{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_17626/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_17626","id":"gutenberg_17626","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17626","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Gospels -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.","Cassels, Walter Richard, 1826-1907. Supernatural religion","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Supernatural"],"text":"Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttp://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been relocated to the end of the\ntext. Footnote anchors have been labeled with the original page and\nfootnote numbers.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE LOST GOSPEL AND ITS CONTENTS;\n\nOR,\n\nTHE AUTHOR OF \"SUPERNATURAL RELIGION\" REFUTED BY HIMSELF.\n\n\nBY THE REV. M.F. SADLER, M.A.,\nRECTOR OF HONITON.\n\n\n\n\nLONDON:\nGEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET,\nCOVENT GARDEN.\n1876.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThis book is entitled \"The Lost Gospel\" because the book to which it is\nan answer is an attempt to discredit the Supernatural element of\nChristianity by undermining the authority of our present Gospels in\nfavour of an earlier form of the narrative which has perished.\n\nIt seemed to me that, if the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" proved\nhis point, and demonstrated that the Fathers of the Second Century\nquoted Gospels earlier than those which we now possess, then the\nevidence for the Supernatural itself, considered as apart from the\nparticular books in which the records of it are contained, would be\nstrengthened; if, that is, it could be shown that this earlier form of\nthe narrative contained the same Supernatural Story.\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion,\" whilst he has utterly failed to\nshow that the Fathers in question have used earlier Gospels, has, to my\nmind, proved to demonstration that, if they have quoted earlier\nnarratives, those accounts contain, not only substantially, but in\ndetail, the same Gospel which we now possess, and in a form rather more\nsuggestive of the Supernatural. So that, if he has been successful, the\nauthor has only succeeded in proving that the Gospel narrative itself,\nin a written form, is at least fifty or sixty years older than the books\nwhich he attempts to discredit.\n\nWith respect to Justin Martyr, to the bearing of whose writings on this\nsubject I have devoted the greater part of my book, I can only say that,\nin my examination of his works, my bias was with the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion.\" I had hitherto believed that this Father, being\na native of Palestine, and living so near to the time of the Apostles,\nwas acquainted with views of certain great truths which he had derived\nfrom traditions of the oral teaching of the Apostles, and the possession\nof which made him in some measure an independent witness for the views\nin question; but I confess that, on a closer examination of his\nwritings, I was somewhat disappointed, for I found that he had no\nknowledge of our Lord and of His teaching worth speaking of, except\nwhat he might be fairly assumed to have derived from our present\nNew Testament.\n\nI have to acknowledge my obligations to Messrs. Clark, of Edinburgh, for\nallowing me to make somewhat copious extracts from the writings of\nJustin in their ante-Nicene Library. This has saved a Parish Priest like\nmyself much time and trouble. I believe that in all cases of importance\nin which I have altered the translation, or felt that there was a doubt,\nI have given the original from Otto's edition (Jena, 1842).\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n                                                        PAGE\nSECTION I.--Introductory                                   1\nSECTION II.--The Way Cleared                               5\nSECTION III.--The Principal Witness--His Religious\n    Views                                                  9\nSECTION IV.--The Principal Witness--The Sources of\n    his Knowledge respecting the Birth of Christ          19\nSECTION V.--The Principal Witness--His Testimony\n    respecting the Baptism of Christ                      29\nSECTION VI.--The Principal Witness--His Testimony\n    respecting the Death of Christ                        33\nSECTION VII.--The Principal Witness--His Testimony\n    respecting the Moral Teaching of our Lord             40\nSECTION VIII.--The Principal Witness--His Testimony\n    to St. John                                           45\nSECTION IX.--The Principal Witness--His Further\n    Testimony to St. John                                 53\nSECTION X.--The Principal Witness--His Testimony\n    summed up                                             60\nSECTION XI.--The Principal Witness on our Lord's\n    Godhead                                               65\nSECTION XII.--The Principal Witness on the Doctrine\n    of the Logos                                          73\nSECTION XIII.--The Principal Witness on our Lord as\n    King, Priest, and Angel                               80\nSECTION XIV.--The Principal Witness on the Doctrine\n    of the Trinity                                        85\nSECTION XV.--Justin and St. John on the Incarnation       88\nSECTION XVI.--Justin and St. John on the Subordination\n    of the Son                                            93\nSECTION XVII.--Justin and Philo                           98\nSECTION XVIII.--Discrepancies between St. John and the\n    Synoptics                                            104\nSECTION XIX.--External Proofs of the Authenticity\n    of our Four Gospels                                  118\nNote on Section XIX.--Testimonies of Irenaeus, Clement\n    of Alexandria, and Tertullian to the use of\n    the Four Gospels in their day                        136\nSECTION XX.--The Evidence for Miracles                   149\nSECTION XXI.--Objections to Miracles                     162\nSECTION XXII.--Jewish Credulity                          167\nSECTION XXIII.--Demoniacal Possession                    173\nSECTION XXIV.--Competent Witnesses                       179\nSECTION XXV.--Date of Testimony                          185\n\n\n\n\nTHE LOST GOSPEL.\n\n\nSECTION I.\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\nIn the following pages I have examined the conclusions at which the\nauthor of a book entitled \"Supernatural Religion\" has assumed to have\narrived.\n\nThe method and contents of the work in question may be thus described.\n\nThe work is entitled \"Supernatural Religion, an Inquiry into the Reality\nof Divine Revelation.\" Its contents occupy two volumes of about 500\npages each, so that we have in it an elaborate attack upon Christianity\nof very considerable length. The first 200 pages of the first volume are\nfilled with arguments to prove that a Revelation, such as the one we\nprofess to believe in, supernatural in its origin and nature and\nattested by miracles, is simply incredible, and so, on no account, no\nmatter how evidenced, to be received.\n\nBut, inasmuch as the author has to face the fact, that the Christian\nReligion professes to be attested by miracles performed at a very late\nperiod in the history of the world, and said to have been witnessed by\nvery large numbers of persons, and related very fully in certain books\ncalled the Canonical Gospels, which the whole body of Christians have,\nfrom a very early period indeed, received as written by eye-witnesses,\nor by the companions of eye-witnesses, the remaining 800 pages are\noccupied with attempts at disparaging the testimony of these writings.\nIn order to this, the Christian Fathers and heretical writers of a\ncertain period are examined, to ascertain whether they quoted the four\nEvangelists. The period from which the writer chooses his witnesses to\nthe use of the four Evangelists, is most unwarrantably and arbitrarily\nrestricted to the first ninety years of the second century (100-185 or\nso). We shall have ample means for showing that this limitation was for\na purpose.\n\nThe array of witnesses examined runs thus: Clement of Rome, Barnabas,\nHermas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Hegesippus, Papias of\nHierapolis, the Clementines, the Epistle to Diognetus, Basilides,\nValentinus, Marcion, Tatian, Dionysius of Corinth, Melito of Sardis,\nClaudius Apollinaris, Athenagoras, Epistle of Vienne and Lyons,\nPtolemaeus and Heracleon, Celsus and the Canon of Muratori.\n\nThe examination of references, or supposed references, in these books to\nthe first three Gospels fills above 500 pages, and the remainder (about\n220) is occupied with an examination of the claims of the fourth Gospel\nto be considered as canonical.\n\nThe writer conducts this examination with an avowed dogmatical bias; and\nthis, as the reader will soon see, influences the manner of his\nexamination throughout the whole book. For instance, he never fails to\ngive to the anti-Christian side the benefit of every doubt, or even\nsuspicion. This leads him to make the most of the smallest discrepancy\nbetween the words of any supposed quotation in any early writer from one\nof our Canonical Gospels, and the words as contained in our present\nGospels. If the writer quotes the Evangelist freely, with some\ndifferences, however slight, in the words, he is assumed to quote from a\nlost Apocryphal Gospel. If the writer gives the words as we find them in\nour Gospels, he attempts to show that the father or heretic need not\nhave even seen our present Gospels; for, inasmuch as our present Gospels\nhave many things in common which are derived from an earlier source, the\nquoter may have derived the words he quotes from the earlier source. If\nthe quoter actually mentions the name of the Evangelist whose Gospel he\nrefers to (say St. Mark), it is roundly asserted that his St. Mark is\nnot the same as ours. [Endnote 3:1]\n\nThe reader may ask, \"How is it possible, against such a mode of\nargument, to prove the genuineness or authenticity of any book, sacred\nor profane?\" And, of course, it is not. Such a way of conducting a\ncontroversy seems absurd, but on the author's premises it is a\nnecessity. He asserts the dogma that the Governor of the world cannot\ninterfere by way of miracle. He has to meet the fact that the foremost\nreligion of the world appeals to miracles, especially the miracle of the\nResurrection of the Founder. For the truth of this miraculous\nResurrection there is at least a thousand times more evidence than there\nis for any historical fact which is recorded to have occurred 1,800\nyears ago. Of course, if the supernatural in Christianity is impossible,\nand so incredible, all the witnesses to it must be discredited; and\ntheir number, their age, and their unanimity upon the principal points\nare such that the mere attempt must tax the powers of human labour and\ningenuity to the uttermost.\n\nHow, then, is such a book to be met? It would take a work of twice the\nsize to rebut all the assertions of the author, for, naturally, an\nanswer to any assertion must take up more space than the assertion.\nFortunately, in this case, we are not driven to any such course; for, as\nI shall show over and over again, the author has furnished us with the\nmost ample means for his own refutation. No book that I have over read\nor heard of contains so much which can be met by implication from the\npages of the author himself, nor can I imagine any book of such\npretensions pervaded with so entire a misconception of the conditions of\nthe problem on which he is writing.\n\nThese assertions I shall now, God helping, proceed to make good.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION II.\n\nTHE WAY CLEARED.\n\n\nThe writers, whose testimonies to the existence or use of our present\nGospels are examined by the author, are twenty-three in number. Five of\nthese, namely, Hegesippus, Papias, Melito, Claudius Apollinaris, and\nDionysius of Corinth are only known to us through fragments preserved as\nquotations in Eusebius and others. Six others--Basilides, Valentinus,\nMarcion, Ptolemaeus, Heracleon, and Celsus--are heretical or infidel\nwriters whom we only know through notices or scraps of their works in\nthe writings of the Christian Fathers who refuted them. The Epistle of\nthe Martyrs of Vienne and Lyons is only in part preserved in the pages\nof Eusebius. The Canon of Muratori is a mutilated fragment of uncertain\ndate. Athenagoras and Tatian are only known through Apologies written\nfor the Heathen, the last of all Christian books in which to look for\ndefinite references to canonical writings. The Epistle to Diognetus is a\nsmall tract of uncertain date and authorship. The Clementine Homilies is\nan apocryphal work of very little value in the present discussion.\n\nThese are all the writings placed by the author as subsequent to Justin\nMartyr. The writers previous to Justin, of whom the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" makes use, are Clement of Rome (to whom we shall\nafterwards refer), the Epistle of Barnabas, the Pastor of Hermas, the\nEpistles of Ignatius, and that of Polycarp.\n\nAs I desire to take the author on his own ground whenever it is possible\nto do so, I shall, for argument's sake, take the author's account of the\nage and authority of these documents. I shall consequently assume with\nhim that\n\n    \"None of the epistles [of Ignatius] have any value as evidence for\n    an earlier period than the end of the second or beginning of the\n    third century [from about 190 to 210 or so], if indeed they possess\n    any value at all.\" [6:1] (Vol. i. p. 274.)\n\nWith respect to the short Epistle of Polycarp, I shall be patient of his\nassumption that\n\n    \"Instead of proving the existence of the epistles of Ignatius, with\n    which it is intimately associated, it is itself discredited in\n    proportion as they are shown to be inauthentic.\" (Vol. i. p. 274)\n\nand so he\n\n    \"assigns it to the latter half of the second century, in so far as\n    any genuine part of it is concerned.\" (P. 275)\n\nSimilarly, I shall assume that the Pastor of Hermas \"may have been\nwritten about the middle of the second century\" (p. 256), and, with\nrespect to the Epistle of Barnabas, I shall take the latest date\nmentioned by the author of \"Supernatural Religion,\" where he writes\nrespecting the epistle--\n\n    \"There is little or no certainty how far into the second century its\n    composition may not reasonably be advanced. Critics are divided upon\n    the point, a few are disposed to date the epistle about the end of\n    the first century; others at the beginning of the second century;\n    while a still greater number assign it to the reign of Adrian (A.D.\n    117-130); and others, not without reason, consider that it exhibits\n    marks of a still later period.\" (Vol. i. p. 235.)\n\nThe way, then, is so far cleared that I can confine my remarks to the\ninvestigation of the supposed citations from the Canonical Gospels, to\nbe found in the works of Justin Martyr. Before beginning this, it may be\nwell to direct the reader's attention to the real point at issue; and\nthis I shall have to do continually throughout my examination. The work\nis entitled \"Supernatural Religion,\" and is an attack upon what the\nauthor calls \"Ecclesiastical Christianity,\" because such Christianity\nsets forth the Founder of our Religion as conceived and born in a\nsupernatural way; as doing throughout His life supernatural acts; as\ndying for a supernatural purpose; and as raised from the dead by a\nmiracle, which was the sign and seal of the truth of all His\nsupernatural claims. The attack in the book in question takes the form\nof a continuous effort to show that all our four Gospels are\nunauthentic, by showing, or attempting to show, that they were never\nquoted before the latter part of the second century: but the real point\nof attack is the supernatural in the records of Christ's Birth, Life,\nDeath, and Resurrection.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION III.\n\nTHE PRINCIPAL WITNESS.--HIS RELIGIOUS VIEWS.\n\n\nThe examination of the quotations in Justin Martyr of the Synoptic\nGospels occupies nearly one hundred and fifty pages; and deservedly so,\nfor the acknowledged writings of this Father are, if we except the\nClementine forgeries and the wild vision of Hermas, more in length than\nthose of all the other twenty-three witnesses put together. They are\nalso valuable because no doubts can be thrown upon their date, and\nbecause they take up, or advert to, so many subjects of interest to\nChristians in all ages.\n\nThe universally acknowledged writings of Justin Martyr are three:--Two\nApologies addressed to the Heathen, and a Dialogue with Trypho a Jew.\n\nThe first Apology is addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, and was\nwritten before the year 150 A.D. The second Apology is by some supposed\nto be the first in point of publication, and is addressed to the Roman\npeople.\n\nThe contents of the two Apologies are remarkable in this respect, that\nJustin scruples not to bring before the heathen the very arcana of\nChristianity. No apologist shows so little \"reserve\" in stating to the\nheathen the mysteries of the faith. At the very outset he enunciates the\ndoctrine of the Incarnate Logos:--\n\n    \"For not only among the Greeks did Logos (or Reason) prevail to\n    condemn these things by Socrates, but also among the barbarians were\n    they condemned by the Logos himself, who took shape and became man,\n    and was called Jesus Christ.\" [10:1] (Apol. I. 5.)\n\nIn the next chapter he sets forth the doctrine and worship of the\nTrinity:--\n\n    \"But both Him [the Father] and the Son, Who came forth from Him and\n    taught these things to us and the host of heaven, the other good\n    angels who follow and are made like to Him, and the Prophetic\n    Spirit, we worship and adore, knowing them in reason and truth.\"\n    [10:2]\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, Who was also born for\n    this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of\n    Judaea, in the time of Tiberius Caesar; and that we reasonably\n    worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the True God\n    Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the Prophetic\n    Spirit in the third.\" (Apol. I. ch. x. 3.)\n\nAgain, a little further on, he claims for Christians a higher belief in\nthe supernatural than the heathen had, for, whereas the heathen went no\nfurther than believing that souls after death are in a state of\nsensation, Christians believed in the resurrection of the body:--\n\n    \"Such favour as you grant to these, grant also unto us, who not less\n    but more firmly than they believe in God; since we expect to receive\n    again our own bodies, though they be dead and cast into the earth,\n    for we maintain that with God nothing is impossible.\" (Apol. I. ch.\n    xviii.)\n\nIn the next chapter (xix.) he proceeds to prove the Resurrection\npossible. This he does from the analogy of human generation, and he\nconcludes thus:--\n\n    \"So also judge ye that it is not impossible that the bodies of men\n    after they have been dissolved, and like seeds resolved into earth,\n    should in God's appointed time rise again and put on incorruption.\"\n\nIn another place in the same Apology he asserts the personality of\nSatan:--\n\n    \"For among us the prince of the wicked spirits is called the\n    serpent, and Satan, and the devil, as you can learn by looking into\n    our writings, and that he would be sent into the fire with his host,\n    and the men who followed him, and would be punished for an endless\n    duration, Christ foretold.\" (Apol. I. ch. xxviii.)\n\nIn the same short chapter he asserts in very weighty words his belief in\nthe ever-watchful providence of God:--\n\n    \"And if any one disbelieves that God cares for these things (the\n    welfare of the human race), he will thereby either insinuate that\n    God does not exist, or he will assert that though He exists He\n    delights in vice, or exists like a stone, and that neither virtue\n    nor vice are anything, but only in the opinion of men these things\n    are reckoned good or evil, and this is the greatest profanity and\n    wickedness.\" (Apol. I. ch. xxviii.)\n\nShortly after this he tells the heathen Emperor that the mission and\nwork of Jesus Christ had been predicted:--\n\n    \"There were amongst the Jews certain men who were prophets of God,\n    through whom the Prophetic Spirit published beforehand things that\n    were to come to pass, ere ever they happened. And their prophecies,\n    as they were spoken and when they were uttered, the kings who\n    happened to be reigning among the Jews at the several times\n    carefully preserved in their possession, when they had been arranged\n    in books by the prophets themselves in their own Hebrew language....\n    In these books, then, of the prophets, we found Jesus Christ\n    foretold as coming, born of a virgin, growing up to man's estate,\n    and healing every disease and every sickness, and raising the dead,\n    and being hated, and unrecognized, and crucified, and dying and\n    rising again, and ascending into heaven, and being, and being\n    called, the Son of God. We find it also predicted that certain\n    persons should be sent by Him into every nation to publish these\n    things, and that rather among the Gentiles (than among the Jews) men\n    should believe on Him. And He was predicted before He appeared,\n    first 5,000 years before, and again 3,000, then 2,000, then 1,000,\n    and yet again 800; for in the succession of generations prophets\n    after prophets arose.\" (Apol. I. ch. xxxi.)\n\nThen he proceeds to show how certain particular prophecies which he\ncites were fulfilled in the Jews having a lawgiver till the time of\nChrist, and not after; in Christ's entry into Jerusalem; in His Birth of\na Virgin; in the place of His Birth; in His having His hands and feet\npierced with the nails. (Ch. xxxiii., xxxiv., xxxv.)\n\nAgain, immediately afterwards, he endeavours to classify certain\nprophecies as peculiarly those of God the Father, certain others as\npeculiarly those of God the Son, and others as the special utterance of\nthe Spirit. (Ch. xxxvi.-xl.)\n\nThen he proceeds to specify certain particular prophecies as fulfilled\nin our Lord's Advent (ch. xl.); certain others in His Crucifixion\n(xli.); in His Session in heaven (xlv.); in the desolation of Judaea\n(xlvii.); in the miracles and Death of Christ (xlviii.); in His\nrejection by the Jews (xlix.); in His Humiliation (l.) He concludes with\nasserting the extreme importance of prophecy, as without it we should\nnot be warranted in believing such things of any one of the human\nrace:--\n\n    \"For with what reason should we believe of a crucified Man that He\n    is the first-born of the unbegotten God, and Himself will pass\n    judgment on the whole human race, unless we have found testimonies\n    concerning Him published before He came, and was born as man, and\n    unless we saw that things had happened accordingly,--the devastation\n    of the land of the Jews, and men of every race persuaded by His\n    teaching through the Apostles, and rejecting their old habits, in\n    which, being deceived, they had had their conversation.\" (Ch. liii.)\n\nAfter this he speaks (ch. lxi.) of Christian Baptism, as being in some\nsense a conveyance of Regeneration, and of the Eucharist (ch. lxvi.), as\nbeing a mysterious communication of the Flesh and Blood of Christ, and\nat the conclusion he describes the worship of Christians, and tells the\nEmperor that in their assemblies the memoirs of the Apostles (by which\nname he designates the accounts of the Birth, Life, and Death of\nChrist), or the writings of the Prophets were read, as long as time\npermits, putting the former on a par with the latter, as equally\nnecessary for the instruction of Christians.\n\nBesides this, we find that Justin holds all these views of Scripture\ntruths which are now called Evangelical. He speaks of men now being\n\n    \"Purified no longer by the blood of goats and sheep, or by the ashes\n    of an heifer, or by the offerings of fine flour, but by faith\n    through the Blood of Christ, and through His Death, Who died for\n    this very reason.\" (Dial.)\n\nAnd again:\n\n    \"So that it becomes you to eradicate this hope (_i.e._ of salvation\n    by Jewish ordinances) from your souls, and hasten to know in what\n    way forgiveness of sins, and a hope of inheriting the promised good\n    things, shall be yours. But there is no other way than this to\n    become acquainted with this Christ, to be washed in the fountain\n    spoken of by Isaiah for the remission of sins, and for the rest to\n    lead sinless lives.\" (Dial. xliv.)\n\nSo that from this Apology alone, though addressed to the heathen, we\nlearn that Justin cordially accepted every supernatural element in\nChristianity. He thoroughly believed in the Trinity, the Incarnation of\nthe Logos, the miraculous Conception, Birth, Life, Miracles, Death,\nResurrection, and Ascension of Christ. He firmly believed in the\npredictive element in prophecy, in the atoning virtue of the Death of\nChrist, in the mysterious inward grace or inward part in each Sacrament,\nin the heart-cleansing power of the Spirit of God, in the particular\nprovidence of God, in the resurrection of the body, in eternal reward\nand eternal punishment.\n\nWhatever, then, was the source of his knowledge, that knowledge made him\nintensely dogmatic in his creed, and a firm believer in the supernatural\nnature of everything in his religion.\n\nThe Second Apology is of the same nature as the first. A single short\nextract or two from it will show how firmly the author held the\nsupernatural:--\n\n    \"Our doctrines, then, appear to be greater than all human teaching;\n    because Christ, who appeared for our sakes, became the whole\n    rational being, both body, and reason, and soul.... These things our\n    Christ did through His own power. For no one trusted in Socrates so\n    as to die for this doctrine; but in Christ, who was partially known\n    even by Socrates (for He was and is the Word Who is in every man,\n    and Who foretold the things that were to come to pass both through\n    the prophets and in His own Person when He was made of like\n    passions, and taught these things); not only philosophers and\n    scholars believed, but also artizans and people entirely uneducated,\n    despising both glory, and fear, and death; since He is a Power of\n    the ineffable Father, and not the mere instrument of human reason.\"\n    (Apol. II. ch. x.)\n\nThe dialogue with Trypho is the record of a lengthy discussion with a\nJew for the purpose of converting him to the Christian faith. The\nassertion of the supernatural is here, if possible, more unreserved than\nin the First Apology. In order to convert Trypho, Justin cites every\nprophecy of the Old Testament that can, with the smallest show of\nreason, be referred to Christ.\n\nHaving, first of all, vindicated the Christians from the charge of\nsetting aside the Jewish law or covenant, by an argument evidently\nderived from the Epistle to the Hebrews, [15:1] and vindicated for\nChristians the title of the true spiritual Israel, [15:2] he proceeds to\nthe prophetical Scriptures, and transcribes the whole of the prophecy of\nIsaiah from the fifty-second chapter to the fifty-fourth, and applies it\nto Christ and His Kingdom. (Dial. ch. xiii.) Shortly after, he applies\nto the second Advent of Christ the prophecy of Daniel respecting the Son\nof Man, brought before the Ancient of Days. (Ch. xxxi.) Then he notices\nand refutes certain destructive interpretations of prophecies which have\nbeen derived from the unbelieving Jews by our modern rationalists, as\nthat Psalm cx. is spoken of Hezekiah, and Psalm lxxii. of Solomon.\n\nThen he proceeds to prove that Christ is both God and Lord of Hosts; and\nhe first cites Psalm xxiv., and then Psalms xlvi., xcviii., and xlv.\n(Ch. xxxvi., xxxvii., xxxviii.)\n\nThen, after returning to the Mosaic law, and proving that certain points\nin its ritual wore fulfilled in the Christian system (as the oblation of\nfine flour in the Eucharist--ch. xli.), he concludes this part of his\nargument with the assertion that the Mosaic law had an end in Christ:--\n\n    \"In short, sirs,\" said I, \"by enumerating all the other appointments\n    of Moses, I can demonstrate that they were types, and symbols, and\n    declarations of those things which would happen to Christ, of those\n    who, it was foreknown, were to believe in Him, and of those things\n    which would also be done by Christ Himself.\" (Ch. xlii.)\n\nThen he again proves that this Christ was to be, and was, born of a\nvirgin; and takes occasion to show that the virgin mentioned in Isaiah\nvii. was not a young married woman, as rationalists in Germany and among\nourselves have learnt from the unbelieving Jews. (Ch. xliii.)\n\nTo go over more of Justin's argument would be beside my purpose, which\nis at present simply to show how very firmly his faith embraced the\nsupernatural.\n\nI shall mention one more application of prophecy. When Trypho asks that\nJustin should resume the discourse, and show that the Spirit of prophecy\nadmits another God besides the Maker of all things, [17:1] Justin\naccepts his challenge, and commences with the appearance of the three\nangels to Abraham, and devotes much space and labour to a sifting\ndiscussion of the meaning of this place. The conclusion is thus\nexpressed:--\n\n    \"And now have you not perceived, my friends, that one of the\n    three, Who is both God and Lord, and ministers to Him Who is\n    [remains] in the heavens, is Lord of the two angels? For when [the\n    angels] proceeded to Sodom He remained behind, and communed with\n    Abraham in the words recorded by Moses; and when He departed after\n    the conversation Abraham went back to his place. And when He came\n    [to Sodom] the two angels no longer converse with Lot, but Himself,\n    as the Scripture makes evident; and He is the Lord Who received\n    commission from the Lord Who [remains] in the heavens, i.e. the\n    Maker of all things, to inflict upon Sodom and Gomorrah the\n    [judgments] which the Scripture describes in these terms: 'The Lord\n    rained upon Sodom sulphur and fire from the Lord out of heaven.'