introduction to the New Testament, p. 401 
t Ibid., p. 402. 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 491 

Jesus, likewise written in Hebrew, which was used only by Mat 
thew and Luke. Thus, the general correspondence of matter and 
language among all three evangelists, and between any two of 
the evangelists in portions peculiar to them, is thought to be 
accounted for. The verbal coincidences between Mark and Luke 
are explained by the supposition, that they both used a Greek 
translation of the Original Gospel, made before that work had 
received any additions ; and the verbal coincidences between our 
present Greek Gospel of Matthew and the other two Gospels, 
by the supposition, that his translator used their Gospels in ren 
dering into Greek the Hebrew original of Matthew. 

In maintaining this hypothesis, the genuineness of the Gospels 
is asserted by Bishop Marsh ; and its other defenders have not 
attempted to free it from the peculiar objections, formerly stated,* 
to which it is liable, if their genuineness be denied. I shall 
therefore offer some arguments in which their genuineness is sup 
posed. But I think it will be perceived, that, distinct from these, 
there are intrinsic and insuperable objections to the hypothesis, 
both from the positions it involves, and from its being founded on 
an erroneous and imperfect view of the phenomena of the Gos 
pels, so that it neither explains nor is consistent with those 
phenomena. What the objections are, we will now consider. 

I. The imagined Original Gospel must have been a work of 
the highest authority. This is implied in its having been made 
the basis of our first three Gospels, and, as is supposed by 
Eichhorn and Marsh, of other Gospels of a similar character. 
Bishop Marsh likewise supposes, that it was " drawn up from 
communications made by the apostles ; and, therefore, that it was 
not only a work of good authority, but a work which was worthy 
of furnishing materials to any one of the apostles who had 
formed a resolution of writing a more complete history." f Eich- 
born regards it as having been a work sanctioned by the apostles, 
and communicated by them to the first Christian missionaries, to 
guide the latter in their preaching. : 

* See before, p. 96, seqq. 

t Marsh s Dissertation, p. 363 comp. Illustration of his Hypothesis, 
p. 15, seqq. \ Einleit. in d. N T., vol i. p. 1, seqq., p. 162, seqq. 



492 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

But the language of Bishop Marsh, in calling it a work " of 
good authority," 1 and " worthy of furnishing materials for an 
apostle," is inadequate to express its character, if its origin, and 
the use which was made of it, were such as have been supposed. 
It must have been a work of the highest authority. Coming forth 
under the sanction of the apostles, and founded on their commu- 
nicatiois, it must have commanded universal credence among 
believers. It cannot be, nor is it, supposed, that it was a private, 
unpublished writing. It would not have been kept back from any 
who wished to possess it. It was translated (as is part of the 
hypothesis) into the Greek language ; and copies of it, therefore, 
must have been widely circulating, wherever Christianity was 
spread. No satisfactory account, then, can be given, I do not 
say merely of the fact, that there are no historical notices of the 
existence of such a work ; but of the fact, that it has not been 
actually preserved, at least in its Greek translation. 

It may indeed be said that it was so altered, and so blended 
with various additions, in the different copies and refashionings 
which were made of it, as, in this manner, to become lost as a 
separate work. But those additions and alterations, according to 
the hypothesis, were made by anonymous copyists. They were 
supported, therefore, by no authority publicly known and ac 
knowledged. No one could be certain, except through private 
information, by whom they were made, or on what grounds. But 
the Original Gospel, in its primary, uncorrupted state, was a 
work of a very different character, carrying with it the authority 
of the apostles. If we should admit, that some copies of this 
document, containing certain additions, had been made by par 
ticular individuals for their own use, yet there can be no reasona 
ble question, that the copies in common circulation would be 
conformed to the original text. 