\"\n    (Ch. lvi.)\n\nIt is clear from all this that Justin Martyr looked upon prophecy as a\nsupernatural gift, bestowed upon men in order to prepare them to receive\nthat Christ whom God would send. Instead of regarding it as the natural\nsurmising of far-seeing men who, from their experience of the past, and\nfrom their knowledge of human nature, could in some sort guess what\ncourse events are likely to take, he regarded it as a Divine influence\nemanating from Him Who knows the future as perfectly as He knows the\npast, and for His own purposes revealing events, and in many cases what\nwe should call _trifling_ events, which would be wholly out of the power\nof man to guess or even to imagine.\n\nI am not, of course, concerned to show that Justin was right in his\nviews of prophecy; all I am concerned to show is, that Justin regarded\nprophecy as the highest of supernatural gifts.\n\nSuch, then, was the view of Justin respecting Christ and the Religion He\nestablished. Christ, the highest of supernatural beings, His Advent\nforetold by men with supernatural gifts to make known the future, coming\nto us in the highest of supernatural ways, and establishing a\nsupernatural kingdom for bringing about such supernatural ends as the\nreconciliation of all men to God by His Sacrifice, the Resurrection of\nthe body, and the subjugation of the wills of all men to the Will of\nGod.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION IV.\n\nTHE PRINCIPAL WITNESS.--THE SOURCES OF HIS KNOWLEDGE RESPECTING THE BIRTH\nOF CHRIST.\n\n\nThe question now arises, and I beg the reader to remember that it is the\nquestion on which the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" stakes\nall,--From what source did Justin derive this supernatural view of\nChristianity?\n\nWith respect to the Incarnation, Birth, Life, Death, and Resurrection of\nChrist, he evidently derives it from certain documents which he\nrepeatedly cites, as \"The Memoirs of the Apostles\" ([Greek:\nApomnemoneumata ton Apostolon]). These are the documents which he\nmentions as being read, along with the Prophets, at the meetings of\nChristians.\n\nOn one occasion, when he is seemingly referring to the [bloody] sweat of\nour Lord, which is mentioned only in St. Luke, who is not an Apostle, he\ndesignates these writings as the \"Memoirs which were drawn up by the\nApostles _and those who followed them_.\" [19:1] Again, on another\noccasion, he seems to indicate specially the Gospel of St. Mark as being\nthe \"Memoirs of Peter.\" It is a well-known fact that all ecclesiastical\ntradition, almost with one voice, has handed down that St. Mark wrote\nhis Gospel under the superintendence, if not at the dictation, of St.\nPeter; and when Justin has occasion to mention that our Lord gave the\nname of Boanerges to the sons of Zebedee, an incident mentioned only by\nSt. Mark, he seems at least to indicate the Gospel of St. Mark as being\nspecially connected with St. Peter as his Memoirs when he writes:\n[20:1]--\n\n    \"And when it is said that he changed the name of one of the Apostles\n    to Peter; and when it is written in his Memoirs that this so\n    happened, as well as that He changed the names of two other\n    brothers, the sons of Zebedee, to Boanerges, which means 'sons of\n    thunder;' this was an announcement,\" &c. (Ch. cvi.)\n\nWith the exception of these two apparent cases, Justin never\ndistinguishes one Memoir from another. He never mentions the author or\nauthors of the Memoirs by name, and for this reason--that the three\nundoubted treatises of his which have come down to us are all written\nfor those outside the pale of the Christian Church. It would have been\nworse than useless, in writing for such persons, to distinguish between\nEvangelist and Evangelist. So far as \"those without\" were concerned, the\nEvangelists gave the same view of Christ and His work; and to have\nquoted first one and then another by name would have been mischievous,\nas indicating differences when the testimony of all that could be called\nmemoirs was, in point of fact, one and the same.\n\nAccording to the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" Justin ten times\ndesignates the source of his quotations as the \"Memoirs of the\nApostles,\" and five times as simply the \"Memoirs.\"\n\nNow the issue which the writer of \"Supernatural Religion\" raises is\nthis: \"Were these Memoirs our present four Gospels, or were they some\nolder Gospel or Gospels?\" to which we may add another: \"Did Justin quote\nany other lost Gospel besides our four?\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI shall now give some instances of the use which Justin makes of the\nwritings which he calls \"Memoirs,\" and this will enable the reader in\ngreat measure to judge for himself.\n\nFirst of all, then, I give one or two extracts from Justin's account of\nour Lord's Nativity. Let the reader remember that, with respect to the\nfirst of these, the account is not introduced in order to give Trypho an\naccount of our Lord's Birth, but to assure him that a certain prophecy,\nas it is worded in the Septuagint translation of Isaiah--viz., \"He shall\ntake the powers of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria,\" was fulfilled in\nChrist. And indeed almost every incident which Justin takes notice of he\nrelates as a fulfilment of some prophecy or other. Trifling or\ncomparatively trifling incidents in our Lord's Life are noticed at great\nlength, because they are supposed to be the fulfilment of some prophecy;\nand what we should consider more important events are passed over in\nsilence, because they do not seem to fulfil any prediction.\n\nThe first extract from Justin, then, shall be the following:--\n\n    \"Now this King Herod, at the time when the Magi came to him from\n    Arabia, and said they knew from a star which appeared in the heavens\n    that a King had been born in your country, and that they had come to\n    worship Him, learned from the Elders of your people, that it was\n    thus written regarding Bethlehem in the Prophet: 'And thou,\n    Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art by no means least among the\n    princes of Judah; for out of thee shall go forth the leader, who\n    shall feed my people.' Accordingly, the Magi from Arabia came to\n    Bethlehem, and worshipped the child, and presented him with gifts,\n    gold, and frankincense, and myrrh; but returned not to Herod, being\n    warned in a revelation after worshipping the child in Bethlehem. And\n    Joseph, the spouse of Mary, who wished at first to put away his\n    betrothed Mary, supposing her to be pregnant by intercourse with a\n    man, _i.e._ from fornication, was commanded in a vision not to put\n    away his wife; and the angel who appeared to him told him that what\n    is in her womb is of the Holy Ghost. Then he was afraid and did not\n    put her away, but on the occasion of the first census which was\n    taken in Judea under Cyrenius, he went up from Nazareth, where he\n    lived, to Bethlehem, to which he belonged, to be enrolled; for his\n    family was of the tribe of Judah, which then inhabited that region.\n    Then, along with Mary, he is ordered to proceed into Egypt, and\n    remain there with the Child, until another revelation warn them to\n    return to Judea. But when the Child was born in Bethlehem, since\n    Joseph could not find a lodging in that village, he took up his\n    quarters in a certain cave near the village; and while they were\n    there Mary brought forth the Christ and placed Him in a manger, and\n    here the Magi who came from Arabia, found Him. 'I have repeated to\n    you,' I continued, 'what Isaiah foretold about the sign which\n    foreshadowed the cave; but, for the sake of those which have come\n    with us to-day, I shall again remind you of the passage.' Then I\n    repeated the passage from Isaiah which I have already written,\n    adding that, by means of those words, those who presided over the\n    mysteries of Mithras were stirred up by the devil to say that in a\n    place, called among them a cave, they were initiated by him. 'So\n    Herod, when the Magi from Arabia did not return to him, as he had\n    asked them to do, but had departed by another way to their own\n    country, according to the commands laid upon them; and when Joseph,\n    with Mary and the Child, had now gone into Egypt, as it was revealed\n    to them to do; as he did not know the Child whom the Magi had gone\n    to worship, ordered simply the whole of the children then in\n    Bethlehem to be massacred. And Jeremiah prophesied that this would\n    happen, speaking by the Holy Ghost thus: 'A voice was heard in\n    Ramah, lamentation and much wailing, Rachel weeping for her\n    children, and she would not be comforted, because they are not.'\"\n    (Dial. ch. lxxviii.)\n\nNow any unprejudiced reader, on examining this account, would instantly\nsay that Justin had derived every word of it from the Gospels of St.\nMatthew and St. Luke, but that, instead of quoting the exact words of\neither Evangelist, he would say that he (Justin) \"reproduced\" them. He\nreproduced the narrative of the Nativity as it is found in each of these\ntwo Gospels. He first reproduces the narrative in St. Matthew in\nsomewhat more colloquial phrase than the Evangelist used, interspersing\nwith it remarks of his own; and in order to account for the Birth of\nChrist in Bethlehem he brings in from St. Luke the matter of the census,\n(not with historical accuracy but) sufficiently to show that he was\nacquainted with the beginning of Luke ii.; and in order to account for\nthe fact that Christ was not born in the inn, but in a more sordid place\n(whether stable or cave matters not, for if it was a cave it was a cave\nused as a stable, for there was a \"manger\" in it), he reproduces Luke\nii. 6-7.\n\nJustin then, in a single consecutive narrative, expressed much in his\nown words, gives the whole account, so far as it was a fulfilment of\nprophecy, made up from two narratives which have come down to us in the\nGospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, and in these only. It would have\nbeen absurd for him to have done otherwise, as he might have done if he\nhad anticipated the carpings of nineteenth century critics, and assumed\nthat Trypho, an unconverted Jew, had a New Testament in his hand with\nwhich he was so familiar that he could be referred to first one\nnarrative and then the other, in order to test the correctness of\nJustin's quotations.\n\nAgainst all this the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" brings forward a\nnumber of trifling disagreements as proofs that Justin need not have\nquoted one of the Evangelists--probably did not--indeed, may not have\never seen our synoptics, or heard of their existence. But the reader\nwill observe that he has given the same history as we find in the two\nsynoptics which have given an account of the Nativity, and he apparently\nknew of no other account of the matter.\n\nWe are reminded that there were numerous apocryphal Gospels then in use\nin the Church, and that Justin might have derived his matter from these;\nbut, if so, how is it that he discards all the lying legends with which\nthose Gospels team, and, with the solitary exception of the mention of\nthe cave, confines himself to the circumstances of the synoptic\nnarrative.\n\nThe next place respecting the Nativity shall be one from ch. c.:--\n\n    \"But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel\n    announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would\n    come upon her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her;\n    wherefore also the Holy Thing begotten of her is the Son of God: and\n    she replied, 'Be it unto me according to Thy word.'\"\n\nHere both the words of the angel and the answer of the virgin are almost\nidentical with the words in St. Luke's Gospel; Justin, however, putting\nhis account into the oblique narrative.\n\nWe will put the two side by side that the reader may compare them.\n\n                             [GREEK TABLE]\n\nPistin de kai charan labousa       |\nMaria he parthenos euangelizomenou |\naute Gabriel angelou, hoti pneuma  | Pneuma hagion epeleusetai epi\nkyriou ep' auten epeleusetai,      | se, kai dynamis hypsistou\nkai dunamis hypsistou episkiasei   | episkiasei soi, dio kai to gennomenon\nauten, dio kai to gennomenon       | hagion klethesetai Hyios Theou.\nex autes hagion estin Hyios Theou, |  *       *       *       *       *\napekrinato, Genoito moi kata to    | Genoito moi kaia to rhema sou.\nrhema sou.                         |\n\nNow of these words, _as existing in St. Luke_, the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" takes no notice. Was he, then, acquainted with\nthe fact that Justin's words _in this place_ so closely correspond with\nSt. Luke's? We cannot say. We only know that he calls his readers'\nparticular attention to a supposed citation of the previous words of the\nangel Gabriel, cited in another place:--\n\n    \"Behold thou shalt conceive of the Holy Ghost, and shalt bear a Son,\n    and He shall be called the Son of the Highest, and thou shalt call\n    His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.\"\n    (Apol. I. ch. xxxiii.)\n\nThe ordinary unprejudiced reader would say that Justin here reproduces\nSt. Matthew and St. Luke, weaving into St. Luke's narrative the words of\nthe angel to St. Joseph; but our author will not allow this for a\nmoment. He insists that Justin knew nothing, or need have known nothing,\nof St. Luke. He shows that the words of the angel, \"He shall save his\npeople,\" &c., which seem to be introduced from St. Matthew, \"are not\naccidentally inserted in this place, for we find that they are joined in\nthe same manner to the address of the angel to Mary in the\nProtevangelium of St. James.\"\n\nBut how about those words which succeed them in answer to the question\nof the Virgin, \"How shall these things be?\" I mean those quoted in the\n\"Dialogue\" beginning \"The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,\" &c. If ever\none author quotes another, Justin in this place quotes St. Luke. They\ncannot be taken from the Protevangelium, because the corresponding words\nin the Protevangelium are very different from those in St. Luke; and the\nonly real difference between Justin's quotation and St. Luke is that St.\nLuke reads, \"shall be called the Son of God;\" whereas Justin has \"is the\nSon of God.\" Now in this Justin differs from the Protevangelium, which\nreads, \"Shall be called the Son of the Highest;\" so the probability is\nstill more increased that in the quotation from the \"Dialogue\" he did\nnot quote the Protevangelium, and did quote St. Luke. However, we will\nmake the author a present of these words, because we want to assume for\na moment the truth of his conclusion, which he thus expresses:--\n\n    \"Justin's divergencies from the Protevangelium prevent our supposing\n    that, in its present form, it could have been the actual source of\n    his quotations; but the wide differences which exist between the\n    extant MSS. of the Protevangelium show that even the most ancient\n    does not present it in its original form. It is much more probable\n    that Justin had before him a still older work, to which both the\n    Protevangelium and the third Gospel were indebted.\" (\"Supernatural\n    Religion,\" vol. i. p. 306.)\n\nAssuming, then, the correctness of this, Justin had a still older Gospel\nthan that of St. Luke; and we shall hereafter show that St. Luke's\nGospel was used in all parts of the world in Justin's day, and long\nbefore it. Now Justin himself lived only 100 years after the\nResurrection; and this is no very great age for the copy of a book,\nstill less for the book itself, of which any one may convince himself by\na glance around his library. We may depend upon it that Justin would\nhave used the oldest sources of information. A book so old in Justin's\ndays may have been published at the outset of Christianity. The author\nhimself surmises that it may have been the work of one of St. Luke's\n[Greek: polloi]. Anyhow it is an older and therefore, according to the\nwriter's own line of argument all through his book, a more reliable\nwitness to the things of Christ, and its witness is to the supernatural\nin His Birth. Are we, then, able to form any conjecture as to the name\nof this most ancient Gospel? Yes. The author of \"Supernatural Religion\"\nidentifies it with the lost Gospel to the Hebrews, in the words:--\n\n    \"Much more probably, however, Justin quotes from the more ancient\n    source from which the Protevangelium and perhaps St. Luke drew their\n    narrative. There can be little doubt that the Gospel according to\n    the Hebrews contained an account of the birth in Bethelehem, and as\n    it is, at least, certain that Justin quotes other particulars from\n    it, there is fair reason to believe that he likewise found this fact\n    [28:1] in that work.\" (Vol. ii. p. 313.)\n\nIf, then, this be the Gospel from which Justin derived his account of\nthe Nativity, it seems to have contained all the facts for which we have\nnow to look into St. Matthew and St. Luke. It combined the testimonies\nof both Evangelists to the supernatural Birth of Jesus.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION V.\n\nTHE PRINCIPAL WITNESS.--HIS TESTIMONY RESPECTING THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST.\n\n\nThe next extract from Justin which I shall give is one describing our\nLord's Baptism. This account, like almost every other given in the\ndialogue with Trypho, is mentioned by him, not so much for its own sake,\nbut because it gave him opportunity to show the fulfilment, or supposed\nfulfilment, of a prophecy--in this case the prophecy of Isaiah that the\n\"Spirit of the Lord should rest upon Him.\"\n\n    \"Even at His birth He was in possession of His power; and as He grew\n    up like all other men, by using the fitting means, He assigned its\n    own [requirements] to each development, and was sustained by all\n    kinds of nourishment, and waited for thirty years, more or less,\n    until John appeared before Him as the herald of His approach, and\n    preceded Him in the way of baptism, as I have already shown. And\n    then, when Jesus had gone to the river Jordan, where John was\n    baptizing, and when He had stepped into the water, a fire was\n    kindled in the Jordan; and when He came out of the water, the Holy\n    Ghost lighted on Him like a dove [as] the Apostles of this very\n    Christ of ours wrote.... For when John remained (literally sat)\n    [29:1] by the Jordan, and preached the baptism of repentance,\n    wearing only a leathern girdle and a vesture made of camel's hair,\n    eating nothing but locusts and wild honey, men supposed him to be\n    Christ; but he cried to them--'I am not the Christ, but the voice of\n    one crying; for He that is stronger than I shall come, whose shoes I\n    am not worthy to bear....' The Holy Ghost, and for man's sake, as I\n    formerly stated, lighted on Him in the form of a dove, and there\n    came at the same instant from the heavens a voice, which was uttered\n    also by David when he spoke, personating Christ, what the Father\n    would say to Him, 'Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee;'\n    [the Father] saying that His generation would take place for men, at\n    the time when they would become acquainted with Him. 'Thou art my\n    Son; this day have I begotten Thee.'\" (Ch. lxxxviii.)\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion\" lays very great stress upon this\npassage, as indicating throughout sources of information different from\nour Gospels. He makes the most of the fact that John is said to have\n\"sat\" by the Jordan, not apparently remembering that sitting was the\nnormal posture for preaching and teaching (Matthew v. 1; Luke iv. 20).\nHe, of course, dwells much upon the circumstance that a fire was kindled\nin the Jordan at the time of our Lord's baptism, which additional\ninstance of the supernatural Justin may have derived either from\ntradition or from the Gospel to the Hebrews. Above all, he dwells upon\nthe fact--and a remarkable fact it is--that Justin supposes that the\nwords of the Father wore not \"Thou art my beloved Son, in Thee I am well\npleased,\" but \"Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.\"\n\nNow I do not for a moment desire to lessen the importance of the\ndifficulty involved in a man, living in the age of Justin, giving the\nwords, of the Father so differently to what they appear in our Gospels.\nBut what is the import of the discrepancy? It is simply a theological\ndifficulty, the same in all respects with that which is involved in the\napplication of these very words to the Resurrection of Christ by St.\nPaul, in Acts xiii. 33. It is in no sense a difficulty having the\nsmallest bearing on the supernatural; for it is equally as supernatural\nfor the Father to have said, with a voice audible to mortal ears, \"This\nday have I begotten Thee,\" as it is for Him to have said, \"In Thee I am\nwell pleased.\"\n\nWhat, then, is the inference which the author of \"Supernatural Religion\"\ndraws from these discrepancies? This,--that Justin derived his\ninformation from the lost Gospel to the Hebrews.\n\n    \"In the scanty fragments of the 'Gospel according to the Hebrews,'\n    which have been preserved, we find both the incident of the fire\n    kindled in Jordan, and the words of the heavenly voice, as quoted by\n    Justin:--'And as He went out of the water, the heavens opened, and\n    He saw the Holy Spirit of God in the form of a dove descend and\n    enter into Him. And a voice was heard from heaven, saying, 'Thou art\n    my beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased;' and again, 'This day\n    have I begotten Thee.' And immediately a great light shone in that\n    place.' Epiphanius extracts this passage from the version in use\n    among the Ebionites, but it is well known that there were many other\n    varying forms of the same Gospel; and Hilgenfeld, with all\n    probability, conjectures that the version known to Epiphanius was no\n    longer in the same purity as that used by Justin, but represents the\n    transition stage to the Canonical Gospels, adopting the words of the\n    voice which they give without yet discarding the older form.\"\n    (\"Supernatural Religion,\" vol. i. p. 320.)\n\nHere, then, are the remains of an older Gospel used by Justin, taken\nfrom copies which rationalists assert to have been, when used by him, in\na state of greater purity than a subsequent recension, which subsequent\nrecension was anterior to our present Gospels, and being older was\npurer, because nearer to the fountain-head of knowledge: but this older\nand purer form is characterized by a more pronounced supernatural\nelement--to wit, the 'fire' in Jordan and the 'light'--so that, the\nolder and purer the tradition, the more supernatural is its teaching.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION VI.\n\nTHE PRINCIPAL WITNESS.--HIS TESTIMONY RESPECTING THE DEATH OF CHRIST.\n\n\nWe have now to consider the various notices in Justin respecting our\nLord's Crucifixion, and the events immediately preceding and following\nit. Justin notices our Lord's entry into Jerusalem:--\n\n    \"And the prophecy, 'binding His foal to the vine and washing His\n    robe in the blood of the grape,' was a significant symbol of the\n    things which were to happen to Christ, and of what He was to do. For\n    the foal of an ass stood bound to a vine at the entrance of a\n    village, and He ordered His acquaintances to bring it to Him then;\n    and when it was brought He mounted and sat upon it, and entered\n    Jerusalem.\" (Apol. I. ch. xxxii.)\n\nJustin in a subsequent place (Dial. ch. liii.) notices the fact only\nmentioned in St. Matthew, that Jesus commanded the disciples to bring\nboth an ass and its foal:--\n\n    \"And truly our Lord Jesus Christ, when He intended to go into\n    Jerusalem, requested His disciples to bring Him a certain ass, along\n    with its foal, which was bound in an entrance of a village called\n    Bethphage; and, having seated Himself on it, He entered into\n    Jerusalem.\"\n\nJustin thus describes the institution of the Eucharist:--\n\n    \"For the Apostles, in the Memoirs composed by them, which are called\n    Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them;\n    that Jesus took bread, and, when He had given thanks, said, 'This do\n    ye in remembrance of me, this is My body;' and that after the same\n    manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, 'This is My\n    blood;' and gave it to them alone.\" (Apol. i. ch. lxvi.)\n\nHe thus adverts to the dispersion of the Apostles:--\n\n    \"Moreover, the prophet Zechariah foretold that this same Christ\n    would be smitten and His disciples scattered: which also took place.\n    For after His Crucifixion the disciples that accompanied Him were\n    dispersed.\" (Dial. ch. liii.)\n\nHe mentions our Lord's agony as the completion of a prophecy in Psalm\nxxii.:--\n\n    \"For on the day on which He was to be crucified, having taken three\n    of His disciples to the hill called Olivet, situated opposite to the\n    temple at Jerusalem, He prayed in these words: 'Father, if it be\n    possible, lot this cup pass from Me.' And again He prayed, 'Not as I\n    will, but as Thou wilt.'\" (Dial. xcix.)\n\nHis sweating great drops of blood (mentioned only in St. Luke), also in\nfulfilment of Psalm xxii.--\n\n    \"For in the memoirs which I say were drawn up by His Apostles, and\n    those who followed them [it is recorded] that His sweat fell down\n    like drops of blood while He was praying, and saying, 'If it be\n    possible, let this cup pass.'\" [34:1] (Ch. ciii.)\n\nHis being sent to Herod (mentioned only in St. Luke):--\n\n    \"And when Herod succeeded Archelaus, having received the authority\n    which had been allotted to him, Pilate sent to him by way of\n    compliment Jesus bound; and God, foreknowing that this would happen,\n    had thus spoken, 'And they brought Him to the Assyrian a present to\n    the king.'\" (Ch. ciii.)\n\nHis silence before Pilate, also quoted by Justin, in fulfilment of Psalm\nxxii.:--\n\n    \"And the statement, 'My strength is become dry like a potsherd, and\n    my tongue has cleaved to my throat,' was also a prophecy of what\n    would be done by Him according to the Father's will. For the power\n    of His strong word, by which He always confuted the Pharisees and\n    Scribes, and, in short, all your nation's teachers that questioned\n    Him, had a cessation like a plentiful and strong spring, the waters\n    of which have been turned off, when He kept silence, and chose to\n    return no answer to any one in the presence of Pilate; as has been\n    declared in the Memoirs of His Apostles.\" (Dial. ch. cii.)\n\nHis crucifixion:\n\n    \"And again, in other words, David in the twenty-first Psalm thus\n    refers to the suffering and to the cross in a parable of mystery:\n    'They pierced my hands and my feet; they counted all my bones; they\n    considered and gazed upon me; they parted my garments among them,\n    and cast lots upon my vesture.' For when they crucified Him, driving\n    in the nails, they pierced His hands and feet; and those who\n    crucified Him parted His garments among themselves, each casting\n    lots for what he chose to have, and receiving according to the\n    decision of the lot.\" (Ch. xcvii.)\n\nThe mocking of Him by His enemies:--\n\n    \"And the following: 'All they that see Me laughed Me to scorn; they\n    spake with the lips; they shook the head: He trusted in the Lord,\n    let Him deliver Him since He desires Him;' this likewise He foretold\n    should happen to Him. For they that saw Him crucified shook their\n    heads each one of them, and distorted their lips, and, twisting\n    their noses to each other, they spake in mockery the words which are\n    recorded in the Memoirs of His Apostles, 'He said He was the Son of\n    God: let Him come down; let God save Him.'\" (Ch. ci.)\n\nHis saying, \"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?\" (reported only\nin SS. Matthew and Mark):--\n\n    \"For, when crucified, He spake, 'O God, my God, why hast Thou\n    forsaken me?'\" (Ch. xcix.)\n\nHis saying, \"Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit,\" reported only\nin St. Luke:--\n\n    \"For, when Christ was giving up His spirit on the cross, He said,\n    'Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,' as I have learned also\n    from the Memoirs.\" (Ch. cv.)\n\nHis Resurrection and appearance to His Apostles gathered together (found\nonly in SS. Luke and John), and His reminding the same Apostles that\nbefore His Death He had foretold it (found only in St. Luke):--\n\n    \"And that He stood in the midst of His brethren, the Apostles (who\n    repented of their flight from Him when He was crucified, after He\n    rose from the dead, and after they were persuaded by Him that before\n    His Passion He had mentioned to them that He must suffer these\n    things, and that they were announced beforehand by the prophets).\"\n    [37:1] (Ch. cvi.)\n\nThe Jews spreading the report that His disciples had stolen away His\nBody by night (recorded only by St. Matthew):--\n\n    \"Yet you not only have not repented, after you learned that He rose\n    from the dead, but, as I said before, you have sent chosen and\n    ordained men throughout all the world to proclaim that a godless and\n    lawless heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilean deceiver, whom\n    we crucified, but His disciples stole Him by night from the tomb,\n    where He was laid when unfastened from the cross.\" (Ch. cviii.)\n\nThe Apostles seeing the Ascension, and afterwards receiving power from\nHim in person, and going to every race of men:--\n\n    \"And when they had seen Him ascending into heaven, and had believed,\n    and had received power sent thence by Him upon them, and went to\n    every race of men, they taught these things, and were called\n    Apostles.\" (Apol. I. ch. l.)\n\nFrom all this the reader will see at a glance that Justin's view of the\nCrucifixion and the events attending it was exactly the same as ours. He\nwill notice that all the events related in Justin are the same as those\nrecorded in the Evangelists Matthew and Luke; and that the circumstances\nrelated by Justin, and not to be found in the Synoptics, are of the most\ntrifling character, as, for instance, that the blaspheming bystanders at\nthe cross \"screwed up their noses.\" I think this is the only additional\ncircumstance to which the writer of \"Supernatural Religion\" draws\nattention. He will notice that Justin records some events only to be\nfound in St. Matthew and some only in St. Luke. He will notice also how\nfrequently Justin reproduces the narrative rather than quotes it.\n\nThe ordinary reader would account for all this by supposing that Justin\nhad our Synoptics (at least the first and third) before him, and\nreproduced incidents first from one and then from the other as they\nsuited his purpose, and his purpose was not to give an account of the\nCrucifixion, but to elucidate the prophecies respecting the Crucifixion.\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion,\" however, goes through those\ncitations, or supposed citations, seriatim, and attempts to show that\neach one must have been taken from some lost Gospel, most probably the\nGospel of the Hebrews.\n\nBe it so. Here, then, was a Gospel which contained all the separate\nincidents recorded in SS. Matthew and Luke, and, of course, combined\nthem in one narrative. How is it that so inestimably valuable a\nChristian document was irretrievably lost, and its place supplied by\nthree others, each far its inferior, each picking and choosing separate\nparts from the original; and that, about 120 years after the original\npromulgation of the Gospel, these three forged narratives superseded a\nGospel which would have been, in the matter of our Lord's Birth, Death,\nand Resurrection, a complete and perfect harmony? I leave the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" to explain so unlikely a fact. One explanation\nis, however, on our author's own showing, inadmissible, which is, that\nour present Synoptics were adopted because they pandered more than the\nsuperseded one to the growing taste for the supernatural, for the\nearlier Gospel or Gospels contained supernatural incidents which are\nwanting in our present Synoptics.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION VII.\n\nTHE PRINCIPAL WITNESS.--HIS TESTIMONY RESPECTING THE MORAL TEACHING OF\nOUR LORD.\n\n\nOne more class of apparent quotations from our Synoptic Gospels must now\nbe considered, viz., the citations in Justin of the moral teaching or\nprecepts of Christ. Those are mostly to be found in one place, in one\npart of the First Apology (chapters xv.-xviii.), and they are introduced\nfor the express purpose of convincing the Emperor of the high standard\nof Christ's moral teaching.\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion\" gives very considerable extracts\nfrom these chapters, which I shall give in his own translation:--\n\n    \"He (Jesus) spoke thus of chastity: 'Whosoever may have gazed on a\n    woman, to lust after her, hath committed adultery already in the\n    heart before God.' And, 'If thy right eye offend thee cut it out,\n    for it is profitable for thee to enter into the kingdom of heaven\n    with one eye (rather) than having two to be thrust into the\n    everlasting fire.' And, 'Whosoever marrieth a woman, divorced from\n    another man, committeth adultery.'\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"And regarding our affection for all He thus taught: 'If ye love\n    them which love you what new thing do ye? for even the fornicators\n    do this; but I say unto you, pray for your enemies, and love them\n    which hate you, and bless them which curse you, and offer prayer for\n    them which despitefully use you.' And that we should communicate to\n    the needy, and do nothing for praise, He said thus: 'Give ye to\n    every one that asketh, and from him that desireth to borrow turn not\n    ye away, for, if ye lend to them from whom ye hope to receive, what\n    new thing do ye? for even the publicans do this. But ye, lay not up\n    for yourselves upon the earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and\n    robbers break through, but lay up for yourselves in the heavens,\n    where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt. For what is a man profited\n    if he shall gain the whole world but destroy his soul? or what shall\n    he give in exchange for it? Lay up, therefore, in the heavens, where\n    neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.' And, 'Be ye kind and merciful\n    as your Father also is kind and merciful, and maketh His sun to rise\n    on sinners, and just and evil. But be not careful what ye shall eat\n    and what ye shall put on. Are ye not better than the birds and the\n    beasts? and God feedeth them. Therefore be not careful what ye shall\n    eat or what ye shall put on, for your heavenly Father knoweth that\n    ye have need of these things; but seek ye the kingdom of the\n    heavens, and all these things shall be added unto you, for where the\n    treasure is there is also the mind of the man. And 'Do not these\n    things to be seen of men, otherwise ye have no reward of your Father\n    which is in heaven.' And regarding our being patient under injuries,\n    and ready to help all, and free from anger, this is what He said:\n    'Unto him striking thy cheek offer the other also; and him who\n    carrieth off thy cloak, or thy coat, do not thou prevent. But\n    whosoever shall be angry is in danger of the fire. But every one who\n    compelleth thee to go a mile, follow twain. And let your good works\n    shine before men, so that, perceiving, they may adore your Father,\n    which is in heaven.' ... And regarding our not swearing at all, but\n    ever speaking the truth, He thus taught: 'Ye may not swear at all,\n    but let your yea be yea, and your nay nay, for what is more than\n    these is of the evil one.'\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"'For not those who merely make profession, but those who do the\n    work,' as He said, 'shall be saved.' For He spake thus: 'Not every\n    one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall (enter into the kingdom of\n    heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in\n    heaven). For whosoever heareth me, and doeth what I say, heareth Him\n    that sent me. But many will say to me, Lord, Lord, have we not eaten\n    and drunk in Thy name, and done wonders? And then will I say unto\n    them, 'Depart from me, workers of iniquity.' There shall be weeping\n    and gnashing of teeth, when indeed the righteous shall shine as the\n    sun, but the wicked are sent into everlasting fire. For many shall\n    arrive in My name, outwardly, indeed, clothed in sheep-skins, but\n    inwardly being ravening wolves. Ye shall know them from their works,\n    and every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and\n    cast into the fire.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"As Christ declared, saying, 'To whom God has given more, of him\n    shall more also be demanded again.'\"\n\nThe ordinary reader, remembering that Justin was writing for the\nheathen, would suppose, after reading the above, that Justin reproduced\nfrom SS. Matthew and Luke the moral precepts of Christ, or rather those\nwhich suited his purpose, and his purpose was to show to the heathen\nEmperor that Christianity would make the best members of a community.\n\nTo this end he reproduces the precepts respecting chastity, respecting\nlove to all, and communicating to the needy--being kind and\nmerciful--not caring much for material things--being patient and\ntruthful--and above all, being sincere.\n\nHe did not reproduce the precepts respecting prayer, simply because\nimmoral men among the heathen worshipped their gods as devoutly as moral\nmen did. He did not reproduce the Lord's prayer, because he would not\nconsider that it belonged to the heathen, or the promises that God would\nhear prayer, simply because these would belong to Christians only.\n\nAgain, he evidently altered and curtailed what the heathen would not\nunderstand, as for instance, in quoting our Lord's saying respecting\n\"anger,\" he quoted it very shortly, because to have quoted at length the\ngradations of punishment for being \"angry without a cause,\" for \"calling\na brother Raca\" and \"fool,\" would have been almost unintelligible to\nthose unacquainted with Jewish customs.\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion\" repudiates the idea that Justin,\nin any of these quotations, makes use of our present Gospels. He\nexamines these [so-called] quotations seriatim at considerable length,\nfor the purpose of showing that Justin's variations from our present\nGospels imply another source of information. He considers (and in this I\ncannot agree with him, though I shall, for argument's sake, yield the\npoint) that--\n\n    \"The hypothesis that these quotations are from the canonical gospels\n    requires the acceptance of the fact that Justin, with singular care,\n    collected from distant and scattered portions of these gospels a\n    series of passages in close sequence to each other, forming a whole\n    unknown to them, but complete in itself.\" (\"Supernatural Religion,\"\n    vol. i. p. 359)\n\nI say I cannot agree with this, because I think that the extracts I have\ngiven have all the signs of a piece of patchwork by no means well put\ntogether, but I will assume that he is right in his view.\n\nHere, then, we have, according to his hypothesis, another sermon of\nChrist's, which, owing to the \"close sequence\" of its various passages,\nand its completeness as a whole, must take its place alongside of the\nSermon on the Mount. Where does it come from?--\n\n    \"The simple and natural conclusion, supported by many strong\n    reasons, is that Justin derived his quotations from a Gospel which\n    was different from ours, though naturally by subject and design it\n    must have been related to them.\" (Vol. i. p. 384.)\n\nAnd in page 378 our author traces one of the passages of this\n\"consecutive\" discourse through an epistle ascribed to Clement of Rome\nto the \"Gospel according to the Egyptians,\" which was in all probability\na version of the \"Gospel according to the Hebrews.\"\n\nHere, then, is a Gospel, the Gospel to the Hebrews, which not only\ncontained, as the author has shown, a harmony of the histories in SS.\nMatthew and Luke, so far, at least, as the Birth and Death of Christ are\nconcerned, but also such a full and consecutive report of the moral\nteaching of Christ, that it may not unfitly be described as \"a series of\npassages in close sequence to each other,\" collected \"with singular\ncare\" \"from distant and scattered portions of these Gospels.\" How, we\nask, could such a Gospel have perished utterly? A Gospel, which, besides\ncontaining records of the historical and supernatural much fuller than\nany one of the surviving Gospels, contained also a sort of Sermon on the\nMount, amalgamating in one whole the moral teaching of our Lord, ought\nsurely (if it ever was in existence) to have won its place in the canon.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION VIII.\n\nTHE PRINCIPAL WITNESS.--HIS TESTIMONY TO ST. JOHN.\n\n\nWe have now to consider the citations (or supposed citations) of Justin\nfrom the fourth Gospel. These, as I have mentioned, are treated by the\nauthor of \"Supernatural Religion\" separately at the conclusion of his\nwork.\n\nWhatever internal coincidences there are between the contents of\nSt. John and those of the Synoptics, the external differences are\nexceedingly striking, and it is not at all to my present purpose to keep\nthis fact out of sight. The plan of St. John's Gospel is different, the\nstyle is different, the subjects of the discourses, the scene of action,\nthe incidents, and (with one exception) the miracles, all are different.\n\nNow this will greatly facilitate the investigation of the question as to\nwhether any author had St. John before him when he wrote. There may be\nsome uncertainty with respect to the quotations from the Synoptics, as\nto whether an early writer quotes one or other, or derives what he cites\nfrom some earlier source, as for instance from one of St. Luke's [Greek:\npolloi].\n\nBut it cannot be so with St. John. A quotation of, or reference to, any\nwords of any discourse of our Lord, or an account of any transaction as\nreported by St. John, can be discerned in an instant. At least it can be\nat once seen that it cannot have been derived from the Synoptics, or\nfrom any supposed apocryphal or traditional sources from which the\nSynoptics derived their information.\n\nThe special object of this Gospel is the identification of the\npre-existent nature of our Lord with the eternal Word, and following\nupon this, His relation to His Father on the one side, and to mankind on\nthe other.\n\nHe is the only begotten of the Father, God being His own proper Father\n[Greek: idios], and so He is equal to the Father in nature (John v. 18),\nand yet, as being a Son, He is subordinate, so that He represents\nHimself throughout as sent by the Father to do His will and speak His\nwords.\n\nWith reference to mankind He is, before His Incarnation, the \"Light that\nlighteth every man.\" After and through His Incarnation He is to man all\nin all. He is even in death the object of their Faith. He is the\nMediator through whose very person God sends the Spirit. He is the Life,\nthe Light, the Living Water, the Spiritual Food.\n\nJustin Martyr repeatedly reproduces in various forms of expression the\ntruth that Christ is the eternal \"Word made flesh\" and revealed as the\n\"Only-begotten Son of God,\" thus:--\n\n    \"The first power after God the Father and Lord of all is the Word,\n    Who is also the Son, and of Him we will, in what follows, relate how\n    He took flesh and became man.\" (Apol. I. Ch. XXXII.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"I have already proved that He was the only-begotten of the Father\n    of all things, being begotten in a peculiar manner [Greek: idios],\n    Word and Power by Him, and having afterwards become man through the\n    Virgin.\" (Dial. ch. cv.)\n\nNow, we have in these two passages four or five characteristic\nexpressions of St. John relating to our Lord, not to be found in any\nother Scripture writer. I say \"in any other,\" for I believe that not\nonly the Epistles of St. John, but also the Apocalypse, notwithstanding\ncertain differences in style, are to be ascribed to St. John.\n\nWe have the term \"Word\" united with \"the Son,\" and with \"Only begotten,\"\nand said to be \"properly (proprie; [Greek: idios]) begotten;\" a\nreminiscence of John v. 18, the only place in the New Testament where\nthe adjective [Greek: idios] or its adverb [Greek: idios] is applied to\nthe relations of the Father and the Son, and we have this Word becoming\nflesh and man.\n\nNow Justin, in one of the places, writes to convince an heathen emperor;\nand, in the other, an unbelieving Jew; and so in each case he reproduces\nthe sense of John i. 1 and 14, and not the exact words. It would have\nbeen an absurdity for him to have quoted St. John exactly, for, in such\na case, he must have retained the words \"we beheld his glory, the glory\nas,\" which would have simply detracted from the force of the passage,\nbeing unintelligible without some explanation.\n\nAgain, we have in the Dialogue (ch. lxi.) the words \"The Word of Wisdom,\nWho is Himself this God begotten of the Father of all things.\" Now here\nthere seems to be a reproduction of the old and very probably original\nreading of John i. 18, [48:1] \"The only begotten God who is in the bosom\nof the Father.\" Certainly this reading of John i. 18 is the only place\nwhere the idea of being begotten is associated with the term \"God.\"\n\nWe next have to notice that Justin repeatedly uses the words \"God\" and\n\"Lord\" in collocation as applied to Jesus Christ; not \"the Lord God,\"\nthe usual Old Testament collocation, but God and Lord, thus:\n\n    \"For Christ is King and Priest and God and Lord,\" &c. (Dial. ch.\n    xxxiv.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"There is, and there is said to be, another God and Lord subject to\n    the Maker of all things.\" (Dial. lvi.)\n\nNow the only Gospel in which these words are to be found together and\napplied to Christ is that according to St. John, where he records the\nconfession of St. Thomas, \"My Lord and my God\" (John xx. 28).\n\nAgain: St. John alone of the Evangelists speaks of our Lord as He that\ncometh from above [Greek: ho anothen erchomenos], as coming from heaven,\nas \"leaving the world and going to the Father\" (John iii. 31; xvi. 28),\nand Justin reproduces this in the words:--\n\n    \"It is declared [by David in Prophecy,] that He would come forth\n    from the highest heavens, and again return to the same places, in\n    order that you may recognize Him as God coming forth from above and\n    man living among men.\" (Dial. ch. lxiv.)\n\nAgain: though St. John asserts by implication the equality in point of\nnature of the Father and the Son (John v. 18), yet he also very\nrepeatedly records words of Christ which assert His subordination to the\nFather. Nowhere in the Synoptics do we read such words as \"I can of mine\nown self do nothing.\" \"I seek not mine own will, but the will of the\nFather which hath sent me\" (John v. 30): \"My meat is to do the will of\nHim that sent me, and to finish His work\" (iv. 34; also John vi. 38): \"I\nhave not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a\ncommandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.\" (xii. 49)\n\nNow Justin Martyr reproduces these intimations of the subordination of\nthe Son:--\n\n    \"Who is also called an Angel, because He announces to men whatsoever\n    the Maker of all things, above Whom there is no other God, wishes to\n    announce to them.\" (Dial. ch. lvi.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"I affirm that He has never at any time done anything which He Who\n    made the world, above Whom there is no other God, has not wished Him\n    both to do and to engage Himself with.\" (Dial. lvi.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"Boasts not in accomplishing anything through His own will or\n    might.\" (Ch. ci.)\n\nLet the reader clearly understand that I do not lay any stress\nwhatsoever on these passages taken by themselves or together; but taken\nin connection with the intimation of the Word and Sonship asserted in\nSt. John, and reproduced by Justin, they are very significant indeed.\n\nSt. John asserts that Jesus is the Word and the Only Begotten--that He\nis \"Lord\" and \"God,\" and equal with the Father as being His Son (v. 18);\nbut, lest men conceive of the Word as an independent God, he asserts the\nsubordination of the Son as consisting, not in inferiority of nature,\nbut in submission of will.\n\nJustin reproduces in the same terms the teaching of St. John respecting\nthe Logos--that the Logos was the Only Begotten, God-begotten, Lord and\nGod. And then, lest his adversaries should assume from this that Christ\nwas an independent God, he guards it by the assertion of the same\ndoctrine of subordination of will; neither the doctrine nor the\nsafeguard being expressly stated in the Synoptics, but contained in them\nby that wondrous implication by which one part of Divine truth really\npresupposes and involves all truth.\n\nWe have now to consider St. John's teaching respecting the relation of\nthe Logos to man. One aspect of this doctrine is peculiar to St. John,\nand is as mysterious and striking a truth as we have in the whole range\nof Christian dogma.\n\nIt is contained in certain words in the exordium of the Fourth Gospel:\n\"That [Word] was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh\ninto the world.\"\n\nThis passage embodies a truth which is unique in Scripture: that in the\nWord was Life, that the Life was the Light of men, and that that Light\nwas (even before the Incarnation) the true Light which lighteth every\nman.\n\nThis, I say, is a truth which is not, that I am aware of, to be found,\nexcept by very remote implication, in the rest of Scripture. And yet it\nis continually reproduced by Justin in a way which shows that he had\ndrunk it in, as it were, and he used it continually as the principle on\nwhich to explain the vestiges of truth which existed among the heathen.\n\nThus:--\n\n    \"We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we\n    have declared above that He is the Word of Whom every race of men\n    were partakers; and those who lived reasonably (or with the Logos,\n    [Greek: hoi meta logou biosantes]) are Christians, even though they\n    have been thought Atheists; as among the Greeks, Socrates and\n    Heraclitus, and men like them.\" (Apol. I. ch. xlvi.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"No one trusted in Socrates so as to die for this doctrine, but in\n    Christ, Who was partially known even by Socrates (for He was and is\n    the Word Who is in every man),\" &c. (Apol. II. ch. x.)\n\nAgain, in a noble passage:--\n\n    \"For each man spoke well in proportion to the share he had of the\n    spermatic Divine Word, [51:1] seeing what was related to it. But\n    they who contradict themselves in the more important points appear\n    not to have possessed the heavenly wisdom, and the knowledge which\n    cannot be spoken against. Whatever things were rightly said among\n    all men are the property of us Christians.\" (Apol. II. xiii.)\n\nThere cannot, then, be the smallest doubt but that Justin's mind was\npermeated by a doctrine of the Logos exactly such as he would have\nderived from the diligent study of the fourth Gospel. But may he not\nhave derived all this from Philo? No; because, if so, he would have\nreferred Trypho, a Jew, to Philo, his brother Jew, which he never does.\nThe speciality of St. John's teaching is not that he, like Plato or\nPhilo, elaborates a Logos doctrine, but that once for all, with the\nauthority of God, he identifies the Logos with the Divine Nature of our\nLord. No other Evangelist or sacred writer does this, and he does.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION IX.\n\nTHE PRINCIPAL WITNESS.--HIS FURTHER TESTIMONY TO ST. JOHN.\n\n\nWe now come to Justin's account of Christian Baptism, which runs thus:--\n\n    \"I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to\n    God when we had been made new through Christ, lest, if we omit this,\n    we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are making. As many as\n    are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and\n    undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and\n    to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that\n    are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by\n    us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in\n    which we were ourselves regenerated. For in the name of God, the\n    Father and Lord of the Universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ,\n    and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water.\n    For Christ also said, 'Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter\n    into the Kingdom of Heaven.' Now, that it is impossible for those\n    who have once been born to enter into their mothers' wombs, is\n    manifest to all.\" (Apol. I. ch. lxi.)\n\nNow, taking into consideration the fact that St. John is the only writer\nwho sets forth our Lord as connecting a birth with water [except a man\nbe born of water and of the Spirit]; that when our Lord does this it is\n(according to St. John, and St. John only) following upon the assertion\nthat he must be born again, and that St. John alone puts into the mouth\nof the objector the impossibility of a natural birth taking place twice,\nwhich Justin notices; taking these things into account, it does seem to\nme the most monstrous hardihood to deny that Justin was reproducing St.\nJohn's account.\n\nTo urge trifling differences is absurd, for Justin, if he desired to\nmake himself understood, could not have quoted the passage verbatim, or\nanything like it. For, if he had, he must have prefaced it with some\naccount of the interview with Nicodemus, and he would have to have\nreferred to another Gospel to show that our Lord alluded to baptism;\nfor, though our Lord mentions water, He does not here categorically\nmention baptism. So, consequently, Justin would have to have said, \"If\nyou refer to one of our Memoirs you will find certain words which lay\ndown the necessity of being born again, and seem to connect this birth\nin some way with water, and if you look into another Memoir you will see\nhow this can be, for you will find a direction to baptize with water in\nthe name of the Godhead, and if you put these two passages together you\nwill be able to understand something of the nature of our dedication,\nand of the way in which it is to be performed, and of the blessing which\nwe have reason to expect in it if we repent of our sins.\"\n\nWell, instead of such an absurd and indirect way of proceeding, which\npresupposes that Antoninus Pius was well acquainted with the Diatessaron,\nhe simply reproduces the substance of the doctrine of St. John, and\ninterweaves with it the words of institution as found in St. Matthew.\nI shall afterwards advert to the hypothesis that this account was\ntaken from an apocryphal Gospel.\n\nAgain, St. John is the only Evangelist who, in apparent allusion to the\ndevout and spiritual reception of the Inward Part of the Lord's Supper,\nspeaks of it as eating the Flesh of Christ, and drinking His Blood; the\nSynoptics and St. Paul in I Cor. x. 11, always speaking of it as His\n_Body_ and Blood. Now Justin, in describing the Sacrament of the Lord's\nSupper, uses the language peculiar to St. John as well as that of the\nSynoptics:--\n\n    \"So likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by\n    the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by\n    transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus\n    Who was made flesh. For the Apostles, in the Memoirs composed by\n    them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was\n    enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given\n    thanks, said, 'This do ye in remembrance of me. This is my body,'\"\n    &c. (Apol. I. ch. lxvi.)\n\nThis, of course, would be a small matter itself, but, taken in\nconnection with the adoption of St. John's language in regard of the\nother sacrament a very short time before, it is exceedingly significant.\n\nAgain, St. John is the only Evangelist who records our Lord's reference\nto the brazen serpent as typical of Himself lifted up upon the Cross.\nJustin cites the same incident as typical of Christ's Death, and,\nmoreover, cites our Lord's language as it is recorded in St. John,\nrespecting His being lifted up that men might believe in Him and be\nsaved:--\n\n    \"For by this, as I previously remarked, He proclaimed the mystery,\n    by which He declared that He would break the power of the serpent\n    which occasioned the transgression of Adam, and [would bring] to\n    them that believe on Him by this sign, i.e., Him Who was to be\n    crucified, salvation from the fangs of the serpent, which are wicked\n    deeds, idolatries, and other unrighteous acts. Unless the matter be\n    so understood, give me a reason why Moses set up the brazen serpent\n    for a sign, and bade those that were bitten gaze at it, and the\n    wounded were healed.\" (Dial. ch. xciv.)\n\nAgain, St. John is the only Evangelist who records that the Baptist\n\"confessed, and denied not, but confessed, 'I am not the Christ.'\"\nJustin cites these very-words as said by the Baptist:--\n\n    \"For when John remained (or sat) by the Jordan ... men supposed him\n    to be Christ, but he cried to them, 'I am not the Christ, but the\n    voice of one crying,'\" &c. (Dial. ch. lxxxviii.)\n\nAgain, St. John is the only Evangelist who puts into the mouth of our\nBlessed Lord, when He was accused of breaking the Sabbath, the retort\nthat the Jews on the Sabbath Day circumcise a man ... that the law of\nMoses should not be broken. (John vii. 22) And Justin also reproduces\nthis in his Dialogue:--\n\n    \"For, tell me, did God wish the priests to sin when they offer the\n    sacrifices on the Sabbaths? or those to sin who are circumcised, or\n    do circumcise, on the Sabbaths; since He commands that on the eighth\n    day--even though it happen to be a Sabbath--those who are born shall\n    be always circumcised?\" (Dial. ch. xxvii.)\n\nAgain, St. John represents our Lord, when similarly harassed by the\nJews, as appealing to the upholding of all things by God on the Sabbath\nas well as on any other day, in the words, \"My Father worketh hitherto,\nand I work.