To account for its loss, therefore, as a separate work, the 
opposite ground has been taken. It has been said, that " each of 
the first three Gospels contained the whole of this document," and 
that, consequently, whoever possessed any one of the former 
possessed the whole of the latter in its primitive state, and could 
therefore have had no motive for procuring a separate copy of it.* 

* Marsh s Illustration of his Hypothesis, p. 54. 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 493 

This is a proposition which will hereafter be examined at length ; 
but I may here answer briefly, that the fact is not as stated. The 
Original Gospel does not lie imbedded, in its primitive form, in 
any one of the first three Gospels. We cannot strike off por 
tions from either of them, so as to leave a work which, when 
fairly exhibited, any one will pretend is the ancient document in 
question, or any thing very like it. After the publication of 
these Gospels, therefore, the Original Gospel still remained a 
distinct work, and a work of the highest authority, value, and 
curiosity. It was at least as much worth preserving, and as 
likely to be preserved, together with those three Gospels, as any 
one of the three, together with the other two. But no such work 
has been preserved ; no memory of such a work can be discov 
ered ; and therefore there is a strong improbability that such a 
work ever existed. If, for any reason, we were to imagine, that 
the disciples of Socrates sanctioned and circulated some history 
of their master, which has disappeared, and of which no mention 
is extant, the supposition would be less incredible. It would be 
difficult to conceive of any ancient work so unlikely to be lost 
and utterly forgotten, as an account of Christ, composed from the 
communications of his apostles, and published under their sanc 
tion, which had once been in common use among Christians. 

II. Respecting the supposed additions to the Original Gospel. 
Bishop Marsh says, that in process of time, as new communica 
tions from the apostles and other eye-witnesses brought to light 
additional circumstances or transactions, which had been unno 
ticed in the Original Gospel, those who possessed copies of it 
added in their manuscripts such additional circumstances and 
transactions ; and these additions, in subsequent copies, were 
inserted in the text.* In order to form the documents imagined 
to have been used by the evangelists, five such transcriptions of 
the Original Gospel are the fewest that can be supposed; and 
these must have been made by transcribers who did not commu 
nicate their respective additions to each other. f Eichhorn says, 
that it had passed through many hands before being used by the 
authors of our present Gospels ; and that its possessors, copyists, 

* Dissertation, p. 366. f Ibid., p. 367. 



494 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

and translators had made additions in tbeir respective copies, 
either from their personal knowledge or from the information of 
credible men, of circumstances or transactions which had been 
omitted in those copies.* It is supposed in these representations, 
that many different enlarged copies of the Original Gospel were 
in common circulation, superseding the copies of it in its primi 
tive state. 

But to this supposition are opposed considerations which have 
been already stated. Accounts claiming the highest credit, as 
sanctioned by the apostles, would not have been confounded with 
accounts collected by anonymous transcribers, as if the latter 
were of equal authority with the former. A work of such char 
acter and claims as the Original Gospel would not have been 
tampered with in the manner supposed. The original life of the 
Founder of our religion, proceeding from those whom he had 
selected to be eye-witnesses of the truth, and circulating among 
their disciples, was not a work to be subjected to a series of 
interpolations so extraordinary as to be without parallel in liter 
ary history, f 

III. We may next observe, that the supposition that the 
Original Gospel was subjected to this continual process of fan 
cied improvement, and that so much care was taken by so many 
transcribers to retouch and complete it, is altogether inconsist 
ent with the genius and habits of the Jews of Palestine, among 
whom those transcribers must have been found. The Original 
Gospel is said to have been written in Hebrew, and the additions, 
in its different copies, to have been made in the same language. 



* Einleit. in d. N.T., i. 172, 173. 

t Considerations of this sort, perhaps, induced Bishop Marsh to change 
somewhat the representation which he had given, respecting the supposed 
alditions to the Original Gospel, in his Dissertation on the Origin of the 
first three Gospels ; and to propose another in one of his defences of that work. 
In his Dissertation, he speaks, in common with Eichhorn, of those additions 
as having been inserted in the text of the copies used by the evangelists ; in 
his Illustration of his Hypothesis (p. 79), he supposes that they may have 
been only written in the margin of their copies, each of which, accordingly, 
would contain the same text of the original Hebrew document, surrounded 
with difleretit sets of these " marginal additions." 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 495 