\" (John v. 17.) And Justin very shortly after uses the same\nargument:--\n\n    \"Think it not strange that we drink hot water on the Sabbath, since\n    God directs the government of the universe on this day, equally as\n    on all others; and the priests on other days, so on this, are\n    ordered to offer sacrifices.\" (Dial. ch. xxix.)\n\nIt is very singular that Justin, whilst knowing nothing of St. John,\nshould, on a subject like this, use two arguments peculiar to St. John,\nand not to be found in disputes on the very same subject in the\nSynoptics.\n\nAgain, St. John alone records that Jesus healed a man \"blind from his\nbirth,\" and notices that the Jews themselves were impressed with the\ngreatness of the miracle. (John ix. 16, 32) Justin remarks, \"In that we\nsay that He made whole the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind.\"\n(Apol. I. ch. xxii.)\n\nAgain, St. John is the only Evangelist who makes our Lord to say, \"Now I\ntell you before it come, that when it is come to pass ye may believe.\"\n(John xiii. 19; xiv. 29; xvi. 4) And Justin adopts and amplifies this\nvery sentiment with reference to the use of prophecy:--\n\n    \"For things which were incredible, and seemed impossible with men,\n    these God predicted by the Spirit of prophecy as about to come to\n    pass, in order that, when they came to pass, there might be no\n    unbelief, but faith, because of their prediction.\" (Apol. I. ch.\n    xxxiii.)\n\nAgain, St. John alone of the Evangelists records that our Lord used with\nthe unbelieving Jews the argument that they believed not Moses, for, had\nthey believed Moses, they would have believed Him, for Moses wrote of\nHim. (John, v. 46, 47) And Justin reproduces in substance the same\nargument:--\n\n    \"For though ye have the means of understanding that this man is\n    Christ from the signs given by Moses, yet you will not.\" (Dial.\n    xciii.)\n\nAgain, St. John is the only sacred writer who speaks of our Lord \"giving\nthe living water,\" and causing that water to flow from men's hearts, and\nJustin (somewhat inaccurately) reproduces the figure:--\n\n    \"And our hearts are thus circumcised from evil, so that we are happy\n    to die for the name of the Good Rock, which causes living water to\n    burst forth for the hearts of those who by him have loved the Father\n    of all, and which gives those who are willing to drink of the water\n    of life.\" (Dial. ch. cxiv.)\n\nAgain, St. John alone records that Christ spake of Himself as the Light,\nand Justin speaks of Him as \"the only blameless and righteous Light sent\nby God.\" (Dial. ch. xvii.)\n\nAgain, St. John alone speaks of our Lord as representing Himself to be\nthe true vine, and His people as the branches. Justin uses the same\nfigure with respect to the people or Church of God:--\n\n    \"Just as if one should eat away the fruit-bearing parts of it vine,\n    it grows up again, and yields other branches flourishing and\n    fruitful; even so the same thing happens to us. For the vine planted\n    by God and Christ the Saviour is His People.\" (Dial. ch. cx.)\n\nAgain, St. John alone represents our Saviour as saying, \"I have power to\nlay [my life] down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment\nhave I received of my Father.\" (John x. 18) And Justin says of Christ\nthat, in fulfilment of a certain prophecy,--\n\n    \"He is to do something worthy of praise and wonderment, being about\n    to rise again from the dead on the third day after the Crucifixion,\n    and this He has obtained from the Father.\" (Dial. ch. c.)\n\nSome of these last instances which I have given are reminiscences rather\nthan reproductions; but like all other reminiscences they imply things\nremembered, sometimes not perfectly correctly, and so not applied as\napplied in the original; but they are all real reminiscences of words\nand things to be found only in our fourth Gospel.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION X.\n\nTHE PRINCIPAL WITNESS.--HIS TESTIMONY SUMMED UP.\n\n\nFrom all this it is clear that Justin had not only seen and reverenced\nSt. John's Gospel, but that his mind was permeated with its peculiar\nteaching.\n\nI hesitate not to say that, if a man rejects the evidence above adduced,\nhe rejects it because on other grounds he is determined, cost what it\nmay, to discredit the Fourth Gospel.\n\nLet us briefly recapitulate.\n\nJustin reproduced the doctrine of the Logos, using the words of St.\nJohn. He asserted the Divine and human natures of the Son of God in the\nwords of St. John, or in exactly similar words. He reproduced that\npeculiar teaching of our Lord, to be found only in St. John, whereby we\nare enabled to hold the true and essential Godhead of Christ without for\na moment holding that He is an independent God. He reproduced the\ndoctrine of the Logos being, even before His Incarnation, in _every_ man\nas the \"true light\" to enlighten him.\n\nHe reproduces the doctrine of the Sacraments in terms to be found only\nin the Fourth Gospel. He reproduces, or alludes to, arguments and types\nand prophecies and historical events, only to be found in St. John's\nGospel.\n\nIt seems certain, then, that if Justin was acquainted with any one of\nour four Gospels, that Gospel was the one according to St. John.\n\nWhat answer, the reader will ask, does the author of \"Supernatural\nReligion\" give to all this? Why, he simply ignores the greater part of\nthese references (we trust through ignorance of their existence), and\ntakes notice of some three or four, in which, to use the vulgar\nexpression, he picks holes, by drawing attention to discrepancies of\nlanguage or application, and dogmatically pronounces that Justin could\nnot have known the fourth Gospel.\n\nWell, then, the reader will ask, from whom did Justin derive the\nknowledge of doctrines and facts so closely resembling those contained\nin St. John?\n\nAgain, we have reference to supposed older sources of information which\nhave perished. With respect to the Logos doctrine, the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" asserts:--\n\n    \"His [Justin's] doctrine of the Logos is precisely that of Philo,\n    and of writings long antecedent to the fourth Gospel, and there can\n    be no doubt, we think, that it was derived from them.\"\n    (\"Supernatural Religion,\" vol. ii. p. 297.)\n\nIt may be well here to remark that, strictly speaking, there is no Logos\n_doctrine_ in St. John's Gospel,--by doctrine meaning \"scientifically\nexpressed doctrine,\" drawn out, and expounded at length, as in Philo.\nThe Gospel commences with the assertion that the Logos, Whoever He be,\nis God, and is the pre-existent Divine nature of Jesus; he does this\nonce and once only, and never recurs to it afterwards.\n\nThe next passage referred to is the assertion of the Baptist, \"I am not\nthe Christ,\" and the conclusion of the author is that \"There is every\nreason to believe that he derived it from a particular Gospel, in all\nprobability the Gospel according to the Hebrews, different from ours.\"\n(Vol. ii. p. 302.)\n\nThe last place noticed is Justin's reproduction of John iii. 3-5, in\nconnection with the institution of baptism. After discussing this at\nsome length, for the purpose of magnifying the differences and\nminimizing the resemblances, his conclusion is:--\n\n    \"As both the Clementines and Justin made use of the Gospel according\n    to Hebrews, the most competent critics have, with reason, adopted\n    the conclusion that the passage we are discussing was derived from\n    that Gospel; at any rate it cannot for a moment he maintained as a\n    quotation from our fourth Gospel, and it is of no value as evidence\n    for its existence.\" (\"Supernatural Religion,\" vol. ii. p. 313.)\n\nWe have now tolerably full means of judging what a wonderful Gospel this\nGospel to the Hebrews must have been, and what a loss the Church has\nsustained by its extinction.\n\nHere was a Gospel which contained a harmony of the history, moral\nteaching, and doctrine of all the four. As we have seen, it contained an\naccount of the miraculous Birth and Infancy, embodying in one narrative\nthe facts contained in the first and third Gospels. It contained a\nnarrative of the events preceding and attending our Lord's Death, far\nfuller and more complete than that of any single Gospel in the Canon. It\ncontained a record of the teaching of Christ, similar to our present\nSermon on the Mount, embodying the teaching scattered up and down in all\nparts of SS. Matthew and Luke, and in addition to all this it embodied\nthe very peculiar tradition, both in respect of doctrine and of history,\nof the fourth Gospel.\n\nHow could it possibly have happened that a record of the highest value,\non account both of its fulness and extreme antiquity, should have\nperished, and have been superseded by four later and utterly unauthentic\nproductions, one its junior by at least 120 years, and each one of these\nderiving from it only a part of its teaching; the first three, for no\nconceivable reason, rejecting all that peculiar doctrine now called\nJohannean, and the fourth confining itself to reproducing this so-called\nJohannean element and this alone? It is only necessary to state this to\nshow the utter absurdity of the author's hypothesis.\n\nBut the marvel is that a person assuming such airs of penetration and\nresearch [63:1] should not have perceived that, if he has proved his\npoint, he has simply strengthened the evidence for the supernatural, for\nhe has proved the existence of a fifth Gospel, far older and fuller than\nany we now possess, witnessing to the supernatural Birth, Life, Death,\nand Resurrection of Jesus.\n\nThe author strives to undermine the evidence for the authenticity of our\npresent Gospels for an avowedly dogmatic purpose. He believes in the\ndogma of the impossibility of the supernatural; he must, for this\npurpose, discredit the witness of the four, and he would fain do this by\nconjuring up the ghost of a defunct Gospel, a Gospel which turns out to\nbe far more emphatic in its testimony to the supernatural and the\ndogmatic than any of the four existing ones, and so the author of this\npretentious book seems to have answered himself. His own witnesses prove\nthat from the first there has been but one account of Jesus of Nazareth.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XI.\n\nTHE PRINCIPAL WITNESS ON OUR LORD'S GODHEAD.\n\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion\" has directed his attacks more\nparticularly against the authenticity of the Gospel according to\nSt. John. His desire to discredit this Gospel seems at times to arise\nout of a deep personal dislike to the character of the disciple whom\nJesus loved. (Vol. ii. pp. 403-407, 427, 428, &c.)\n\nOn the author's principles, it is difficult to understand the reason for\nsuch an attack on this particular Gospel. He is not an Arian or Socinian\n(as the terms are commonly understood), who might desire to disparage\nthe testimony of this Gospel to the Pre-existence and Godhead of our\nLord. His attack is on the Supernatural generally, as witnessed to by\nany one of the four Gospels; and it is allowed on all hands that the\nthree Synoptics were written long before the Johannean; and, besides\nthis, he has proved to his own satisfaction, and to the satisfaction of\nthe Reviewers who so loudly applauded his work, that there existed a\nGospel long anterior to the Synoptics, which is more explicit in its\ndeclarations of the Supernatural than all of them put together.\n\nHowever, as he has made a lengthened and vigorous attempt to discredit\nthis Gospel especially, it may be well to show his extraordinary\nmisconceptions respecting the mere contents of the Fourth Gospel, and\nthe opinions of the Fathers (notably Justin Martyr) who seem to quote\nfrom it, or to derive their doctrine from it.\n\nThe first question--and by far the most important one which we shall\nhave to meet--is this: Is the doctrine respecting the Person of Jesus\nmore fully developed in the pages of Justin Martyr, or in the Fourth\nGospel? We mean by the doctrine respecting the Person of Jesus, that He\nis, with reference to His pre-existent state, the Logos and\nOnly-begotten Son of God; and that, as being such, He is to be\nworshipped and honoured as Lord and God; and that, in order to be our\nMediator, and the Sacrifice for our sin, He took upon Him our nature.\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion\" endeavours to trace the doctrine\nof the Logos, as contained in Justin, to older sources than our present\nFourth Gospel, particularly to Philo and the Gospel according to the\nHebrews. The latter is much too impalpable to enable us to verify his\nstatements by it; but we shall have to show his misconceptions\nrespecting the connection of Justin's doctrine with the former. What we\nhave now to consider is the following statement:--\n\n    \"It is certain, however, that, both Justin and Philo, unlike the\n    prelude to the Fourth Gospel (i. 1), place the Logos in a secondary\n    position to God the Father, another point indicating a less advanced\n    stage of the doctrine.\"\n\nFrom this we must, of course, infer that the author of \"Supernatural\nReligion\" considers that Justin does not state the essential Godhead of\nthe Second Person as distinctly and categorically as it is stated in the\nFourth Gospel. And as it is assumed by Rationalists that there was in\nthe early Church a constantly increasing development of the doctrine of\nthe true Godhead of our Lord, gradually superseding some earlier\ndoctrine of an Arian, or Humanitarian, or Sadducean type; therefore, the\nmore fully developed doctrine of the Godhead of our Lord in any book\nproves that book to be of later origin than another book in which it is\nnot so fully developed.\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion\" cannot deny that Justin ascribes\nthe names \"Lord\" and \"God\" and Pre-existence before all worlds to Jesus\nas the Logos, but he fastens upon certain statements or inferences\nrespecting the subordination of the Son to the Father, and His acting\nfor His Father, or under Him, in the works of Creation and Redemption,\nwhich Justin, as an orthodox believer who would abhor Tritheism, was\nbound to make, and most ignorantly asserts that such statements are\ncontrary to the spirit of the Fourth Gospel.\n\nI shall now set before the reader the statements of both St. John and\nJustin respecting the Divine Nature of our Lord, so that he may judge\nfor himself which is the germ and which the development.\n\nThe Fourth Gospel once, and once only, sets forth the Godhead and\nPre-existence of the Logos, and this is in the exordium or prelude:--\n\n    \"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the\n    Word was God.\"\n\nThe Fourth Gospel once, and once only, identifies this Word with the\npre-existent nature of Jesus, in the concluding words of the same\nexordium:--\n\n    \"The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we behold His\n    Glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of\n    grace and truth.\"\n\nExcept in these two places (and, of course, I need not say that they are\nall-important as containing by implication the whole truth of God\nrespecting Christ), there is no mention whatsoever of the \"Word\" in this\nGospel.\n\nThe Fourth Gospel gives to Jesus the name of God only in two places,\n_i.e._ in the narrative of the second appearance of our Lord to His\napostles assembled together after His Resurrection, where Thomas is\nrelated to have said to Him the words, \"My Lord and my God;\" and in the\nwords \"The Word was God\" taken in connection with \"the Word was made\nflesh.\" The indirect, but certain, proofs by implication that Jesus\nfully shared with His Father the Divine Nature are numerous, as, for\ninstance, that He wields all the power of Godhead, in that \"whatsoever\nthings [the Father] doeth these doeth the Son likewise\"--that He is\nequal in point of nature with the Father, because God is His own proper\nFather ([Greek: idios])--that He raises from the dead whom He\nwills--that He and the Father are One--that when Esaias saw the glory of\nGod in the temple he saw Christ's glory; and, because of all this, He is\nthe object of faith, even of the faith which saves.\n\nBut, as my purpose is not to show that either Justin or St. John hold\nthe Godhead of our Lord, but rather to compare the statements of the one\nwith the other; and, inasmuch as to cite the passages in which Justin\nMartyr assumes that our Blessed Lord possesses all Divine attributes\nwould far exceed the limits which I have proposed to myself, I shall not\nfurther cite the passages in St. John, which only _imply_ our Lord's\nGodhead, but proceed to cite the _direct_ statements of Justin (or\nrather some of them) on this head.\n\nWhereas, then, St. John categorically asserts the Godhead of our Lord in\none, or, at the most, two places, Justin directly asserts it nearly\nforty times. The following are noticeable:--\n\n    \"And Trypho said, You endeavour to prove an incredible and well-nigh\n    impossible thing; [namely] that God endured to be born and become\n    man. [69:1] If I undertook, said I, [Justin] to prove this by\n    doctrines or arguments of men, you should not bear with me. But if I\n    quote frequently Scriptures, and so many of them, referring to this\n    point, and ask you to comprehend them, you are hard-hearted in the\n    recognition of the mind and will of God.\" (Dial. ch. lxviii.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"This very Man Who was crucified is proved to have been set forth\n    expressly as God and Man, and as being crucified and as dying.\"\n    [69:2] (Dial. ch. lxxi.)\n\nAgain, Justin accuses the Jews of having mutilated the Prophetical\nScriptures, by having cut out of them the following prophecy respecting\nour Lord's descent into hell:--\n\n    \"The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who lay in the\n    graves; and He descended to preach to them His own Salvation.\"\n    (Dial. ch. lxxii.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"For Christ is King, and Priest, and God, and Lord, and Angel, and\n    Man, and Captain, and Stone, and a Son born, and first made subject\n    to suffering, then returning to heaven, and again coming with\n    glory.\" (Dial. xxxiv.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"Now you will permit me first to recount the prophecies, which I\n    wish to do in order to prove that Christ is called both God, and\n    Lord of Hosts, and Jacob in parable, by the Holy Spirit.\" (Dial. ch.\n    xxxvi.)\n\nAgain, Justin makes Trypho to say:--\n\n    \"When you [Justin] say that this Christ existed as God before the\n    ages, then that He submitted to be born, and become man, yet that He\n    is not man of man, this [assertion] appears to me to be not merely\n    paradoxical, but also foolish. And I replied to this, I know that\n    the statement does appear to be paradoxical, especially to those of\n    your race, who are ever unwilling to understand or to perform the\n    [requirements] of God.\" (Dial. ch. xlviii.)\n\nAgain, Justin makes Trypho demand:--\n\n    \"Answer me then, first, how you can show that there is another God\n    besides the Maker of all things; [70:1] and then you will show\n    [further], that He submitted to be born of the Virgin.\n\n\"I replied, Give me permission first of all to quote certain passages\nfrom the Prophecy of Isaiah which refer to the office of forerunner\ndischarged by John the Baptist.\" (Dial. I.)\n\nLastly:--\n\n    \"Now, assuredly, Trypho, I shall show that, in the vision of Moses,\n    this same One alone, Who is called an Angel, and Who is God,\n    appeared to and communed with Moses.... Even so here, the\n    Scriptures, in announcing that the angel of the Lord appeared unto\n    Moses, and in afterwards declaring Him to be Lord and God, speaks of\n    the same One, Whom it declares by the many testimonies already\n    quoted to be minister to God, Who is above the world, above Whom\n    there is no other.\" (Dial. ch. lx.)\n\nIn order not to weary the reader, I give the remainder in a note. [71:1]\n\nThe reader will observe that the assertions of Justin, which I have\ngiven, are the strongest that could be made by any one who holds the\nGodhead of Christ, and yet holds that that Godhead is not an independent\nDivine Existence, but derived from the Father Who begat Him, and, by\nbegetting, fully communicated to His Son or Offspring His own Godhead.\n\nFrom these extracts the reader will be able to judge for himself whether\nthe doctrine of St. John is the expansion or development of that of\nJustin, or the doctrine of Justin the development of that of St. John.\n\nHe will also be able to judge of the absurdity of supposing that after\nthe time of Justin the cause of Orthodoxy demanded the forgery of a\nGospel, in order to set forth more fully the Divine Glory of the\nRedeemer.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XII.\n\nTHE PRINCIPAL WITNESS ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE LOGOS.\n\n\nWe have now to compare Justin's doctrine of the Logos with that of the\nFourth Gospel.\n\nThe doctrine or dogma of the Logos is declared in the Fourth Gospel in a\nshort paragraph of fourteen verses, a part of which is occupied with the\nmission of the Baptist.\n\nThe doctrine, as I have said before, is rather oracular enunciation than\ndoctrine; _i.e._ it is not doctrine elaborately drawn out and explained\nand guarded, but simply laid down as by the authority of Almighty God.\n\nIt is contained in four or five direct statements:--\n\n    \"In the beginning was the Logos.\"\n\nIn the beginning--that is, before all created things--when there was no\nfinite existence by which time could be measured; in that fathomless\nabyss of duration when there was God only:--\n\n    \"The Logos was with God.\"\n\nThough numerically distinct from Him, [73:1] He was so \"by\" or \"with\"\nHim as to be His fellow:--\n\n    \"The Logos was God.\"\n\nThat is, though numerically distinct, He partook of the same Divine\nNature:\n\n    \"All Things were made by Him.\"\n\nBecause, partaking fully of the nature, He partook fully of the power of\nGod, and so of His creating power.\n\n    \"That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into\n    the world.\"\n\n    \"The Logos was made flesh.\"\n\nHe was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.\n\nThe first enunciation, then, of St. John is that--\n\n    \"IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD.\"\n\nIn Justin we read:--\n\n    \"His Son, Who alone is properly called Son, the Word, Who also was\n    with Him, and was begotten before the works.\" (Apol. ii. ch. vi.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"When you [Justin] say that this Christ existed as God before the\n    ages.\" (Dial. ch. xlviii.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"God begat before all creatures a Beginning, [74:1] [who was] a\n    certain rational Power from Himself, Who is called by the Holy\n    Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again\n    an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos.\" (Dial. ch. lxi.)\n\nNow it is to be here remarked, that though the Logos is continually\ndeclared to be \"begotten of,\" \"derived from,\" \"an offspring of\" the\nFather, yet in no case is He declared to be \"created\" or \"made,\"\nanticipating the declaration which we confess in our Creed, \"The Son is\nof the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten.\"\n\nSt. John proceeds:--\n\n    \"THE WORD WAS WITH GOD.\"\n\nIn Justin we read:--\n\n    \"This Offspring, which was truly brought forth from the Father, was\n    with the Father before all the creatures, and the Father communed\n    with Him.\" (Dial. ch. lxii.)\n\nAgain, a little before, in the same chapter:--\n\n    \"From which we can indisputably learn that God conversed with some\n    One who was numerically distinct from Himself.\"\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"The Word, Who also was with Him.\" (Apol. ii. ch. vi.)\n\nAgain, Trypho says:--\n\n    \"You maintain Him to be pre-existent God.\" (Ch. lxxxvii.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"I asserted that this Power was begotten from the Father, by His\n    Power and Will, but not by abscission, as if the essence of the\n    Father were divided; as all other things partitioned and divided are\n    not the same after as before they were divided; and for the sake of\n    example I took the case of fires kindled from a fire, which we see\n    to be distinct from it,\" &c. (Dial. cxxviii.)\n\n    \"THE WORD WAS GOD.\"\n\nJustin writes:--\n\n    \"The Word of Wisdom, Who is Himself this God begotten of the Father\n    of all things\" (Dial. ch. lxi.) (See previous page.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"They who affirm that the Son is the Father are proved neither to\n    have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father\n    of the Universe has a Son; Who also, being the first-begotten Word\n    of God, is even God.\" (Apol. I. ch. lxiii.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"It must be admitted absolutely that some other One is called Lord\n    by the Holy Spirit besides Him Who is considered Maker of all\n    things.\" (Dial. ch. lvi.)\n\nBut it is useless to multiply quotations, seeing that all those in pages\n69-71 are the echoes of this declaration of the Fourth Evangelist.\n\nSt. John writes:--\n\n    \"ALL THINGS WERE MADE BY HIM.\"\n\nAnd Justin writes:--\n\n    \"Knowing that God conceived and made the world by the Word.\" (Apol.\n    I. ch. lxiv.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"When at first He created and arranged all things by Him.\" (Apol.\n    II. ch. vi.)\n\nAgain St. John writes:--\n\n    \"THAT (_i.e._ THE WORD) WAS THE TRUE LIGHT THAT LIGHTETH EVERY MAN\n    THAT COMETH INTO THE WORLD.\"\n\nI have given above (p. 51) sufficient illustrations from Justin of this\ntruth. I again draw attention to:--\n\n    \"He is the Word of Whom every race of men were partakers.\" (Apol. I.\n    ch. xlvi.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"He was and is the Word Who is in every man.\" (Apol. II. ch. x.)\n    \"For whatever either lawgivers or philosophers uttered well, they\n    elaborated by finding and contemplating some part of the Word. But\n    since they did not know the whole of the Word which is Christ, they\n    often contradicted themselves.\" [77:1] (Apol. II. ch. x.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"These men who believe in Him, in whom [Greek: en hois] abideth the\n    seed of God, the Word.\" (Apol. I. ch. xxxii.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"I confess that I both boast and with all my strength strive to be\n    found a Christian; not because the teachings of Plato are different\n    from those of Christ, but because they are not in all respects\n    similar, as neither are those of the others, Stoics, and poets, and\n    historians. For each man spoke well in proportion to the share he\n    had of the spermatic Word.\" [77:2] (Apol. II. ch. xiii.)\n\nLastly, St. John writes:--\n\n    \"THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH.\"\n\nAnd Justin writes:--\n\n    \"The Logos Himself, Who took shape and became man and was called\n    Jesus Christ.\" (Apol. II. ch. v.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"The Word, Who is also the Son; and of Him we will in what follows\n    relate how He took flesh, and became Man.\" (Apol. II. ch. xxxii.)\n\n    \"Jesus Christ is the only proper Son Who has been begotten by God,\n    being His Word, and First-begotten, and Power, and becoming man\n    according to His Will He taught us these things,\" &c. (Apol. I. ch.\n    xxiii.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"In order that you may recognize Him as God coming forth from above,\n    and Man living among men.\" (Dial. lxiv.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"He was the Only-begotten of the Father of all things, being\n    begotten in a peculiar manner Word and Power by Him, and having\n    afterwards become Man through the Virgin.\" (Dial. ch. cv.)\n\nAfter considering the above extracts, the reader will be able to judge\nof the truth of some assertions of the author of \"Supernatural\nReligion,\" as, for instance:--\n\n    \"We are, in fact, constantly directed by the remarks of Justin to\n    other sources of the Logos doctrine, and never to the Fourth Gospel,\n    with which his tone and terminology in no way agree.\" (Vol. ii. p.\n    293)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"We must see that Justin's terminology, as well as his views of the\n    Word become Man, is thoroughly different from that Gospel.\" (Vol.\n    ii. p. 296)\n\nAlso:--\n\n    \"It must be apparent to every one who seriously examines the\n    subject, that Justin's terminology is thoroughly different from, and\n    in spirit opposed to, that of the Fourth Gospel, and in fact that\n    the peculiarities of the Gospel are not found in Justin's writings\n    at all.\" (!!) (P. 297.) [78:1]\n\nOn the contrary, we assert that every Divine Truth respecting the Logos,\nwhich appears in the germ in St. John, is expanded in Justin. St. John's\nshort and pithy sentences are the text, and Justin's remarks are the\nexposition of that text, and of nothing less or more.\n\nSo far from Justin's doctrine being contrary to the spirit of St. John's,\nJustin, whilst deviating somewhat from the strict letter, seizes and\nreproduces the very spirit. I will give in the next section two or three\nremarkable instances of this; which instances, strange to say, the\nauthor of \"Supernatural Religion\" quotes for the purpose of showing the\nabsolute divergence and opposition between the two writers.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XIII.\n\nTHE PRINCIPAL WITNESS ON OUR LORD AS KING, PRIEST, AND ANGEL.\n\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion\" quotes the passage in Dial.\nxxxiv.:--\n\n    \"For Christ is King, and Priest, and God, and Lord, and Angel, and\n    Man, and Captain, and Stone, and a Son born,\" &c.\n\nAnd he remarks, with what I cannot but characterize as astonishing\neffrontery, or (to use his own language with respect to Tischendorf) \"an\nassurance which can scarcely be characterized otherwise than an\nunpardonable calculation upon the ignorance of his readers.\" (Vol. ii.\np. 56.)\n\n    \"Now these representations, which are constantly repeated throughout\n    Justin's writings, are quite opposed to the spirit of the Fourth\n    Gospel.\" (Vol. ii. p. 288.)\n\nHe first of all takes the title \"King,\" and arbitrarily and unwarrantably\nrestricts Justin's derivation of it to the seventy-second Psalm,\napparently being ignorant of the fact that St. John, in his very\nfirst chapter, records that Christ was addressed by Nathanael as \"King\nof Israel\"--that the Fourth Gospel alone describes how the crowd on His\nentry into Jerusalem cried, \"Osanna, Blessed be the King of Israel, Who\ncometh in the name of the Lord\" (xii. 13)--that this Gospel more fully\nthan any other records how Pilate questioned our Lord respecting His\nKingship, and recognized Him as King, \"Behold your King;\" and that those\nwho mocked our Lord are recorded by St. John to have mocked Him as the\n\"King of Israel.\"\n\nSo that this term King, so far from being contrary to the spirit of the\nFourth Gospel, is not even contrary to its letter.\n\nBut this, gross though it seems, is to my mind as nothing to two other\nassertions founded on this passage of Justin:--\n\n    \"If we take the second epithet, the Logos as Priest, which is quite\n    foreign to the Fourth Gospel, we find it repeated by Justin.\"\n\nNow, it is quite true that the title \"priest\" is not given to our Lord\nin St. John, just as it is not given to Him in any one of the three\nSynoptics, or indeed in any book of the New Testament, except the\nEpistle to the Hebrews: yet, notwithstanding this, of all the books of\nthe New Testament, this Gospel is the one which sets forth the reality\nof Christ's Priesthood. For what is the distinguishing function of the\nPriesthood? Is it not Mediation and Intercession, and the Fourth Gospel\nmore than all sets forth Christ as Mediator and Intercessor? As Mediator\nwhen He says so absolutely: \"No man cometh unto the Father but by me;\"\n\"As my Father sent me so send I you; whosesoever sins ye remit, they are\nremitted unto them.\"\n\nAgain, the idea of Priesthood is actually inherent in the figure of the\ngood Shepherd \"Who giveth His Life for the sheep;\" for how does He give\nHis life?--not in the way of physical defence against enemies, as an\nearthly \"good shepherd\" might do, but in the way of atoning Sacrifice,\nas the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" truly asserts, where he writes\n(vol. ii. p. 352):--\n\n    \"The representation of Jesus as the Lamb of God taking away the sins\n    of the world is the very basis of the Fourth Gospel.\"\n\nAgain, in the same page:--\n\n    \"He died for the sin of the world, and is the object of faith, by\n    which alone forgiveness and justification before God can be\n    secured.\"\n\nAgain, with reference to His Intercession, we have not only the truth\nset forth in such expressions as \"I will pray the Father,\" but we have\nthe actual exercise of the great act of priestly Intercession, as\nrecorded in the seventeenth chapter of the Fourth Gospel. If we look to\nwords only (which the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" too often does),\nthen, of course, we allow that the epithet \"priest\" is quite foreign not\nonly to the Fourth Gospel, but to every other book of the New Testament,\nexcept the Epistle to the Hebrews; but if we look to the things implied\nin the idea of Priesthood, such as Mediation and Intercession, in fact\nIntervention between God and Man, then we find that the whole New\nTestament is pervaded with the idea, and it culminates in the Fourth\nGospel.\n\nThe next assertion of the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" on the same\npassage betrays still more ignorance of the contents of St. John's\nGospel, and a far greater eagerness to fasten on a seeming omission of\nthe letter, and to ignore a pervadence of the spirit. He asserts:--\n\n    \"It is scarcely necessary to point out that this representation of\n    the Logos as Angel, is not only foreign to, but opposed to, the\n    spirit of the Fourth Gospel.\" (Vol. ii. p. 293)\n\nNow just as in the former case we had to ask, \"What is the\ncharacteristic of the priest?\" so in order to answer this we have only\nto ask, \"What is the characteristic of the angel?\"\n\nAn angel is simply \"one sent.\" Such is the meaning of the word both in\nthe Old and New Testament. The Hebrew word [Hebrew: mlakh] is applied\nindifferently to a messenger sent by man (see Job i. 14; 1 Sam. xi. 3; 2\nSam. xi. 19-20), and to God's messengers the Holy Angels, that is, the\nHoly Messengers, the Holy ones sent. And similarly, in the New\nTestament, the word [Greek: angelos] is applied to human messengers in\nLuke vii. 24, [Greek: apelthonton de ton angelon Ioannou], also in Luke\nix. 52, and James ii. 25. That the characteristic of the angel is to be\n\"sent\" is implied in such common phrases as, \"The Lord _sent_ His\nAngel,\" \"I will _send_ mine angel,\" \"Are they not all ministering\nspirits _sent_ forth to minister?\" &c.\n\nNow one of the characteristic expressions of the Fourth Gospel--we might\nalmost have said _the_ characteristic expression--respecting Jesus, is\nthat He is \"sent.\" To use the noun instead of the verb, He is God's\nspecial messenger, His [Greek: angelos], sent by Him to declare and to\ndo His will: but this does not imply that He has, or has assumed, the\nnature of an angel; just as the application of the same word [Greek:\nangelos] to mere human messengers in no way implies that they have any\nother nature than human nature. Just as men sent their fellow-men as\ntheir [Greek: angeloi], so God sends One Who, according to Justin, fully\npartakes of His Nature, to be His [Greek: angelos].\n\nThis sending of our Lord on the part of His Father is one of the chief\ncharacteristics of the Fourth Gospel, and the reader, if he cannot\nexamine this Gospel for himself, comparing it with the others, has only\nto turn to any concordance, Greek or English, to satisfy himself\nrespecting this matter.\n\nJesus Christ is said to be \"sent of God,\" _i.e._ to be His [Greek:\nangelos], only once in St. Matthew's Gospel (Matthew x. 40: \"He that\nreceiveth me receiveth Him that sent me\"), only once in St. Mark (ix.\n37), only twice in St. Luke (ix. 48; xx. 13), but in the Fourth Gospel\nHe is said to be sent of God about forty times. [84:1] In one discourse\nalone, that in John vi., Jesus asserts no less than six times that He is\nsent of God, or that God sent Him; so that the dictum, \"This\nrepresentation of the Logos as angel is not only foreign to, but opposed\nto, the spirit of the Fourth Gospel,\" is absolutely contrary to the\ntruth.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XIV.\n\nTHE PRINCIPAL WITNESS ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.\n\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion\" asserts:--\n\n    \"The Fourth Gospel proclaims the doctrine of an hypostatic Trinity\n    in a more advanced form than any other writing of the New\n    Testament.\" [85:1]\n\nThis is hardly true if we consider what is meant by the proclamation of\nthe doctrine of a Trinity.\n\nSuch a doctrine can be set forth by inference, or it can be distinctly\nand broadly stated, as it is, for instance, in the First Article of the\nChurch of England, or in the Creed of St. Athanasius.\n\nThe doctrine of the Trinity is set forth by implication in every place\nin Scripture where the attributes or works of God are ascribed to two\nother Persons besides The Father. But it is still more directly set\nforth in those places where the Three Persons are mentioned together\nas acting conjointly in some Divine Work, or receiving conjointly\nsome divine honour. In this sense the most explicit declarations of\nthe doctrine of the Trinity are the Baptismal formula at the end of\nSt. Matthew's Gospel, and the \"grace,\" as it is called, at the end of\nSt. Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians.\n\nSt. John, by asserting in different places the Godhead of the Word, and\nthe Divine Works of the Holy Ghost, implicitly proves the doctrine of\nthe Trinity, but, as far as I can remember, he but twice mentions the\nThree adorable Persons together: Once in the words, \"I will pray the\nFather and He shall give you another Comforter.\" And again, \"But the\nParaclete, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father shall send in My\nname, He shall teach you all things.\"\n\nNow, in respect of the explicit declaration of the doctrine of the\nTrinity, the statements of Justin are the necessary [86:1] developments\nnot only of St. John's statements, but of those of the rest of the New\nTestament writers.\n\nI have given two passages in page 10.\n\nOne of these is in the First Apology, and reads thus:--\n\n    \"Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, Who also was born for\n    this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, Procurator of\n    Judea in the times of Tiberius Caesar; and that we reasonably\n    worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God\n    Himself, and holding Him in the Second place, and the Prophetic\n    Spirit in the Third, we will prove.\" (Apol. I. ch. xiii.)\n\nAgain, he endeavours to show that Plato held the doctrine of a Trinity.\nHe is proving that Plato had read the books of Moses:--\n\n    \"And, as to his speaking of a third, he did this because he read, as\n    we said above, that which was spoken by Moses, 'that the Spirit of\n    God moved over the waters.' For he gives the second place to the\n    Logos which is with God, who he (Plato) said, was placed crosswise\n    in the universe; and the third place to the Spirit who was said to\n    be borne upon the water, saying, 'and the third around the third.'\"\n    (Apol. I. ch. lx.)\n\nNow unquestionably, so far as expression of doctrine is concerned, these\npassages from Justin are the developments of the Johannean statements.\nThe statements in St. John contain, in germ, the whole of what Justin\ndevelops; but it is absurd to assert that, after Justin had written the\nabove, it was necessary, in order to bolster up a later, and\nconsequently, in the eyes of Rationalists, a mere human development, to\nforge a now Gospel, containing nothing like so explicit a declaration of\nthe Trinity as we find in writings which are supposed to precede it, and\nweighting its doctrinal statements with a large amount of historical\nmatter very difficult, in many cases, to reconcile perfectly with the\nhistory in the older Synoptics.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XV.\n\nJUSTIN AND ST. JOHN ON THE INCARNATION.\n\n\nTwo further matters, bearing upon the relations of the doctrine of\nJustin to that of St. John, must now be considered. The Author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" asserts that the doctrine of Justin respecting\nthe Incarnation of the Word is essentially different from that of St.\nJohn:--\n\n    \"It must be borne in mind that the terminology of John i. 14, 'And\n    the Word became flesh ([Greek: sarx egeneto]) is different from that\n    of Justin, who uses the word [Greek: sarkopoietheis].\" (Vol. ii. p.\n    276.)\n\nAgain, with reference to the word [Greek: monogenes], he writes:--\n\n    \"The phrase in Justin is quite different from that in the Fourth\n    Gospel, i. 14, 'And the Word became flesh' ([Greek: sarx egeneto])\n    and tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the\n    Only-begotten from the Father' ([Greek: hos monogenous para patros],\n    &c.) In Justin he is 'the Only-begotten of the Father of all'\n    ([Greek: monogenes to Patri ton holon)], 'and He became man'\n    ([Greek: anthropos genomenos]) 'through the Virgin,' and Justin\n    never once employs the peculiar terminology of the Fourth Gospel,\n    [Greek: sarx egeneto], in any part of his writings.\" (Vol. ii. p.\n    280.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"He [Justin] is, in fact, thoroughly acquainted with the history of\n    the Logos doctrine and its earlier enunciation under the symbol of\n    Wisdom, and his knowledge of it is clearly independent of, and\n    antecedent to, the statements of the Fourth Gospel.\" (Vol. ii. p.\n    284)\n\nThis passage is important. I think we cannot be wrong in deducing from\nit that the Author of \"Supernatural Religion\" considers that the Gospel\nof St. John was published subsequently to the time of Justin Martyr,\nthat is, some time after A.D. 160 or 165.\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"The peculiarity of his terminology in all these passages [all which\n    I have given above in pages 73-78], so markedly different, and even\n    opposed to that of the Fourth Gospel, will naturally strike the\n    reader.\" (Vol. ii. p. 286.)\n\nAgain, and lastly:--\n\n    \"We must see that Justin's terminology, as well as his views of the\n    Word become man, is thoroughly different from that Gospel. We have\n    remarked that, although the passages are innumerable in which Justin\n    speaks of the Word having become man through the Virgin, he never\n    once throughout his writings makes use of the peculiar expression of\n    the Fourth Gospel: 'The word became flesh' ([Greek: ho logos sarx\n    egeneto]). On the few occasions on which he speaks of the Word\n    having been _made_ flesh, he uses the term, [Greek: sarkopoietheis.]\n    In one instance he has [Greek: sarka echein], and speaking of the\n    Eucharist, Justin once explains that it is in memory of Christ being\n    made _body_, [Greek: somatopoiesasthai]. Justin's most common\n    phrase, however, and he repeats it in numberless instances, is that\n    the Logos submitted to be born, and become man [Greek: gennethenai\n    anthropon genomenon hypemeinen] by a Virgin, or he uses variously\n    the expressions: [Greek: anthropos gegone, anthropos genomenos,\n    genesthai anthropon.]\" (Vol. ii. p. 296.)\n\nHere, then, we have the differences specified by which the Author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" thinks that he is justified in describing the\nterminology and views of Justin respecting the Incarnation as \"markedly\ndifferent and even opposed to,\" and as \"thoroughly different from,\"\nthose of the Fourth Gospel.\n\nSo that, because Justin, instead of embodying the sentence, [Greek: ho\nlogos sarx egeneto], substitutes for it the participle, [Greek:\nsarkopoietheis], or the phrase, [Greek: sarka echein], or the\ninfinitive, [Greek: somatopoiesasthai], or the expression, [Greek:\nanthropos gegone] he holds views thoroughly different from those of\nSt. John respecting the most momentous of Christian truths.\n\nThis is a fair specimen of the utterly reckless assertions in which this\nauthor indulges respecting the foundation truth of Christianity.\n\nIf such terms, implying such divergences, can be applied to these\nstatements of Justin's _belief_ in the Incarnation, what words of human\nlanguage could be got to express his flat denial of the truth held in\ncommon by him and by St. John, if he had been an unbeliever? If Justin,\nwith most other persons, considers that being \"in the flesh\" is the\ncharacteristic difference between men and spirits such as the angels,\nand expresses himself accordingly by saying that the Word \"became man,\"\nwhat sense is there in saying that he \"is opposed to the spirit of the\nFourth Gospel,\" in which we have the Word not only as the \"Son of Man,\"\nbut possessing all the sinless weaknesses of human nature, so that He is\nweary, and weeps, and groans, and is troubled in spirit?\n\nAnd now we will make, if the reader will allow, a supposition analogous\nto some which the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" has made in pages\n360 and following of his first volume. We will suppose that all the\necclesiastical literature, inspired and uninspired, previous to the\nCouncil of Nice, had been blotted out utterly, and the Four Gospels\nalone preserved. And we will suppose some critic taking upon himself to\nargue that the Gospel of St. John was written after the Nicene Creed. On\nthe principles and mode of argument of the author of \"Supernatural\nReligion,\" he would actually be able to prove his absurdity, for he\nwould be able to allege that the doctrine and terminology of the Fathers\nof the first General Council was \"opposed to\" that of the Fourth Gospel;\nand so they could not possibly have acknowledged its authority if they\nhad even \"seen\" it. For he (the critic) would allege that the words of\nSt. John respecting the Incarnation are not adopted by the Creed which\nthe Nicene Fathers put forth; instead of inserting into the Creed the\nwords [Greek: ho logos sarx egeneto], which, the critic would urge, they\n_must have done_ if they would successfully oppose foes who appealed to\nthe letter of Scripture, they used other terms, as the participles\n[Greek: sarkothenta] and [Greek: enanthropesanta]. [91:1] Again, the\nsupposed critic would urge, they applied to our Lord the phrase [Greek:\ngennethenta pro panton ton aionon], a phrase \"so markedly different and\nindeed opposed to that of the Fourth Gospel,\" as the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" urges with respect to [Greek: gennema pro panton\nton poiematon], and [Greek: apo tou Patros ton holon gennetheis.] Again,\nthe critic would urge that instead of calling the Son \"God\" absolutely,\nas in the sentence \"the Word was God,\" they confess Him only as [Greek:\nTheos ek Theou], and this because He is [Greek: gennetheis], and so he\nwould say, with the author of \"Supernatural Religion,\" \"This is a\ntotally different view from that of the Fourth Gospel, which in so\nemphatic a manner enunciates the doctrine, 'In the beginning was the\nWord, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word;'\" and so our\nsupposed critic will exclaim, \"See what abundant proof that these\nFathers had 'never even seen' the Fourth Gospel;\" and according to all\nrules of Rationalistic criticism they had not, or, at least, they\nthought nothing of its authenticity; whilst all the time this same\nGospel was open before them, and they devoutly reverenced every word as\nthe word of the Holy Ghost, and would have summarily anathematized any\none who had expressed the smallest doubt respecting its plenary\nInspiration.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XVI.\n\nJUSTIN AND ST. JOHN ON THE SUBORDINATION OF THE SON.\n\n\nThe second matter connected with the relations of the doctrine of Justin\nMartyr to that of St. John, is the subordination of the Son to the\nFather.\n\nI have already noticed this truth (page 49), but, owing to its\nimportance it may be well to devote to it a few further remarks. The\nauthor of \"Supernatural Religion\" does not seem to realize that in\nperfect Sonship two things are inherent, viz., absolute sameness (and\ntherefore equality) of nature with the Father, and perfect subordination\nin the submission of His will to that of the Father.\n\nHe consequently asserts:--\n\n    \"It is certain, however, that both Justin and Philo, unlike the\n    prelude to the Fourth Gospel, place the Logos in a secondary\n    position to God the Father, another point indicating a less advanced\n    stage of the doctrine. Both Justin and Philo apply the term [Greek:\n    theos] to the Logos without the article. Justin distinctly says,\n    that Christians worship Jesus Christ as the Son of the True God,\n    holding Him in the Second Place [Greek: en deutera chora echontes],\n    and this secondary position is systematically defined through\n    Justin's writings in a very decided way, as it is in the works of\n    Philo, by the contrast of the begotten Logos with the unbegotten\n    God. Justin speaks of the Word as the 'first born of the unbegotten\n    God' ([Greek: prototokos to agenneto Theo]), and the distinctive\n    appellation of the 'unbegotten God,' applied to the Father, is most\n    common in all his writings.\" (Vol. ii. p. 291)\n\nNow, when Justin speaks of holding Christ \"in the Second Place,\" he does\nno more nor less than any Trinitarian Christian of the present day, when\nsuch an one speaks of the Son as the _Second_ Person of the Trinity, and\nas the only begotten Son and the Word of the Father.\n\nWhen we speak of Him as being the Second Person, we necessarily rank Him\nin the second place in point of numerical order. When we speak of Him as\nbeing the Son, we naturally place Him as, in the order of conception,\nsecond to, or after, Him that begat Him; [94:1] and, when we speak of\nHim as the Word, we also place Him in order of conception as after Him\nWho utters or gives forth the Word.\n\nJustin says no more than this in any expression which he uses.\n\nWhen he speaks of the Father as the unbegotten God, and the Son as the\nBegotten God, he does no more than the most uncompromising believer in\nthe doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity in the present day does, when,\nin the words of the Creed of St. Athanasius, that believer confesses\nthat\n\n    \"The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.\n\n    \"The Son is of the Father alone, neither made, nor created, but\n    begotten.\"\n\nBut we have not now so much to do with the orthodoxy of Justin as with\nthe question as to whether his doctrine is anterior to St. John's, as\nbeing less decided in its assertions of our Lord's equality.\n\nNow there are no words in Justin on the side of our Lord's subordination\nat all equal to the words of Christ as given in St. John, \"My Father is\ngreater than I.\"\n\nThe Gospel of St. John is pervaded by two great truths which underlie\nevery part, and are the necessary complements of one another; these are,\nthe perfect equality or identity of the nature of the Son with that of\nthe Father, because He is the true begotten Son of His Father; and the\nperfect submission of the Will of the Son to that of the Father because\nHe is His Father.\n\nThe former appears in such assertions as \"The Word was with God,\" \"The\nWord was God,\" \"My Lord and My God,\" \"I and the Father are one,\" \"He\nthat hath seen Me hath seen the Father,\" \"The glory which I had with\nThee before the world was,\" \"All things that the Father hath are mine,\"\n&c.\n\nThe latter is inherent in the idea of perfect Sonship, and is asserted\nin such statements as\n\n    God \"gave His only begotten Son\" (iii. 16).\n\n    \"The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His\n    hands\" (iii. 35).\n\n    \"The Son can do nothing of Himself\" (v. 19).\n\n    \"The Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself\n    doeth\" (v. 20).\n\n    The Father hath \"given to the Son to have life in Himself\" (v. 26).\n\n    The Father \"hath given Him authority to execute judgment also\" (v.\n    27).\n\n    \"I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father\" (v. 30).\n\n    \"The works which the Father hath given me to finish\" (v. 36).\n\n    \"I am come in my Father's name\" (v. 43).\n\n    \"Him [the Son of Man] hath God the Father sealed\" (vi. 27).\n\n    \"I live by the Father\" (v. 57).\n\n    \"My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me\" (vii. 16).\n\n    \"He that seeketh His glory that sent Him, the same is true\" (vii.\n    18).\n\n    \"I am from Him, and He hath sent me\" (vii. 29).\n\n    \"I do nothing of myself, but as my Father hath taught me, I speak\n    these things\" (viii. 28).\n\n    \"Neither came I of myself, but He sent me\" (viii. 42).\n\n    \"I have power to take it [my life] again; this commandment have I\n    received of my Father\" (x. 18).\n\n    \"My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all\" (x. 29).\n\n    \"I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love\" (xv.\n    10).\n\nI have read Justin carefully for the purpose of marking every expression\nin his writings bearing upon the relations of the Son to the Father, and\nI find none so strongly expressing subordination as these, and the\ndeclarations of this kind in the works of Justin are nothing like so\nnumerous as they are in the short Gospel of St. John.\n\nThe reader who knows anything about the history of Christian doctrine\nwill see at a glance how impossible it would have been for a Gospel\nascribing these expressions to Jesus to have been received by the\nChristian Church long before Justin's time, except that Gospel had been\nfully authenticated as the work of the last surviving Apostle.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XVII.\n\nJUSTIN AND PHILO.\n\n\nThe writer of \"Supernatural Religion\" asserts that Justin derived his\nLogos doctrine from Philo, and also that his doctrine was identical with\nthat of Philo and opposed to that of St. John.\n\nBut respecting this assertion two questions may be asked.\n\nFrom whom did Philo derive _his_ doctrine of the Logos? and\n\nFrom whom did Justin derive his identification of the Logos with Jesus?\n\nThe Christian, all whose conceptions of salvation rest ultimately upon\nthe truth that \"The Word was God,\" believes (if, that is, he has any\nknowledge of the history of human thought), that God prepared men for\nthe reception of so momentous a truth long before that truth was fully\nrevealed. He believes that God prepared the Gentiles for the reception\nof this truth by familiarizing them with some idea of the Logos through\nthe speculations of Plato; and he also believes that God prepared His\nchosen people for receiving the same truth by such means as the\npersonification of Wisdom in the book of Proverbs, and in the Apocryphal\nmoral books, and, above all, by the identification of the active\npresence and power of God with the Meymera or Word, as set forth in the\nChaldee paraphrases.\n\nBoth these lines of thought seem to have coalesced and to have reached\ntheir full development (so far as they could, at least, apart from\nChristianity) in Alexandrian Judaism, which is principally known to us\nin the pages of Philo; but how much of Philo's own speculation is\ncontained in the extracts from his writings given by the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" it is impossible to say, as we know very little\nof the Alexandrian Jewish literature except from him. He seems, however,\nto write as if what he enunciated was commonly known and accepted by\nthose for whom he wrote.\n\nThere are two reasons which make me think that Justin, if he derived any\npart of his Logos doctrines from Alexandrian sources (which I much\ndoubt), derived them from writings or traditions to which Philo, equally\nwith himself, was indebted.\n\nOne is that, in his Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew, he never mentions\nPhilo, whose name would have been a tower of strength to him in\ndisputing with a Jew, and convincing him that there might be another\nPerson Who might be rightly called God besides the Father.\n\nSurely if Justin had known that Philo had spoken of God\n\n    \"Appointing His true Logos, his first begotten Son, to have the care\n    of this sacred flock as the substitute of the great King\" (quoted in\n    p. 274);\n\nand that--\n\n    \"The most ancient Word is the image of God\" (p. 274);\n\nand that\n\n    \"The Word is the image of God by which the whole world was created\"\n    (p. 275);\n\nsurely, I say, he would have used the name of one who had been in his\nday such a champion of the Jewish people, and had suffered such insults\nfrom Caligula on their account. [100:1]\n\nNothing seems more appropriate for the conversion of Trypho than many of\nthe extracts from Philo given by the author of \"Supernatural Religion.\"\nHerein, too, in this matter of Philo and Justin, the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" betrays his surprising inconsistency and refutes\nhimself. He desires it to be inferred that Justin need not have\nseen--probably had not seen, even one of our present Gospels, because he\ndoes not name the authors, though there is abundant reason why the names\nof four authors of the Memoirs should not be paraded before unbelievers\nas suggesting differences in the testimony; whereas it would have been\nthe greatest assistance to him in his argument with Trypho to have named\nPhilo; and he does not. We would not infer from this, as the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" does most absurdly in parallel cases, that\nJustin \"knew nothing\" of Philo; had not even seen his books, and need\nnot have heard of him; but we must gather from it that Justin did not\nassociate the name of Philo with the Logos doctrine in its most advanced\nstage of development. Many other facts tend to show that Justin made\nlittle or no use of Philo. In the extracts given by the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" from Philo, all culled out to serve his purpose,\nthe reader will notice many words and phrases \"foreign\" to Justin; for\ninstance, [Greek: deuteros Theos, organon de Logon Theou, di' hou sympas\nho kosmos edemiourgeito]. More particularly the reader will notice that\nsuch adjectives as [Greek: orthos, hieros (hierotatos)] and [Greek:\npresbys (presbytatos)] are applied to the Word in the short extracts\nfrom Philo given by the author of \"Supernatural Religion,\" which are\nnever applied to the Second Person of the Trinity in Justin. In fact,\nthough there are some slight resemblances, the terminology of Philo is,\nto use the words of \"Supernatural Religion,\" \"totally different from\"\nand \"opposed to\" that of Justin, and the more closely it is examined,\nthe more clearly it will be seen that Justin cannot have derived his\nLogos doctrine from Philo.\n\nThe other question is, \"from whom did Justin derive his identification\nof the Logos with Jesus?