But the Jews of Palestine were not writers. They had no pro 
fane literature. They had scarcely any acquaintance with other 
books than the books of the Old Testament. With the excep 
tion of these writings, they were not in the habit of relying upon 
books to preserve the memory of facts or doctrines. Their liter 
ature, such as it was, connected almost solely with their religion 
and laws, was, in great part, traditionary and oral. Now, under 
a strong impulse, and the action of very powerful motives, writ 
ers may appear among such a people, as did the evangelists and 
apostles, writers discovering all that want of skill and facility 
in composition which characterizes the Gospels ; but, such being 
the state of letters among the Jews of Palestine, it would have 
been very foreign from their habits to commit to writing, in the 
margin of their manuscripts of the Original Gospel, accounts of 
particular transactions and sayings, not mentioned in it. Being 
unaccustomed to the use of books except those of the Old Testa 
ment, and having but an imperfect sense of the utility of books, 
it is not to be believed, that the possessors of that work should at 
once have become so busy about correcting and completing it in 
their particular copies. They never would have thought of mak 
ing a record of any new fact which might have come to their 
knowledge, through fear that it would be forgotten by themselves, 
or that its memory would perish, unless put down in writing. 
Even among readers of the present day, different as our intellect 
ual habits are from those of the Jews, and accustomed as we are 
to rely upon books and writings as the depositories of our knowl 
edge, it is rare to make manuscript additions to a work of new 
facts connected with its subject. Especially, one is not likely to 
record in this manner facts of common notoriety. But those 
narratives respecting Christ, which we find in the first three Gos 
pels, were, without doubt, such as the apostles readily communi 
cated, and such, therefore, as were familiarly known to their 
converts. 

IV. Let us suppose, however, that the imagined Original Gos 
pel, with its various enlarged copies, may have existed. Still, 
we cannot believe that the evangelists would each have made 
use of such an enlarged copy of it, in the manner supposed, 
as the basis of his work. According to the hypothesis, th 



496 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

additional matter in the respective documents used by them had 
been collected by a succession of transcribers. But the Apostle 
Matthew would not have had recourse to such indirect and un 
certain authority, for accounts of acts and discourses of our 
Saviour, which either he himself, or the other apostles, had seen 
and heard. He would not have gone among the Christian con 
verts to learn from them what had been communicated to them 
by himself and the other apostles, concerning the life of his Mas 
ter, so that he might collect materials for his history. To admit 
the hypothesis is to admit, that he, though an eye-witness and the 
companion of eye-witnesses, chose to adopt the narratives of 
individuals who had received their knowledge more or less re 
motely from himself, and from others like himself. It is to sup 
pose, that the information which had been derived from apostles 
and eye-witnesses, after passing through various channels, flowed 
upward to supply its source. The difficulty is essentially the 
same in regard to Mark and Luke, the constant companions of 
the apostles. They would not have adopted the writings supposed, 
as their main authority. They would not have had recourse to 
so indirect and unsatisfactory a mode of obtaining those materials 
for their history, which they might have received, and which, 
indeed, they could not but be continually receiving, at first hand, 
from those with whom they were intimately conversant. It serves, 
likewise, to aggravate the improbability of the supposition in 
question, that each of the first three evangelists is represented 
as having been content with one of the enlarged copies of the 
Original Gospel, when there were, at least, two other different 
forms of it in existence, and one does not know how many more. 
We must believe them to have taken but little pains to procure 
and compare documents. 

V. The supposition, that the first three evangelists thus formed 
their histories, is, besides, opposed to Luke s own testimony, and 
to all the historical evidence which bears upon the subject. The 
latter evidence is confirmed by its correspondence with what we 
may reasonably suppose to have been the case. St. Luke thus 
speaks in the commencement of his Gospel: "Since many have 
undertaken to arrange a narrative of the events accomplished 
among us, conformably to the accounts given us by those who 



CORRESPONDENCES OF THE GOSPELS. 497 

were eye-witnesses from the beginning, and have become ministers 
of the religion, I have determined also, having accurately in 
formed myself of all things from the beginning, to write to you, 
most excellent Theophilus, a connected account, that you may 
know the truth concerning the relations which you have heard." 
In these words, Luke recognizes distinctly the accounts of the 
apostles as the primary authority for the history of Jesus. To 
those accounts it was the purpose of all written narratives to con 
form. Having constant and direct access to this primary source 
of information, it was on this, therefore, that he relied. The 
composition of his own Gospel shows, that he was not satisfied 
with any of the narratives extant with which he was acquainted. 
They probably contained more or less error, the accounts of the 
apostles having been misunderstood by the narrator. Luke, 
therefore, would not adopt any one of these as his main authority. 
When he speaks of the apostles, with whom he was conversant, 
as the sources of information re