\"\n\nNot from Philo, certainly. We have shown above how St. John lays down\nwith authority the identity of the Logos with the pre-existent Divine\nNature of Jesus, not in long, elaborate, carefully reasoned\nphilosophical dissertation, but in four short, clear, decisive\nenunciations. \"In the beginning was the Word\"--\"The Word was with\nGod\"--\"The Word was God\"--\"The Word was made flesh.\"\n\nWe have seen how these were the manifest germs of Justin's teaching.\nNow, if at the time when Justin wrote the Fourth Gospel, as we shall\nshortly prove, must have been in use in the Church in every part of the\nworld, why should Justin be supposed to derive from Philo a truth which\nhe, being a Jew, would repudiate? Justin himself most certainly was not\nthe first to identify the Logos with Jesus. The identification was\nasserted long before in the Apocalypse, which the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" shows to have been written about A.D. 70, or so.\nIn fact, he ascertains its date to \"a few weeks.\" Supposing, then, that\nthe Apocalypse was anterior to St. John, on whose lines, so to speak,\ndoes Justin develope the Logos doctrine? Most assuredly not on Philo's\nlines (for his whole terminology essentially differs from that of the\nAlexandrian), but on the lines of the fourth Gospel, and on no other.\n\nLet the reader turn to some extracts which the author of \"Supernatural\nReligion\" gives out of Philo. In p. 265, he gives some very striking\npassages indeed, in which Philo speaks of the Logos as the Bread from\nheaven:--\n\n    \"He is 'the substitute ([Greek: hyparchos]) of God,' 'the heavenly\n    incorruptible food of the soul,' 'the bread from heaven.' In one\n    place he says, 'and they who inquire what nourishes the soul ...\n    learnt at last that it is the Word of God, and the Divine Reason'\n    ... This is the heavenly nourishment to which the Holy Scripture\n    refers ... saying, 'Lo I rain upon you bread ([Greek: artos]) from\n    heaven' (Exod. xvi. 4). 'This is the bread ([Greek: artos]) which\n    the Lord has given them to eat.'\" (Exod. xvi. 15)\n\nAnd again:--\n\n    \"For the one indeed raises his eyes to the sky, perceiving the\n    Manna, the Divine Word, the heavenly incorruptible food of the\n    longing soul.\" Elsewhere ... \"but it is taught by the initiating\n    priest and prophet Moses, who declares, 'This is the bread ([Greek:\n    artos]), the nourishment which God has given to the soul.' His own\n    Reason and His own Word which He has offered; for this bread\n    ([Greek: artos]) which He has given us to eat is Reason.\" (Vol. ii.\n    p. 265.)\n\nNow the Fourth Gospel also makes Jesus speak of Himself as the \"Bread of\nLife,\" and \"given by the Father;\" but what is the bread defined by Jesus\nHimself to be? Not a mere intellectual apprehension, _i.e._ Reason, as\nPhilo asserts; but the very opposite, no other than \"His Flesh;\" the\nproduct of His Incarnation. \"The bread that I will give is My Flesh,\"\nand He adds to it His Blood. \"Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man\nand drink His Blood, ye have no life in you.\"\n\nNow this also Justin reproduces, not after the conception of Philo,\nwhich is but a natural conception, but after the conception of Jesus in\nthe Fourth Gospel, which is an infinitely mysterious and supernatural\none.\n\n    \"In like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh\n    by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our Salvation, so\n    likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the\n    prayer of His Word, and from which our blood and flesh are by\n    transmutation nourished is the Flesh and Blood of that Jesus Who was\n    made flesh.\" (Apol. I. ch. lxvi.)\n\nI trust the reader will acquit me, in making this quotation, of any\ndesire to enunciate any Eucharistic theory of the presence of Christ's\nFlesh in the Eucharist. All I have to do with is the simple fact that\nboth Philo and St. John speak of the Word as the Bread of Life; but\nPhilo explains that bread to be \"reason,\" and St. John makes our Lord to\nset it forth as His Flesh, and Justin takes no notice of the idea of\nPhilo, and reproduces the idea of the fourth Gospel.\n\nAnd yet we are to be told that Justin \"knew nothing\" of the Fourth\nGospel, and that his Logos doctrine was \"identical\" with that of Philo.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XVIII.\n\nDISCREPANCIES BETWEEN ST. JOHN AND THE SYNOPTICS.\n\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion\" devotes a large portion of his\nsecond volume to setting forth the discrepancies, real or alleged,\nbetween the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel.\n\nIn many of these remarks he seems to me to betray extraordinary\nignorance of the mere contents of the Fourth Gospel. I shall notice two\nor three remarkable misconceptions; but, before doing this, I desire to\ncall the reader's attention to the only inference respecting the\nauthorship of this Gospel which can be drawn from these discrepancies.\n\nSt. John's Gospel is undoubtedly the last Gospel published; in fact, the\nlast work of the sacred canon. The more patent, then, the differences\nbetween St. John and the Synoptics, the more difficult it is to believe\nthat a Gospel, containing subject-matter so different from the works\nalready accepted as giving a true account of Christ, should have been\naccepted by the whole Church at so comparatively recent a date, unless\nthat Church had every reason for believing that it was the work of the\nlast surviving Apostle.\n\nTake, for instance, the [apparent] differences between St. John and the\nSynoptics respecting the scene of our Lord's ministry, the character of\nHis discourses, the miracles ascribed to Him, and the day of His\nCrucifixion, or rather of His partaking of the Paschal feast. The most\nignorant and unobservant would notice these differences; and the more\nlabour required to reconcile the statements or representations of the\nlast Gospel with the three preceding ones, the more certain it is that\nnone would have ventured to put forth a document containing such\ndifferences except an Apostle who, being the last surviving one, might\nbe said to inherit the prestige and authority of the whole college.\n\nIt would far exceed the limits which I have prescribed to myself to\nexamine the Fourth Gospel with the view of reconciling the discrepancies\nbetween it and the Synoptics, and also of bringing out the numberless\nundesigned coincidences between the earlier and the later account, of\nwhich the writer of \"Supernatural Religion,\" led away by his usual\ndogmatic prejudices, has taken not the smallest notice.\n\nThe reader will find this very ably treated in Mr. Sanday's \"Authorship\nof the Fourth Gospel\" (Macmillan).\n\nMy object at present is of a far humbler nature, simply to show the\nutter untrustworthiness of some of the most confidently asserted\nstatements of the writer of \"Supernatural Religion.\"\n\nI shall take two:\n\n1. The difference between Christ's mode of teaching and the structure\nof His discourses, as represented by St. John and the Synoptics\nrespectively.\n\n2. The intellectual impossibility that St. John should have written the\nFourth Gospel.\n\n1. Respecting the difference of Christ's mode of teaching as recorded in\nSt. John and in the Synoptics, he remarks:--\n\n    \"It is impossible that Jesus can have had two such diametrically\n    opposed systems of teaching; one purely moral, the other wholly\n    dogmatic; one expressed in wonderfully terse, clear, brief sayings\n    and parables, the other in long, involved, and diffuse discourses;\n    one clothed in the great language of humanity, the other concealed\n    in obscure, philosophic terminology; and that these should have been\n    kept so distinct as they are in the Synoptics, on the one hand, and\n    the Fourth Gospel on the other. The tradition of Justin Martyr\n    applies solely to the system of the Synoptics, 'Brief and concise\n    were the sentences uttered by Him: for He was no Sophist, but His\n    word was the power of God.'\" [106:1] (Vol. ii. p. 468)\n\nTo take the first of those assertions. So far from its being\n\"impossible\" that Jesus \"can have had two such diametrically opposite\nmodes of teaching,\" it is not only possible, but we have undeniable\nproof of the fact in that remarkable saying of Christ recorded by both\nSt. Matthew and St. Luke: \"All things are delivered unto Me of My\nFather, and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any\nman the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal\nHim.\" (Matth. xi. 27). The author of \"Supernatural Religion\" has studied\nthe letter of this passage very carefully, for he devotes no less than\nten pages to a minute examination of the supposed quotations of it in\nJustin and other Fathers (vol. i. pp. 402-412); but he does not draw\nattention to the fact that it is conceived in the spirit and expressed\nin the terms of the Fourth Gospel, and totally unlike the general style\nof the discourses in the Synoptics. [107:1] The Fourth Gospel shows us\nthat such words as these, almost unique in the Synoptics, are not the\nonly words uttered in a style so different from the usual teaching of\nour Lord--that at times, when He was on the theme of His relations to\nHis Father, He adopted other diction more suited to the nature of the\ndeeper truths He was enunciating.\n\nThen take the second assertion:--\n\n    \"One [system] expressed in wonderfully terse, clear, brief sayings\n    and parables, the other in long, involved, and diffuse discourses.\"\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"The description which Justin gives of the manner of teaching of\n    Jesus excludes the idea that he knew the Fourth Gospel. 'Brief and\n    concise were the sentences uttered by Him, for He was no Sophist,\n    but His word was the power of God.' (Apol. I. 14) No one could for a\n    moment assert that this description applies to the long and\n    artificial discourses of the Fourth Gospel, whilst, on the other\n    hand, it eminently describes the style of teaching with which we are\n    acquainted in the Synoptics, with which the Gospel according to the\n    Hebrews, in all its forms, was so closely allied.\" (Vol. ii. p. 315)\n\nNow I assert, and the reader can with very little trouble verify the\ntruth of the assertion, that the mode of our Lord's teaching, as set\nforth in St. John, is more terse, axiomatic, and sententious--more in\naccordance with these words of Justin, \"brief and concise were the\nsentences uttered by Him,\" than it appears in the Synoptics.\n\nTo advert for a moment to the mere length of the discourses. The Sermon\non the Mount is considerably longer than the longest discourse in St.\nJohn's Gospel (viz., that occupying chapters xiv., xv., xvi.). This is\nthe only unbroken discourse of any length in this Gospel. The others,\nviz., those with Nicodemus, with the woman at Sychem, with the Jews in\nthe Temple, and the one in the Synagogue at Capernaum, are much shorter\nthan many in the Synoptics, and none of them are continuous discourses,\nbut rather conversations. And, with respect to the composition, those in\nSt. John are mainly made up of short, terse, axiomatic deliverances just\nsuch as Justin describes.\n\nTake, for instance, the sentences in the sixth chapter:--\n\n    \"I am the bread of life.\"\n\n    \"He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.\"\n\n    \"I am that bread of life.\"\n\n    \"This is the bread that cometh down from heaven, that a man should\n    eat thereof and not die.\"\n\n    \"My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.\"\n\n    \"It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.\"\n\nAnd those in the tenth:--\n\n    \"I am the door of the sheep.\"\n\n    \"I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the\n    sheep.\"\n\n    \"I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.\"\n\nThen, if we compare parables, the passage in the Fourth Gospel most\nresembling a parable, viz., the similitude of the Vine and the branches,\nis made up of detached sentences more \"terse\" and \"concise\" than those\nof most parables in the Synoptics.\n\nThe discourses in St. John are upon subjects very distasteful to the\nauthor of \"Supernatural Religion,\" and he loses no opportunity of\nexpressing his dislike to them; but it is a gross misrepresentation to\nsay that the instruction, whatever it be, is conveyed in other than\nsentences as simple, terse, and concise as those of the Synoptics,\nthough the subject-matter is different.\n\nWe will now proceed to the last assertion:--\n\n    \"One [system of teaching] clothed in the great language of humanity,\n    the other concealed in obscure philosophic terminology.\"\n\nWhat can this writer mean by the \"philosophic terminology\" of our Lord's\nsayings as reported in the Fourth Gospel? If the use of the term \"Logos\"\nbe \"philosophic terminology,\" it is confined to four sentences; and\nthese not the words of Jesus Himself, but of the Evangelist. I do not\nremember throughout the rest of the Gospel a single sentence which can\nbe properly called \"philosophical.\"\n\nThe author must confound \"philosophical\" with \"mysterious.\" Each and\nevery discourse in the fourth Gospel is upon, or leads to, some deep\nmystery; but that mystery is in no case set forth in philosophical, but\nin what the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" calls the \"great language\nof humanity.\" Take the most mysterious by far of all the enunciations in\nSt. John's Gospel, \"Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink\nHis Blood, ye have no life in you.\" What are the words of which this\nsentence is composed? \"Eat,\" \"flesh,\" \"blood,\" \"Son of man,\" \"life.\" Are\nnot these the commonest words of daily life? but, then, their use and\nassociation here is the very thing which constitutes the mystery.\n\nAgain, take the salient words of each discourse--\"Except a man be born\nagain\"--\"be born of water and of the Spirit.\" \"Whosoever drinketh of the\nwater that I shall give him shall never thirst.\" \"As the Father hath\nlife in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.\"\n\"All that are in the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth.\"\n\"The bread that I will give is My flesh.\" \"If ye believe not that I am\nHe, ye shall die in your sins.\" \"As the Father knoweth Me, even so know\nI the Father.\" \"I am the Resurrection and the Life.\" \"Whatsoever ye\nshall ask in My name, that will I do.\" \"If I go not away, the Comforter\nwill not come unto you but: if I depart, I will send Him unto you.\"\n\nIt is the deepest of all mysteries that one in flesh and blood can say\nsuch things of Himself; but it is a perversion of language to speak of\nthese sayings as \"philosophical terminology.\" They are in a different\nsphere from all more _human_ philosophy, and, indeed, are opposed to\nevery form of it. Philosophy herself requires a new birth before she can\nso much as see them.\n\nI must recur, however, to the author's first remark, in which he\ncharacterizes the discourses of the Synoptics as \"purely moral,\" and\nthose of St. John as \"wholly dogmatic.\" This is by no means true. The\ndiscourses in the Synoptics are on moral subjects, but they continually\nmake dogmatic assertions or implications as pronounced as those in the\nFourth Gospel. In the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, the preacher\nauthoritatively adds to and modifies the teaching of the very Decalogue\nitself. \"Ye have heard that it was said TO them of old time\" (for so\n[Greek: errhethe tois archaiois] must properly be translated); \"but I\nsay unto you.\" Again, Jesus assumes in the same discourse to be the\nObject of worship and the Judge of quick and dead, and that His\nrecognition is salvation itself, when He says, \"Not every one that saith\nunto Me Lord, Lord, shall enter,\" &c. \"Many shall say to me in that day,\nLord, Lord,\" &c., \"then will I profess unto them, I never knew you,\ndepart from me all ye that work iniquity.\"\n\nTake the following expressions out of a number of similar ones in St.\nMatthew:--\n\n    \"I will make you (ignorant fishermen) fishers of men\" (implying, I\n    will give you power over souls such as no philosopher or leader of\n    men has had before you). (iv. 21.)\n\n    \"Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you for My sake.\" (v. 11.)\n\n    \"If they have called the master of the house (_i.e._ Jesus)\n    Beelzebub, how much wore shall they call them of His household.\" (x.\n    25.)\n\n    \"He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of me\"\n    (so that the holiest of human ties are to give way to His personal\n    demands on the human heart). (x. 37.)\n\n    \"He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.\" (x. 39)\n\n    \"No man knoweth the Son, but the Father.\" (xi. 27.)\n\n    \"In this place is One greater than the temple.\" (xii. 6.)\n\n    \"The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath Day.\" (xii. 8.)\n\n    \"In His (Christ's) Name shall the Gentiles trust.\" (xii. 21.)\n\n    \"In the time of harvest I will say to the reapers,\" _i.e._ the\n    angels. (xiii. 30.)\n\n    \"The Son of man shall send forth his angels.\" (xiii. 41.)\n\n    \"I will give unto Thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.\" (xvi.\n    19.)\n\n    \"Where two or three are gathered together in My Name there am I in\n    the midst of them.\" (xviii. 21.)\n\n    \"He, [God], sent His servants--He sent other servants--Last of all\n    He sent unto them His Son, saying, they will reverence My Son.\"\n    (xxi. 37.)\n\nThese places assert, by implication, the highest dogma respecting the\nPerson of Christ. Who is He Who has such power in heaven and earth that\nHe commands the angels in heaven, and gives the keys of the kingdom of\nGod to His servant on earth? What Son is this Whom none but the Father\nknoweth, and Who alone knoweth the Father, and Who reveals the Father to\nwhomsoever He will? What Son is this compared with Whom such saints as\nMoses, David, Elijah, Isaiah, and Daniel are \"servants?\" Those dogmatic\nassertions of the first Gospel suggest the question; and the Fourth\nGospel gives the full and perfect answer--that He is the Word with God,\nthat He is God, and the Only-begotten of the Father. The Epistles assume\nthe answer where one speaks of \"Jesus, who, being in the form of God,\nthought it not a thing to be tenaciously grasped to be equal with God,\"\nand another speaks of God's own Son, and another compares Moses the\nservant with Christ the Son; but the fullest revelation is reserved to\nthe last Gospel. And herein the order of God's dealings is observed, Who\ngives the lesser revelation to prepare for the fuller and more perfect.\nThe design of the Gospel is to restore men to the image of God by\nrevealing to them God Himself. But, before this can be done, they must\nbe taught what goodness is, their very moral sense must be renewed.\nHence the moral discourses of the Synoptics. Till this foundation is\nlaid, first in the world, and then in the soul, the Gospel has nothing\nto lay hold of and to work upon; so it was laid first in the Sermon on\nthe Mount, which, far beyond all other teaching, stops every mouth and\nbrings in all the world guilty before God; and then the way is prepared\nfor fuller revelations, such as that of the Atonement by the Death of\nChrist as set forth in the Epistles of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the\nrevelation culminates in the knowledge of the Father and the Son in the\nFourth Gospel.\n\nWith respect to the assertion of the author of \"Supernatural Religion,\"\nthat the discourses in this Gospel are, as compared with those in the\nSynoptics, _wholly_ dogmatic, as opposed to moral, the reader may judge\nof the truth of this by the following sayings of the Fourth Gospel:--\n\n    \"Every one that doeth evil hateth the light.\"\n\n    \"He that doeth truth cometh to the light.\"\n\n    \"God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in\n    spirit and in truth.\"\n\n    \"They that have done good [shall come forth] to the Resurrection of\n    Life.\"\n\n    \"How can ye believe who receive honour one of another, and seek not\n    the honour that cometh of God only?\"\n\n    \"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether\n    it be of God.\"\n\n    \"The truth shall make you free,\" coupled with\n\n    \"Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.\"\n\n    \"If I your Lord and Master have washed your feet, ye ought also to\n    wash one another's feet.\"\n\n    \"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I\n    have loved you.\"\n\n    \"He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth\n    Me.\"\n\nThese sayings, the reader will perceive, embody the deepest and highest\nmoral teaching conceivable.\n\nOne more point remains to be considered--the impossibility that St.\nJohn, taking into account his education and intellect, should have been\nthe author of the Fourth Gospel. This is stated in the following\npassage:--\n\n    \"The philosophical statements with which the Gospel commences, it\n    will be admitted, are anything but characteristic of the son of\n    thunder, the ignorant and unlearned fisherman of Galilee, who, to a\n    comparatively late period of life, continued preaching in his native\n    country to his brethren of the circumcision.... In the Alexandrian\n    philosophy, everything was prepared for the final application of the\n    doctrine, and nothing is more clear than the fact that the writer of\n    the Fourth Gospel was well acquainted with the teaching of the\n    Alexandrian school, from which he derived his philosophy, and its\n    elaborate and systematic application to Jesus alone indicates a late\n    development of Christian doctrine, which, we maintain, could not\n    have been attained by the Judaistic son of Zebedee.\" (Vol. ii. p.\n    415)\n\nAgain, in the preceding page:--\n\n    \"Now, although there is no certain information as to the time when,\n    if ever, the Apostle removed into Asia Minor, it is pretty certain\n    that he did not leave Palestine before A.D. 60. ... If we consider\n    the Apocalypse to be his work, we find positive evidence of such\n    markedly different thought and language actually existing when the\n    Apostle must have been at least sixty or seventy years of age, that\n    it is quite impossible to conceive that he could have subsequently\n    acquired the language and mental characteristics of the Fourth\n    Gospel.\"\n\nThis, though written principally with reference to the diction, applies\nstill more to the philosophy of the author of the Fourth Gospel. And,\nindeed, from his using the words \"mental characteristics,\" we have no\ndoubt that he desires such an application.\n\nNow, what are the facts? We must assume that St. John, though \"unlearned\nand ignorant,\" compared with the leaders of the Jewish commonwealth, at\nthe commencement of his thirty years' sojourn in the Jewish capital, was\na man of average intellect. Here, then, we have a member of a sect more\naggressive than any before known in the promulgation of its opinions,\ntaking the lead in the teaching and defence of these opinions in a city\nto which the Jews of all nationalities resorted periodically to keep the\ngreat feasts. If the holding of any position would sharpen a man's\nnatural intellect and give him a power over words, and a mental grasp of\nideas to which in youth he had been a stranger, that position would be\nthe leading one he held in the Church of such a city as Jerusalem.\n\nIn the course of the thirty years which, according to the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion,\" he lived there, he must have constantly had\nintercourse with Alexandrian Jews and Christians. It is as probable as\nnot that during this period he had had converse with Philo himself, for\nthe distance between Jerusalem and Alexandria was comparatively\ntrifling. At Pentecost there were present Jews and proselytes from Egypt\nand the parts of Libya about Cyrene. There was also a Synagogue of the\nAlexandrians. Now I assert that a few hours' conversation with any\nAlexandrian Jew, or with any Christian convert from Alexandrian Judaism,\nwould have, _humanly speaking_, enabled the Apostle, even if he knew not\na word of the doctrine before, to write the four sentences in which are\ncontained the whole Logos expression of the Fourth Gospel.\n\nSt. John must have been familiar with the teaching of traditional\ninterpretation respecting the Meymera as contained in the Chaldee\nparaphrases; indeed, the more \"unlearned\" and \"ignorant\" he was, the\nmore he must have relied upon the Chaldee paraphrases for the knowledge\nof the Old Testament, the Hebrew having been for centuries a dead\nlanguage. We have a Chaldee paraphrase of great antiquity on so early\nand familiar a chapter as the third of Genesis, explaining the voice of\nthe Lord God by the voice of the Meymera, or Word of the Lord God\n(Genesis iii.).\n\nThe natural rendering of this word into Greek would be Logos. I repeat,\nthen, that, humanly speaking, if he had never entertained the idea\nbefore, a very short conversation with an Alexandrian Jew would have\nfurnished him with all the \"philosophy\" required to make the four\nstatements in which he simply identifies the Logos with the Divine\nNature of his Lord.\n\nOf course, I do not for a moment believe that the Apostle was enabled to\nwrite the exordium of his Gospel by any such inspiration. There is not a\nmore direct utterance of the Holy Spirit in all Scripture than that\nwhich we have in the prelude to the Fourth Gospel.\n\nBut in the eyes of a Christian the grace of the Holy Spirit is shown in\nthe power and explicitness, and above all in the simplicity of the\nassertions which identify the human conception, if such it can be\ncalled, of Platonism, or Judaism, with the highest divine truth.\n\nI believe that if the Apostle wrote those sentences at the time handed\ndown by the Church's tradition, that is, when Cerinthian and other\nheresies respecting our Lord's nature were beginning to be felt, the\npower of the Holy Spirit was put forth to restrict him to these few\nsimple utterances, and to restrain his human intellect from overloading\nthem with philosophical or controversial applications of them, which\nwould have marred their simplicity and diminished their power. [117:1]\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XIX.\n\nEXTERNAL PROOFS OF THE AUTHENTICITY OF OUR FOUR GOSPELS.\n\n\nWe have now shown that Justin Martyr, the principal witness brought\nforward by the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" to discredit the Four\nEvangelists, either made use of the very books which we now possess, or\nbooks which contain exactly the same information respecting our Lord's\nmiraculous Birth, Death, Resurrection, and moral teaching. We have seen,\nalso, that Justin gives us, along with the teaching of the Synoptics,\nthat peculiar teaching respecting the pre-existent Divine nature of\nJesus which, as far as can be ascertained, was to be found only in the\nFourth Gospel, and which is consequently called Johannean; and that,\nbesides this, he refers to the history, and adopts the language, and\nurges the arguments which are to be found only in St. John.\n\nWe have also shown that there are no internal considerations whatsoever\nfor supposing that Justin did not make use of the Fourth Gospel.\nInstead, for instance, of the doctrine of St. John being a development\nof that held by Justin Martyr, the facts of the case all point to the\ncontrary.\n\nWe must now see whether there is external evidence which makes it not\nonly probable, but as certain as any fact in literary history can be,\nthat Justin must have known and made use of our present Evangelists;\nthat if he was a teacher in such an acknowledged centre of\necclesiastical information or tradition as Rome, and _appears_ to quote\nour Gospels (with no matter what minor variations and inaccuracies), he\ndid actually quote the same and no other; and if his inaccuracies, and\ndiscrepancies, and omissions of what we suppose he ought to have\nmentioned, were doubled or trebled, it would still be as certain as any\nfact of such a nature can be, that he quoted the Four Evangelists,\nbecause they must have been read and commented on in his day and in his\nchurch as the Memoirs of the Apostles, which took their place by the\nside of the prophets of the Old Testament in the public instruction of\nthe Church. In order to this I shall have to examine the external\nevidence for the Canon of the New Testament--so far, that is, as the\nFour Gospels are concerned.\n\nIn doing this I shall not take the usual method of tracing the evidence\nfor the various books in question downwards from the Apostolic time--the\nreader will find this treated exhaustively in \"Dr. Westcott on the\nCanon\"--but I shall trace it upwards, beginning at a time at which there\ncannot be the smallest doubt that the New Testament was exactly the same\nas that which we now possess.\n\nFor this purpose I shall take the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius as\nthe starting-point. The reader is, of course, aware that he is the\nearliest ecclesiastical writer whose history has come down to us, the\nhistorians who wrote before his time being principally known to us\nthrough fragments preserved in his book. He was born of Christian\nparents about the year A.D. 270, and died about 340. He probably wrote\nhis history about or before the year 325.\n\nThe reader, though he may not have read his history, will be aware, from\nthe quotations from it in \"Supernatural Religion,\" that Eusebius\ncarefully investigated the history of the Canon of Scripture, and also\nthe succession of ecclesiastical writers. His history is, in fact, to a\ngreat extent, a sketch of early Church literature. In dealing with the\nhistory of the Canon, he particularly notices whether a large number of\nwriters have quoted certain books of Scripture, of whose acceptance by\nthe whole Church doubts were entertained. This is important, as it shows\nthat not only himself, but the Church, during the three ages whose\nhistory he has recorded, did not receive books of Scripture except upon\nwhat they deemed to be sufficient evidence, and that evidence was the\nreception of each book from Apostolic times by the whole Church. I will\nnow give the testimony of Eusebius to the authenticity of the Four\nGospels.\n\nFirst of all he describes the origin of the Gospel of St. Mark in the\nfollowing words:--\n\n    \"So greatly, however, did the splendour of piety enlighten the minds\n    of Peter's hearers, that it was not sufficient to hear but once, nor\n    to receive the unwritten doctrine of the Gospel of God, but they\n    persevered, in every variety of entreaties, to solicit Mark as the\n    companion of Peter, and whose Gospel we have, that he should leave\n    them a monument of the doctrine thus orally communicated, in\n    writing. Nor did they cease with their solicitations until they had\n    prevailed with the man, and thus become the means of that history\n    which is called the Gospel according to Mark. They say also, that\n    the Apostle (Peter), having ascertained what was done by the\n    revelation of the Spirit, was delighted with the zealous ardour\n    expressed by these men, and that the history obtained his authority\n    for the purpose of being read in the Churches. This account is given\n    by Clement in the Sixth Book of his Institutions, whose testimony\n    also is corroborated by that of Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis.\" (Bk.\n    ii. chap. xv. Cruse's translation.)\n\nThis is narrated as having taken place in the reign of Claudius, _i.e._,\nbetween A.D. 41 and A.D. 54.\n\nThe next Gospel whose origin he describes is that of St. Luke, in the\nfollowing words:--\n\n    \"But Luke, who was born at Antioch, and by profession a physician,\n    being for the most part connected with Paul, and familiarly\n    acquainted with the rest of the Apostles, has left us two inspired\n    books, the institutes of that spiritual healing art which he\n    obtained from them. One of these is his Gospel, in which he\n    testifies that he has recorded, 'as those who were from the\n    beginning eye-witnesses and ministers of the word,' delivered to\n    him, whom also, he says, he has in all things followed. The other is\n    his Acts of the Apostles, which he composed, not from what he had\n    heard from others, but from what he had seen himself. It is also\n    said that Paul usually referred to his Gospel, whenever in his\n    Epistles he spoke of some particular Gospel of his own, saying,\n    'according to my Gospel.'\" (Bk. iii. ch. iv. Cruse's translation.)\n\nFurther on, he describes the publication of the First and Fourth\nGospels, thus:--\n\n    \"Of all the disciples, Matthew and John are the only ones that have\n    left us recorded comments, and even they, tradition says, undertook\n    it from necessity. Matthew also, having first proclaimed the Gospel\n    in Hebrew, when on the point of going also to other nations,\n    committed it to writing in his native tongue, and thus supplied the\n    want of his presence to them by his writings. But after Mark and\n    Luke had already published their Gospels they say that John, who,\n    during all this time, was proclaiming the Gospel without writing, at\n    length proceeded to write it on the following occasion. The three\n    Gospels previously written had been distributed among all, and also\n    handed to him; they say that he admitted them, giving his testimony\n    to their truth; but that there was only wanting in the narrative the\n    account of the things done by Christ among the first of His deeds,\n    and at the commencement of the Gospel. And this was the truth. For\n    it is evident that the other three Evangelists only wrote the deeds\n    of our Lord for one year after the imprisonment of John the Baptist,\n    and intimated this in the very beginning of their history. For after\n    the fasting of forty days, and the consequent temptation, Matthew\n    indeed specifies the time of his history in these words, 'But,\n    hearing that John was delivered up, he returned from Judea into\n    Galilee.' Mark in like manner writes: 'But, after John was delivered\n    up, Jesus came into Galilee.' And Luke, before he commenced the\n    deeds of Jesus, in much the same way designates the time, saying,\n    'Herod thus added this wickedness above all he had committed, and\n    that he shut up John in prison.' For these reasons the Apostle John,\n    it is said, being entreated to undertake it, wrote the account of\n    the time not recorded by the former Evangelists, and the deeds done\n    by our Saviour, which they have passed by (for these were the events\n    that occurred before the imprisonment of John), and this very fact\n    is intimated by him when he says, 'This beginning of miracles Jesus\n    made,' and then proceeds to make mention of the Baptist, in the\n    midst of our Lord's deeds, as John was at that time 'baptizing at\n    Aenon, near to Salim.' He plainly also shows this in the words,\n    'John was not yet cast into prison.' The Apostle, therefore, in his\n    Gospel, gives the deeds of Jesus before the Baptist was cast into\n    prison, but the other three Evangelists mention the circumstances\n    after that event,\" &c. (Bk. iii. c. xxiv.)\n\nThe last extract which I shall give is from the next chapter, when he\nmentions \"The sacred Scriptures which are acknowledged as genuine, and\nthose that are not:\"--\n\n    \"This appears also to be the proper place to give a summary\n    statement of the books of the New Testament already mentioned. And\n    here among the first must be placed _the Holy Quaternion of the\n    Gospels_; these are followed by the Book of the Acts of the\n    Apostles; after this must be mentioned the Epistles of Paul, which\n    are followed by the acknowledged First Epistle of John, also the\n    First of Peter to be admitted in like manner. After these are to be\n    placed, if proper, the Revelation of John, concerning which we shall\n    offer the different opinions in due time. These, then, are\n    acknowledged as genuine. Among the disputed books, although they are\n    well known and approved by many, is reputed that called the Epistle\n    of James and [that] of Jude. Also the Second Epistle of Peter, and\n    those called the Second and Third of John, whether they are of the\n    Evangelist, or of some other of the same name. Among the spurious\n    must be numbered both the books called the Acts of Paul, and that\n    called Pastor, and the Revelation of Peter. Besides these, the books\n    called the Epistle of Barnabas, and what are called the Institutions\n    of the Apostles. Moreover, as I said before, if it should appear\n    right, the Revelation of John, which some, as before said, reject,\n    but others rank among the genuine. But there are also some who\n    number among these the Gospel according to the Hebrews, with which\n    those of the Hebrews that have received Christ are particularly\n    delighted.\" (Bk. iii. ch. xxv.)\n\nSuch are the statements of the oldest ecclesiastical historian whose\nwork has come down to us.\n\nWith respect to the Gospels, he knows but four as canonical, and has\nnever heard of any other as accepted by the Church. He mentions\nApocryphal and disputed books. Amongst the latter he mentions the Gospel\nto the Hebrews as acceptable to a local church; but he is wholly\nignorant of any doubt having ever been cast upon the authority of the\nfour in any branch of the Catholic Church.\n\nNow let the reader remember, that however Eusebius, like all other\nwriters, _might_ be liable to be mistaken through carelessness, or\nprejudice, or any other cause of inaccuracy; yet that each of these\nstatements respecting the authorship of the various Gospels is, on all\nprinciples of common sense, worth all the conjectural criticisms of the\nGerman and other writers, so copiously cited in \"Supernatural Religion,\"\nput together.\n\nFor, in the first place, Eusebius flourished about 1500 years nearer to\nthe original source of the truth than these critics, and had come to\nman's estate within 200 years of the publication of the Fourth Gospel.\n\nNow, at a time when tradition was far more relied upon, and so much more\nperfectly preserved and transmitted than in such an age of printed books\nand public journals as the present, this alone would make an enormous\ndifference between a direct statement of Eusebius and the conjecture of\na modern theorist. But far more than this, Eusebius had access to, and\nwas well acquainted with, a vast mass of ecclesiastical literature which\nhas altogether perished; and the greater part of which is only known to\nhave existed through notices or extracts to be found in his work. For\ninstance, in a few pages he gives accounts of writings which have\nperished of Papias (iii. c. 39), Quadratus and Aristides (iv. ch. 3),\nHegesippus (iv. ch. 8 and 22), Tatian (iv. ch. 16), Dionysius of Corinth\n(iv. ch. 23), Pinytus (iv. ch. 23), Philip and Modestus (ch. 25), Melito\n(ch. 26), Apollinaris (ch. 27), Bardesanes (ch. 30).\n\nThese are all writers who flourished in the first three quarters of the\nsecond century, and I have only mentioned those whose writings, from the\nwording of his notices, Eusebius appears to have seen himself.\n\nIt is clear, I repeat, that the evidence of such an one on the\nauthorship of the Gospels is worth all the conjectures and theories of\nmodern critics of all classes put together.\n\nWe shall pass over very briefly the first sixty years of the third\ncentury, _i.e._ between A.D. 200 and the time of Eusebius. During these\nyears flourished Cyprian, martyred A.D. 257; Hippolytus, martyred about\nA.D. 240; and Origen, died A.D. 254.\n\nRespecting the latter, it appears from Eusebius that he published\ncommentaries on the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John. Of the latter\nEusebius says the first five books wore composed at Alexandria, but of\nthe whole work on St. John only twenty-two books have come down to us.\n(Bk. vi. ch. 24.) Now Origen was born a few years (at the most twenty)\nafter the death of Justin; and we have seen how the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" evidently considers the works of Justin to be\nanterior to the Fourth Gospel. Is it credible, or oven conceivable, that\na man of Origen's intellect, learning, and research should write twenty\nor thirty books of commentaries on a false Gospel which was forged\nshortly before his own time?\n\nHe expressly states that the Church knew of but four Gospels:--\n\n    \"As I have understood from tradition respecting the four Gospels,\n    which are the only undisputed ones in the whole Church of God\n    throughout the world. The first is written according to Matthew, the\n    same that was once a publican, but afterwards an Apostle of Jesus\n    Christ, who, having published it for the Jewish converts, wrote it\n    in Hebrew. The second is according to Mark, who composed it as Peter\n    explained to him, whom he [Peter] also acknowledged as his son in\n    his general epistle, saying, 'The elect Church in Babylon salutes\n    you, as also Mark, my son.' And the third according to Luke, the\n    Gospel commended by Paul, which was written for the converts from\n    the Gentiles; and, last of all, the Gospel according to John.\"\n    Extract from Origen's first book of his commentaries on St. Matthew,\n    quoted by Eusebius (vi. 25)\n\nAs regards Cyprian, the following quotation will suffice:--\n\n    \"The Church, setting forth the likeness of Paradise, includes within\n    her walls fruit-bearing trees, whereof that which does not bring\n    forth good fruit is cut off and is cast into the fire. These trees\n    she waters with four rivers, that is, with the four Gospels,\n    wherewith, by a celestial inundation, she bestows the grace of\n    saying baptism.\" Cyprian, Letter lxxii. to Jubaianus.\n\nAs regards Hippolytus I have counted above fifty references to St.\nMatthew and forty to St. John, in his work on the \"Refutation of\nHeresies,\" and \"Fragments.\" I append in a note a passage taken from his\ncomment on the Second Psalm, preserved to us by Theodoret. The reader\nwill be able to judge from it from what sources he derived his knowledge\nof Christ. I give it rather for its devotional spirit than its evidence\nfor the four. [126:1]\n\nWe now come to the conclusion of the second century. Between the years\n180 and 200 or 210 A.D., there flourished three writers of whom we\npossess somewhat voluminous remains. Irenaeus, who was born about 140 at\nthe latest, who was in youth the disciple of Polycarp, who was himself\nthe disciple of St. John. Irenaeus wrote his work against heresies about\nthe year 180, a little after he had succeeded Pothinus as Bishop of\nLyons, and was martyred at the beginning of the next century (202).\n\nClement of Alexandria, the date of whose birth or death is uncertain,\nflourished long before the end of the second century, for he became head\nof the catechetical school of Alexandria about the year 190.\n\nTertullian was born about 150, was converted to Christianity about 185,\nwas admitted to the priesthood in 192, and adopted the opinions of\nMontanus about the end of the century.\n\nI shall first of all give the testimony of these three writers to the\nuniversal reception of the Four Gospels by the Church, and consider to\nwhat time previous to their own day their testimony upon such a subject\nmust, of necessity, reach.\n\nFirst of all, Irenaeus, in a well-known passage, asserts that--\n\n    \"It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in\n    number than they are.\"\n\nHe then refers to the four zones of the earth, and the four principal\nwinds, and remarks that, in accordance with this,\n\n    \"He Who was manifest to men has given us the Gospel under four\n    aspects, but bound together by one Spirit.\"\n\nThen he refers to the four living creatures of the vision in the\nRevelation, and proceeds,--\n\n    \"And, therefore, the Gospels are in accord with these things, among\n    which Christ is seated. For that according to John relates His\n    original effectual and glorious generation from the Father, thus\n    declaring, 'In the beginning was the word,' &c.... But that\n    according to Luke, taking up His priestly character, commences with\n    Zacharias the priest offering sacrifice to God. For now was made\n    ready the fatted calf, about to be immolated for the finding again\n    of the younger son. Matthew again relates His generation as a man,\n    saying, 'The Book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of\n    David, the Son of Abraham;' and also, 'The birth of Jesus Christ was\n    on this wise.' This, then, is the Gospel of His humanity, for which\n    reason it is, too, that the character of an humble and meek man is\n    kept up through the whole Gospel. Mark, on the other hand, commences\n    with a reference to the prophetical spirit coming down from on high\n    to men, saying, 'The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it\n    is written in Esaias the prophet,' pointing to the winged aspect of\n    the Gospel: and on this account he made a compendious and cursory\n    narrative, for such is the prophetical character.\" (Iren., Bk. iii.\n    ch. xi.)\n\nClement of Alexandria, speaking of a saying ascribed to our Lord,\nwrites:--\n\n    \"In the first place, then, in the four Gospels handed down amongst\n    us, we have not this saying; but in that which is according to the\n    Egyptians.\" (Miscellanies, iii. ch. xiii.)\n\nTertullian writes thus:--\n\n    \"Of the Apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instil faith\n    into us; whilst, of Apostolic men, Luke and Mark renew it\n    afterwards. These all start with the same principles of the faith,\n    so far as relates to the one only God the Creator, and His Christ,\n    how that He was born of the Virgin, and came to fulfil the law and\n    the prophets. Never mind if there does occur some variation in the\n    order of their narratives, provided that there be agreement in the\n    essential matter of the faith in which there is disagreement with\n    Marcion.\" (Tertullian against Marcion, iv. c. ii.)\n\nSuch are the explicit declarations of these three writers respecting the\nnumber and authorship of the Four. I shall give at the conclusion of\nthis section some of the references to be found in these writers to the\nfirst two or three chapters in each Gospel.\n\nIt is but very little to say that they quote the Four as frequently, and\nwith as firm a belief in their being the Scriptures of God, as any\nmodern divine. They quote them far more copiously, and reproduce the\nhistory contained in them far more fully than any modern divine whom I\nhave ever read, who is not writing specifically on the Life of our Lord,\nor on some part of His teaching contained in the Gospels.\n\nBut I have now to consider the question, \"To what time, previous to\ntheir own day, or rather to the time at which they wrote, does their\ntestimony to such a matter as the general reception of the Four Gospels\nof necessity reach back?\"\n\nClement wrote in Alexandria, Tertullian in Rome or Africa, Irenaeus in\nGaul. They all flourished about A.D. 190. They all speak of the Gospels,\nnot only as well known and received, but as being the only Gospels\nacknowledged and received by the Church. One of them uses very\n\"uncritical\" arguments to prove that the Gospels could only be four in\nnumber; but the very absurdity of his analogies is a witness to the\nuniversal tradition of his day. To what date before their time must this\ntradition reach, so that it must be relied upon as exhibiting the true\nstate of things?\n\nNow this tradition is not respecting a matter of opinion, but a matter\nof fact--the fact being no other than the reading of the Gospels or\nMemoirs of our Lord in the public service of the Church. The \"Memoirs of\nour Lord,\" with other books, formed the Lectionary of the Church. So\nthat every Christian, who attended the public assemblies for worship,\nmust know whether he heard the Gospels read there or not.\n\nNow any two men who lived successively to the age of sixty-five would be\nable to transmit irrefragable testimony, which would cover a hundred\nyears, to the use of the Gospels in the lectionary of the Church.\n\nDuring the last five years we have had a change in our Lectionary, which\nchange only affects the rearrangement of the portions read each day out\nof the same Gospels, and every boy and girl of fifteen years old at the\ntime would recognize the alteration when it took place. If it had\noccurred fifty years ago, any man or woman of sixty-five would perfectly\nremember the change. If it had occurred within the last hundred years,\nany person of sixty-five could bear testimony to the fact that, when he\nfirst began to be instructed in the nature of the Church Services he was\ntold by his elders that up to a time which they could perfectly\nrecollect certain selections from Scripture had been read in Church, but\nthat at such a period during their lifetime a change had been brought\nabout after certain public debates, and that it received such or such\nopposition and was not at once universally adopted, which change was the\nreading in public of the present selection. It is clear then, that if\nall public documents were destroyed, yet any two men, who could scarcely\nbe called old men, would be able to transmit with perfect certainty the\nrecord of any change in the public reading of Scripture during the last\none hundred years.\n\nBut, supposing that instead of a change in the mere selections from the\nGospels, the very Gospels themselves had been changed, could such a\nthing have occurred unnoticed, and the memory of it be so absolutely\nforgotten that neither history nor tradition preserved the smallest hint\nof it at the end of a short century?\n\nNow this, and far more than this, is what the author of \"Supernatural\nReligion\" asks his readers to believe throughout his whole work.\n\nWe have seen how, before the end of this century, no other authoritative\nmemoirs of Christ were known by the Church, and these were known and\nrecognized as so essential a part of the Christian system, that their\nvery number as four, and only four, was supposed to be prefigured from\nthe very beginning of the world.\n\nNow Justin lived till the year 165 in this century. He was martyred when\nIrenaeus must have been twenty-five years old. Both Clement and\nTertullian must have been born before his martyrdom, perhaps several\nyears, and yet the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" would have us\nbelieve that the books of Christians which were accounted most sacred in\nthe year 190, and used in that year as frequently, and with as firm a\nbelief in their authenticity as they are by any Christians now, were\nunused by Justin Martyr, and that one of the four was absolutely unknown\nto him--in all probability forged after his time.\n\nWe are persistently told all this, too, in spite of the fact that he\nreproduces the account of the Birth, Teaching, Death, and Resurrection\nof Christ exactly as they are contained in the Four, without a single\nadditional circumstance worth speaking of, making only such alterations\nas would be natural in the reproduction of such an account for those who\nwere without the pale of the Church.\n\nBut even this is not the climax of the absurdity which we are told that,\nif we are reasonable persons, we must accept. It appears that the\n\"Memoirs\" which, we are told, Justin heard read every Sunday in the\nplace of assembly in Rome or Ephesus which he frequented, was a\nPalestinian Gospel, which combined, in one narrative, the accounts of\nthe Birth, Life, Death, and moral Teaching of Jesus, together with the\npeculiar doctrine and history now only to be found in the Fourth Gospel.\nConsequently this Gospel was not only far more valuable than any one of\nour present Evangelists, but, we might almost say, more worthy of\npreservation than all put together, for it combined the teaching of the\nfour, and no doubt reconciled their seeming discrepancies, thus\nobviating one of the greatest difficulties connected with their\nauthority and inspiration; a difficulty which, we learn from history,\nwas felt from the first. And yet, within less than twenty years, this\nGospel had been supplanted by four others so effectually that it was all\nbut forgotten at the end of the century, and is referred to by the first\necclesiastical historian as one of many apocrypha valued only by a local\nChurch, and has now perished so utterly that not one fragment of it can\nbe proved to be authentic.\n\nBut enough of this absurdity.\n\nTaking with us the patent fact, that before the end of the second\ncentury, and during the first half of the third, the Four Gospels were\naccepted by the Church generally, and quoted by every Christian writer\nas fully as they are at this moment, can there be the shadow of a doubt\nthat when Justin wrote the account of our Lord's Birth, which I have\ngiven in page 22, he had before him the first and third Evangelists, and\ncombined these two accounts in one narrative? Whether he does this\nconsciously and of set purpose I leave to the author of \"Supernatural\nReligion,\" but combine the two accounts he certainly does.\n\nAgain, when, in the accounts of the events preceding our Lord's Death,\nJustin notices that Jesus commanded the disciples to bring forth an ass\nand its foal (page 33), can any reasonable man doubt but that he owed\nthis to St. Matthew, in whose Gospel alone it appears?\n\nOr when, in the extract I have given in page 20, he notices that our\nLord called the sons of Zebedee Boanerges, can there be any reasonable\ndoubt that he derived this from St. Mark, the only Evangelist who\nrecords it, whose Gospel (in accordance with universal tradition), he\nthere designates as the \"Memoirs of Peter?\"\n\nOr again, when, in the extract I have given in page 34, he records that\nour Lord in His Agony sweat great drops [of blood], can there be a doubt\nbut that he made use of St. Luke, especially since he mentions two or\nthree other matters connected with our Lord's Death, only to be found in\nSt. Luke? Or, again, why should we assume the extreme improbability of a\ndefunct Gospel to account for all the references to, and reminiscences\nof, St. John's Gospel, which I have given in Sections VIII. and IX. of\nthis work?\n\nSo far for Justin Martyr.\n\nWe will now turn to references in three or four other writers.\n\nIn the Epistle of Vienne and Lyons we find the following:--\n\n    \"And thus was fulfilled the saying of our Lord: 'The time shall come\n    in which every one that killeth you shall think that he offereth a\n    service to God.'\"\n\nThis seems like a reference to John xvi. 2. The words, with some very\nslight variation, are to be found there and not to be found elsewhere.\nThe letter of the Churches was written about A.D. 178 \"at the earliest,\"\nwe are told by the author of \"Supernatural Religion.\" Well, we will make\nhim a present of a few years, and suppose that it was written ten or\ntwelve years later, _i.e._ about A.D. 190. Now we find that Irenaeus had\nwritten his great work, \"Against Heresies,\" before this date. Surely,\nthen, the notion of the writer of \"Supernatural Religion,\" that we are\nto suppose that this was taken from some lost Apocryphal Gospel when\nIrenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, had actually used a written Gospel which\ncontains it, refutes itself.\n\nWe turn to Athenagoras.\n\nWe find in his work, \"Plea (or Embassy) for the Christians\" (ch. x.),\nthe following:--\n\n    \"But the Son of God is the Logos of the Father in idea and in\n    operation, for after the pattern of Him and by Him were all things\n    made, the Father and the Son being one [I and My Father are one],\n    and the Son being in the Father, and the Father in the Son, in\n    oneness and power of spirit,\" &c. (John xiv. 10.)\n\nAgain (ch. xii.):--\n\n    \"Men who reckon the present life of very small worth indeed, and who\n    are conducted to the future life by this one thing alone, that they\n    know God and His Logos.\" [This is life eternal, that they may know\n    Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.]\n\nCan the writer of \"Supernatural Religion\" be serious when he writes, \"He\nnowhere identifies the Logos with Jesus?\" Does the writer of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" seriously think that a Christian writer, living\nin 177, and presenting to the emperor a plea for Christians, would have\nany difficulty about identifying Jesus with that Son of God Whom he\nexpressly states to be the Logos of God?\n\nThe following also are seeming quotations from the Synoptics in\nAthenagoras.\n\n    \"What, then, are those precepts in which we are instructed? 'I say\n    unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse, pray for them\n    that persecute you, that ye may be sons of your Father which is in\n    the heavens, who maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good,\n    and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.'\n\n    \"'For if ye love them which love you, and lend to them which lend to\n    you, what reward shall ye have?'\n\n    \"'For whosoever, He says, looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath\n    committed adultery already in his heart.'\n\n    \"'For whosoever, says He, putteth away his wife and marrieth\n    another, committeth adultery.'\"\n\nWhen we consider that in the time of Athenagoras, or very soon after,\nthere were three authors living who spoke of the Gospels in the way we\nhave shown, and quoted them in the way we shall now show, why assign\nthese quotations to defunct Gospels of whose contents we are perfectly\nignorant, when we have them substantially in Gospels which occupied the\nsame place in the Church then as now?\n\n\n\n\nNOTE ON SECTION XIX.\n\n\nI have asserted that the three authors, Tertullian, Clement of\nAlexandria, and Irenaeus, all flourishing before the close of the second\ncentury, quote the four Gospels, if anything, more frequently than most\nmodern Christian authors do. I append, in proof of this, some of the\nreferences in these authors to the first two or three chapters of our\npresent Gospels.\n\n\nIRENAEUS.\n\nMatthew, i.\n\n    \"And Matthew, too, recognizing one and the same Jesus Christ,\n    exhibiting his generation as a man from the Virgin ... says, 'The\n    book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of\n    Abraham.' Then, that he might free our mind from suspicion regarding\n    Joseph, he says, 'But the birth of Christ was on this wise: when His\n    mother was espoused,'\" &c. (iii. xvi.)\n\nThen he proceeds to quote and remark upon the whole of the remainder of\nthe chapter.\n\n    \"Matthew again relates His generation as a man.\" For remainder, see\n    page 128.\n\n    \"For Joseph is shown to be the son of Joachim and Jeconiah, as also\n    Matthew sets forth in his pedigree.\" (iii. 21, 9.)\n\n    \"Born Emmanuel of the Virgin. To this effect they testify that\n    before Joseph had come together with Mary, while she therefore\n    remained in virginity, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.\"\n    (iii. 21, 4.)\n\n    \"Then again Matthew, when speaking of the angel, says, 'The angel of\n    the Lord appeared to Joseph in sleep.' (iii. 9, 2.)\n\n    \"The angel said to him in sleep, 'Fear not to take to thee Mary, thy\n    wife'\" (and proceeding with several other verses of the same\n    chapter). (iv. 23, l.)\n\nMatthew, ii.\n\n    \"But Matthew says that the Magi, coming from the East, exclaimed,\n    'For we have seen His star in the East, and are come to worship\n    Him.'\" (iii. 9, 2.)\n\n    \"And that having been led by the star unto the house of Jacob to\n    Emmanuel, they showed, by those gifts which they offered, who it was\n    that was worshipped; myrrh, because it was He who should die and be\n    buried for the human race; gold, because He was a king,\" &c., &c.\n    (iii. 9, 2)\n\n    \"He, since He was Himself an infant, so arranging it that human\n    infants should be martyrs, slain, according to the Scriptures, for\n    the sake of Christ.\" (iii. 16, 4.)\n\nMatthew, iii.\n\n    \"For Matthew the apostle ... declares that John, when preparing the\n    way for Christ, said to them who were boasting of their relationship\n    according to the flesh, &c., 'O generation of vipers, who hath shown\n    you to flee from ... raise up children unto Abraham.' (iii. 9, 1.)\n\n    \"As John the Baptist says, 'For God is able from these stones to\n    raise up children unto Abraham.'\" (iv. 7, 2.)\n\nThere are no less than six quotations or references to the ninth and\ntenth verses of this chapter, viz., iv. 24, 2; v. 34, 1; iv. 8, 3; iv.\n36, 4; v. 17, 4.\n\n    \"Now who this Lord is that brings such a day about, John the Baptist\n    points out when he says of Christ, 'He shall baptize you with the\n    Holy Ghost and with fire, having His fan in His hand,'\" &c. (iv. 4,\n    3.)\n\n    \"Having a fan in His hands, and cleansing His floor, and gathering\n    the wheat,'\" &c. (iv. 33, 1.)\n\n    \"Who gathers the wheat into His barn, but will burn up the chaff\n    with fire unquenchable.\" (iv. 33, ll.)\n\n    \"Then, speaking of His baptism, Matthew says, 'The heavens were\n    opened, and He saw the Spirit of God,'\" &c. (iii. 9, 3.)\n\nMark, i.\n\n    \"Wherefore Mark also says, 'The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus\n    Christ the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets.'\" (iii. 16,\n    3.)\n\n    \"Yea, even the demons exclaimed, on beholding the Son, 'We know Thee\n    who Thou art, the Holy One of God.'\" (iv. 6, 6.)\n\nMark iv. 28.\n\n    \"His Word, through whom the wood fructifies, and the fountains gush\n    forth, and the earth gives 'first the blade, then the ear, then the\n    full corn in the ear.'\" (iv. 18, 4.)\n\nLuke, i.\n\n    \"Thus also does Luke, without respect of persons, deliver to us what\n    he had learned from them, as he has himself testified, saying, 'Even\n    as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were\n    eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word.'\" (iii. 14, 2.)\n\nAnother reference to same in preface to Book iv.\n\n    \"Luke, also, the follower and disciple of the Apostles, referring to\n    Zacharias and Elizabeth, from whom, according to promise, John was\n    born, says, 'And they were both righteous before God, walking in all\n    the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless,'\", &c. (iii.\n    10, 1.)\n\n    \"And again, speaking of Zacharias, 'And it came to pass, that while\n    he executed the priest's office,'\" &c. (_Ibid._)\n\n    \"And then, speaking of John, he (the angel) says: 'For he shall be\n    great in the sight of the Lord,'\" &c. (_Ibid._)\n\n    \"In the spirit and power of Elias.\" (iii. 10, 6.)\n\n    \"Truly it was by Him of whom Gabriel was the angel who also\n    announced the glad tidings of His birth ... in the spirit and power\n    of Elias.\" (iii. 11, 4.)\n\n    \"But at that time the angel Gabriel was sent from God, who did also\n    say to the Virgin, 'Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with\n    God.'\" (iii. 10, 2.)\n\n    \"He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest,\" &c.\n    (iii. 10, 2.)\n\n    \"And Mary, exulting because of this, cried out; prophesying on\n    behalf of the Church, 'My soul doth magnify the Lord.'\" (iii. 10,\n    2.)\n\n    \"And that the angel Gabriel said unto her, 'The Holy Ghost shall\n    come upon thee,'\" &c. (iii. 21, 4.)\n\n    \"In accordance with this design Mary the Virgin is found obedient,\n    saying, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to\n    Thy word.'\" (iii. 22, 4.)\n\n    \"As Elizabeth testified when fitted with the Holy Ghost, saying to\n    Mary, 'Blessed art thou among women,'\" &c. (iii. 21, 5.)\n\n    \"Wherefore the prophets ... announced His Advent ... in freeing us\n    from the hands of all that hate us, that is, from every spirit of\n    wickedness, and causing us to serve Him in holiness and\n    righteousness all our days.'\" (iv. 20, 4.)\n\nLuke, ii.\n\n    \"Wherefore Simeon also, one of his descendants, carried fully out\n    the rejoicing of the patriarch, and said, 'Lord, now lettest Thou\n    Thy servant,'\" &c. (iv. 7, l.)\n\n    \"And the angel in like manner announced tidings of great joy to the\n    shepherds who were keeping watch by night.\" (iv. 7, 1.)\n\n    \"Wherefore he adds, 'The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising\n    God for all which they had seen and heard.'\" (iii. 10, 4.)\n\n    \"And still further does Luke say in reference to the Lord, 'When the\n    days of purification were accomplished they brought Him up to\n    Jerusalem to present Him before the Lord.'\" (iii. 10, 5.)\n\n    \"They say also that Simeon, 'Who took Christ into his arms and gave\n    thanks to God,'\" &c. (i. 8, 4.)\n\n    \"They assert also that by Anna, who is spoken of in the Gospel as a\n    prophetess, and who after living seven years with her husband,\n    passed all the rest of her life in widowhood till she saw the\n    Saviour.\" (i. 8, 4.)\n\n    \"The production, again, of the Duodecad of the aeons is indicated by\n    the fact that the Lord was twelve years of age when He disputed with\n    the teachers of the law,\" &c. (i. 3, 2.)\n\n    \"Some passages, also, which occur in the Gospels receive from them a\n    colouring of the same kind, as the answer which He gave His mother\n    when He was twelve years old, 'Wist ye not that I must be about My\n    Father's business?'\" (i. 20, 2.)\n\nLuke, iii.\n\n    \"For because He knew that we should make a good use of our substance\n    which we should possess by receiving it from another, He says, 'He\n    that hath two coats let him impart to him that hath none, and he\n    that hath meat let him do likewise.'\" (iv. 30, 3.)\n\n    \"For when He came to be baptized He had not yet completed His\n    thirtieth year, but was beginning to be about thirty years of age;\n    for thus Luke, who has mentioned His years, has expressed it.\" (ii.\n    22, 5.)\n\nJohn, i.\n\n    \"[John] thus commenced his teaching in the Gospel, 'In the beginning\n    was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,'\" &c.\n    (iii. 11, 1.)\n\n    \"He (St. John) expresses himself thus: 'In the beginning was the\n    Word,'\" &c. (i. 8, 5.)\n\n    \"Thus saith the Scripture, 'By the word of the Lord were the heavens\n    made,' &c. And again, 'All things were made by Him, and without Him\n    was nothing made that was made.'\" (i. 22, 1.)\n\n    \"For he styles Him 'A light which shineth in darkness, and which was\n    not comprehended by it.'\" (i. 8, 5.)\n\n    \"And that we may not have to ask 'Of what God was the Word made\n    flesh?' He does Himself previously teach us, saying, 'There was a\n    man sent from God whose name was John. The same came as a witness\n    that he might bear witness of that Light. He was not that Light, but\n    that he might testify of the Light.'\" (iii. 11, 4.)\n\n    \"While the Gospel affirms plainly that by the Word, which was in the\n    beginning with God, all things were made, which Word, he says, was\n    made flesh and dwelt among us.\" (iii. 11, 2.)\n\nTo John i. 14, \"The Word was made flesh,\" the references are absolutely\ninnumerable. Those I have given already will suffice.\n\n    \"For this is the knowledge of salvation which was wanting to them,\n    that of the Son of God, which John made known, saying, 'Behold the\n    Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world. This is He of\n    whom I said, After me cometh a Man Who was made before me, because\n    He was prior to me.'\" (iii. 10, 2.)\n\n    \"By whom also Nathaniel, being taught, recognized Him; he to whom\n    also the Lord bare witness that he was an Israelite indeed, in whom\n    was no guile. The Israelite recognized his King, therefore did he\n    cry out to Him, 'Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God. Thou art the King\n    of Israel.'\" (iii. 11, 6.)\n\nJohn, ii.\n\n    \"But that wine was better which the Word made from water, on the\n    moment, and simply for the use of those who had been called to the\n    marriage.\" (iii. 11, 5.)\n\n    \"As also the Lord speaks in reference to Himself, 'Destroy this\n    temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' He spake this,\n    however, it is said, of the temple of His body.\" (v. 6, 2.)\n\n\nCLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA.\n\nMatthew, i.\n\n    \"And in the gospel according to Matthew the genealogy which begins\n    with Abraham is continued down to Mary, the mother of the Lord.\n    'For,' it is said, 'from Abraham to David are fourteen generations,\n    and from David to the carrying away into Babylon,\" &c.\n    (Miscellanies, i. 21.)\n\nMatthew, iii.\n\n    \"For the fan is in the Lord's hand, by which the chaff due to the\n    fire is separated from the wheat.\" (Instructor, i. 9.)\n\nMatthew, iv.\n\n    \"Therefore He Himself, urging them on to salvation, cries, 'The\n    Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.'\" (Exhortation to Heathen, ch. ix.)\n\nMatthew, v.\n\n    \"And because He brought all things to bear on the discipline of the\n    soul, He said, 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the\n    earth.'\" (Miscellanies, iv. 6.)\n\nMark, i.\n\n    \"For he also 'ate locusts and wild honey.'\" [In St. Matthew the\n    corresponding expression being 'His food was locusts and wild\n    honey.'] (Instructor, ii. 11.)\n\nLuke, iii.\n\n    \"And to prove that this is true it is written in the Gospel by Luke\n    as follows: 'And in the fifteenth year, in the reign of Tiberius\n    Caesar, the word of the Lord came to John, the son of Zacharias.'\n    And again, Jesus was coming to His baptism, being about thirty years\n    old,' and so on.\" (Miscellanies, i. 21.)\n\nThere are at least twenty more references to the accounts of the\npreaching of St. John in the third of St. Matthew, first of St. Mark,\nand third of St. Luke, in Clement's writings, which I have not given\nsimply because it is difficult to assign the quotation to a particular\nEvangelist, as the account is substantially the same in the three.\n\nLuke xii. 16-20.\n\n    \"Of this man's field (the rich fool) the Lord, in the Gospel, says\n    that it was fertile, and afterwards, when he wished to lay by his\n    fruits and was about to build greater barns,\" &c. (Miscellanies,\n    iii. 6.)\n\nLuke xiii. 32.\n\n    \"Thus also in reference to Herod, 'Go tell that fox, Behold, I cast\n    out devils,'\" &c. (Miscellanies, iv. 6.)\n\nLuke xiv. 12, 13.\n\n    \"He says accordingly, somewhere, 'When thou art called to a wedding\n    recline not on the highest couch.' ... And elsewhere, 'When thou\n    makest a dinner or a supper,' and again, 'But, when thou makest an\n    entertainment, call the poor.'\" (Instructor, ii. 1.)\n\nLuke, xv. Parable of Prodigal Son.\n\n    \"For it were not seemly that we, after the fashion of the rich man's\n    son in the Gospel, should, as prodigals, abuse the Father's gifts.\"\n    (Instructor, ii. ch. i.)\n\nJohn, i.\n\n    \"You have then God's promise; you have His love: become partakers of\n    His grace. And do not suppose the song of salvation to be new, as a\n    vessel or a house is new; for ... in the beginning was the Word, and\n    the Word was with God, and the Word was God.\" (Exhortation to\n    Heathen, ch. i.)\n\n    \"For He has said, 'In the beginning the Word was in God, and the\n    Word was God.\" (Instructor, viii.)\n\n    \"Wherefore it (the law) was only temporary; but eternal grace and\n    truth were by Jesus Christ. Mark the expressions of Scripture; of\n    the law only is it is said 'was given;' but truth, being the grace\n    of the Father, is the eternal work of the Word, and it is not said\n    to _be given_, but _to be_ by Jesus, _without whom nothing was_.\"\n    (Instructor, i. 7.)\n\n    \"The divine Instructor is trustworthy, adorned as He is with three\n    of the fairest ornaments ... with authority of utterance, for He is\n    God and Creator; for all things were made by Him, and without Him\n    was not anything made: and with benevolence, for He alone gave\n    Himself a sacrifice for us, 'For the Good Shepherd giveth His life\n    for the sheep.'\" (John x. 11.) (Instructor, i. 11.)\n\n    \"For the darkness, it is said, comprehendeth it not.\" (Instructor,\n    ii. 10.)\n\n    \"Having through righteousness attained to adoption, and therefore\n    'have received power to become the sons of God.'\" (Miscellanies, iv.\n    6.)\n\n    \"For of the prophets it is said, 'We have all received of His\n    fulness,' that is, of Christ's.\" (Miscellanies, i. 17.)\n\n    \"And John the apostle says, 'No man hath seen God at any time. The\n    only begotten God,' [oldest reading,] 'who is in the bosom of the\n    Father, He hath declared Him.\" (Miscellanies, v. 12.) John, iii.\n\n    \"He that believeth not is, according to the utterance of the\n    Saviour, condemned already.\" (Miscellanies, iv. 16.)\n\n    \"Enslaved as you are to evil custom, and clinging to it voluntarily\n    till your last breath, you are hurried to destruction; because light\n    has come into the world, and men have loved the darkness rather than\n    the light.\" (Exhortation to Heathen, 10.)\n\n    \"'I must decrease,' said the prophet John.\" (Miscellanies, vi. II.)\n\n\nTERTULLIAN.\n\nMatthew, i.\n\n    \"There is, first of all, Matthew, that most faithful chronicler of\n    the Gospel, because the companion of the Lord; for no other reason\n    in the world than to show us clearly the fleshy original of Christ,\n    he thus begins, 'The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son\n    of David the son of Abraham.'\" (On the Flesh of Christ, ch. xxii.)\n\n    \"It is, however, a fortunate circumstance that Matthew also, when\n    tracing down the Lord's descent from Abraham to Mary, says, 'Jacob\n    begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, _of whom_ was born Jesus.\" (On\n    the Flesh of Christ, ch. xx.)\n\n    \"You [the heretic] say that He was born _through_ a virgin, not _of_\n    a virgin, and _in_ a womb, not _of_ a womb; because the angel in the\n    dream said to Joseph, 'That which is born in her is of the Holy\n    Ghost.'\" (_Ibid._ ch. xx.)\n\nMatthew, ii.\n\n    \"For they therefore offered to the then infant Lord that\n    frankincense, and myrrh, and gold, to be, as it were, the close of\n    worldly sacrifice and glory, which Christ was about to do away.\" (On\n    Idolatry, ch. ix.)\n\nMark i. 4.\n\n    \"For, in that John used to preach 'baptism _for_ the remission of\n    sins,' the declaration was made with reference to a future\n    remission.\" (On Baptism, x.)\n\nMark i. 24.\n\n    \"This accordingly the devils also acknowledge Him to be: 'We know\n    Thee Who Thou art, the Son of God.'\" (Against Praxeas, ch. xxvi.)\n\nLet the reader particularly remark this phrase. Tertullian quotes the\nlast clauses differently from the reading in our present copies, \"The\nHoly One of God.\" If such a quotation had occurred in Justin, the author\nof \"Supernatural Religion\" would have cited the phrase as a quotation\nfrom a lost Gospel, and asserted that the author had not even seen\nSt. Mark.\n\nLuke, i.\n\n    \"Elias was nothing else than John, who came 'in the power and spirit\n    of Elias.'\" (On Monogamy, ch. viii.)\n\n    \"I recognize, too, the angel Gabriel as having been sent to a\n    virgin; but when he is blessing her, it is 'among women.'\" (On the\n    Veiling of Virgins, ch. vi.)\n\n    \"Will not the angel's announcement be subverted, that the Virgin\n    should 'conceive in her womb and bring forth a son?' ... Therefore\n    even Elizabeth must be silent, although she is carrying in her womb\n    the prophetic babe, which was already conscious of his Lord, and is,\n    moreover, filled with the Holy Ghost. For without reason does she\n    say, 'And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should\n    come to me?' If it was not as her son, but only as a stranger, that\n    Mary carried Jesus in her womb, how is it she says, 'Blessed is the\n    fruit of thy womb?'\" (On the Flesh of Christ, ch. xxi.)\n\n    \"Away, says he [he is now putting words into the mouth of the\n    heretic], with that eternal plaguy taxing of Caesar, and the scanty\n    inn, and the squalid swaddling clothes, and the hard stable. We do\n    not care a jot for that multitude of the heavenly host which praised\n    their Lord at night. Let the shepherds take better care of their\n    flock ... Spare also the babe from circumcision, that He may escape\n    the pains thereof; nor let Him be brought into the temple, lest He\n    burden His parents with the expense of the offering; nor let Him be\n    handed to Simeon, lest the old man be saddened at the point of\n    death.\" (On the Flesh of Christ, ch. ii.)\n\n    \"This He Himself, in those other gospels also, testifies Himself to\n    have been from His very boyhood, saying, 'Wist ye not, says He, that\n    I must be about my Father's business?'\" (Against Praxeas, xxvi.)\n\nJohn, i.\n\n    \"In conclusion, I will apply the Gospel as a supplementary testimony\n    to the Old Testament ... it is therein plainly revealed by Whom He\n    made all things. 'In the beginning was the Word,'--that is, the same\n    beginning, of course, in which God made the heaven and the\n    earth--'and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,'\" &c.\n    (Against Hermogenes, ch. xx.)\n\nI give only one reference to the first few verses, as the number in\nTertullian's writings is enormous.\n\n    \"It is written, 'To them that believed on Him, gave He power to be\n    called Sons of God.'\" (On Prayer, ch. ii.)\n\n    \"But by saying 'made,' he [St. Paul] not only confirmed the\n    statement 'the Word was made flesh,' but he also asserted the\n    reality,\" &c. (On the Flesh of Christ, ch. xx.)\n\nJohn, ii.\n\n    \"[He Jesus] inaugurates in _water_ the first rudimentary displays of\n    His power, when invited to the nuptials.\" (On Baptism, ch. ix.)\n\nThe twenty-first chapter of the \"Discourse against Praxeas\" is filled\nwith citations from St. John. I will give a small part.\n\n    \"He declared what was in the bosom of the Father alone; the Father\n    did not divulge the secrets of His own bosom. For this is preceded\n    by another statement: 'No man hath seen God at any time.' Then\n    again, when He is designated by John as 'the Lamb of God.' ... This\n    [divine relationship] Nathanael at once recognized in Him, even as\n    Peter did on another occasion: 'Thou art the Son of God.' And He\n    affirmed Himself that they were quite right in their convictions,\n    for He answered Nathanael, 'Because I said I saw thee under the\n    fig-tree, dost thou believe?' ... When He entered the temple He\n    called it 'His Father's house,' [speaking] as the Son. In His\n    address to Nicodemus He says, 'So God loved the world,' &c....\n    Moreover, when John the Baptist was asked what he happened [to know]\n    of Jesus, he said, 'The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all\n    things into His Hands. He that believeth,' &c. Whom, indeed, did He\n    reveal to the woman of Samaria? Was it not 'the Messias which is\n    called Christ?' ... He says, therefore, 'My meat is to do the will\n    of Him that sent me, and to finish His work,'\" &c. &c. (Against\n    Praxeas, ch. xxi.)\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XX.\n\nTHE EVIDENCE FOR MIRACLES.\n\n\nIt does not come within the scope of this work to examine at any length\nthe general subject of miracles. The assertion that miracles, such as\nthose recorded in Scripture, are absolutely impossible, and so have\nnever taken place, must be met by the counter assertion that they are\npossible, and have taken place. They are possible to the Supreme Being,\nand have taken place by His will or sufferance at certain perfectly\nhistorical periods; especially during the first century after the birth\nof Christ. When to this it is replied that miracles are violations of\nnatural law or order, and that it is contrary to our highest idea of the\nSupreme Being to suppose that He should alter the existing order of\nthings, we can only reply that it is in accordance with our highest idea\nof Him that He should do so; and we say that in making these assertions\nwe are not unreasonable, but speak in accordance with natural science,\nphilosophy, and history.\n\nAnd, in order to prove this, we have only to draw attention to the\ninaccuracy which underlies the use of the term \"law\" by the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion,\" and those who think as he does. The author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" strives to bring odium on the miracles of the\nGospel by calling them \"violations of law,\" and by asserting that it is\na false conception of the Supreme Being to suppose that He should have\nmade an Universe with such elements of disorder within it that it should\nrequire such things as the violation, or even suspension, of laws to\nrestore it to order, and that our highest and truest idea of God is that\nof One Who never can even so much as make Himself known except through\nthe action of the immutable laws by which this visible state of things\nis governed.\n\nNow what is a law? The laws with which in this discussion we are given\nto understand we have to do, are strictly speaking limitations--the\nlimitations of forces or powers which, in conception at least, must\nthemselves be prior to the limitations.\n\nTake the most universal of all so-called \"laws,\" the law of gravitation.\nThe law of gravitation is the limitation imposed upon that mysterious\nforce which appears to reside in all matter, that it should attract all\nother matter. This power of attraction is called gravitation; but\ninstead of acting at random, as it were, it acts according to certain\nwell-known rules which only are properly the \"laws\" of gravitation.\n\nNow the very existence of our world depends upon the force of attraction\nbeing counteracted. If, from a certain moment, gravitation were to\nbecome the only force in the solar system, the earth would fall upon the\nsurface of the sun, and be annihilated; but the earth continues in\nexistence because of the action of another force--the projectile\nforce--which so far counteracts the force of the sun's attraction, that\nthe earth revolves around the sun instead of falling upon its surface.\nIn this case the _law_ of gravitation is not violated, or even\nsuspended, but the force of gravitation is counteracted or modified by\nanother force.\n\nAgain, the blood circulates through our bodies by means of another power\nor force counteracting the force of gravitation, and this is the vital\npower or force.\n\nBut why do we lift up our feet from the ground to go about some daily\nduty? Here comes another force--the force of will, which directs the\naction of some of the vital forces, but not that of others.\n\nBut, again, two courses of action are open to us, and we deliberately\nchoose the one because we think that it is our duty, though it may\nentail danger or pain, or even death. Here is a still deeper force or\npower, the force of conscience--the moral power which is clearly the\nhighest power within us, for it governs the very will, and sits in\njudgment upon the whole man, and acquits or condemns him according to\nits rule of right and wrong.\n\nHere, then, are several gradations of power or force--any one of them as\nreal as the others; each one making itself felt by counteracting and\nmodifying the action of the one below it.\n\nNow the question arises, is there any power or force clearly above the\nhighest controlling power within us, _i.e._ above our conscience? We say\nthat there is. There are some who on this point can reverently take up\nthe words of our Great Master, \"We speak that we do know.\" We believe,\nas firmly as we believe in our own existence, that this our\nconscience--the highest power within us--has been itself acted upon by a\nHigher Power still, a moral and spiritual Power, which has enlightened\nit, purified it, strengthened it, in fact renewed it.\n\nNow, this purifying or enlightening of our moral powers has one\nremarkable effect. It makes those who have been acted upon by it to look\nup out of this present state of things for a more direct revelation of\nthe character and designs of the Supreme Being. Minds who have\nexperienced this action of a Superior Power upon them cannot possibly\nlook upon the Supreme Being as revealing Himself merely by the laws of\ngravitation, or electricity, or natural selection. We look for, we\ndesire a further and fuller Revelation of God, even though the\nRevelation may condemn us. We cannot rest without it. It is intolerable\nto those who have a sense of justice, for instance, to think that,\nwhilst led by their sense of what is good and right, men execute\nimperfect justice, there is, after all, no Supreme Moral Governor Who\nwill render to each individual in another life that just retribution\nwhich is assuredly not accorded to all in this life. [152:1]\n\nNow this, I say, makes us desire a revelation of the Supreme Moral\nGovernor which is assuredly not to be found in the laws which control\nmere physical forces. As Dr. Newman has somewhere said, men believe what\nthey wish to believe, and assuredly we desire to believe that there is a\nsupreme Moral Governor, and that He has not left us wholly in the dark\nrespecting such things as the laws and sanctions of His moral\ngovernment. But has He really revealed these? We look back through the\nages, and our eyes are arrested by the figure of One Who, according to\nthe author of \"Supernatural Religion,\" taught a \"sublime religion.\" His\nteaching \"carried morality to the sublimest point attained, or even\nattainable, by humanity. The influence of His Spiritual Religion has\nbeen rendered doubly great by the unparalleled purity and elevation of\nHis own character. He presented the rare spectacle of a life, so far as\nwe can estimate it, uniformly noble and consistent with His own lofty\nprinciples, so that the 'imitation of Christ' has become almost the\nfinal word in the preaching of His Religion, and must continue to be one\nof the most powerful elements of its permanence.\" (Vol. ii. p. 487.)\n\nIt is quite clear from this testimony of an enemy to the Christian\nreligion, as it appears in the Scriptures, that if the Supreme Moral\nGovernor had desired to give to man a revelation of the principles and\nsanctions of His moral government, He could not have chosen a more\nfitting instrument. Such a character seems to have been made for the\npurpose. If He has not revealed God, no one has.\n\nNow, who is this Man Whose figure stands thus prominent above His\nfellows?\n\nWe believe Him to be our Redeemer; but before He redeemed, He laid down\nthe necessity of Redemption by making known to men the true nature of\nsin and righteousness, and the most just and inevitable Judgment of God.\nHe revealed to us that there is One above us Who is to the whole race,\nand to every individual of the race, what our consciences are to\nourselves--a Judge pronouncing a perfect judgment, because He perfectly\nknows the character of each man, perfectly observes and remembers his\nconduct, and, moreover, will mete out to each one a just and perfect\nretribution.\n\nBut still, how are we to know that He has authority to reveal to us such\na thing as that God will judge the race and each member of it by a just\njudgment? Natural laws reveal to us no such judgment. Nature teaches us\nthat if we transgress certain natural laws we shall be punished. But it\nteaches no certain judgement either in this life or in any future life\nwhich will overtake the transgression of moral laws. A man may defraud,\noppress, and seduce, and yet live a prosperous life, and die a quiet,\npainless death.\n\nHow, then, are we to know that Jesus of Nazareth had authority to reveal\nthat God will set all this right in a future state, and that He Himself\nwill be the direct Agent in bringing the rectification about? How are we\nto know that what He says is true respecting a matter of such deep\nconcern to ourselves, and yet so utterly unknown to mere physical\nnature, and so out of the reach of its powers? What proof have we of His\nRevelation, or that it is a Revelation? The answer is, that as what He\nrevealed is above mere physical nature, so He attested it by the\nexhibition of power above physical nature--the exhibition of the direct\npower of God. He used miracles for this purpose; more particularly He\nstaked the truth of His whole message on the miracle of His own\nResurrection. [155:1] The Resurrection was to be the assurance of the\nperfection of both His Redemption and His Judgment.\n\nNow, against all this it is persistently alleged that even if He had the\npower He could not have performed miracles, because miracles are\nviolations of law, and the Lawgiver cannot violate even mere physical\nlaws; but this specious fallacy is refuted by the simple assertion that\nHe introduced a new power or force to counteract or modify others, which\ncounteraction or modification of forces is no more than what is taking\nplace in every part of the world at every moment.\n\nBefore proceeding further we will illustrate the foregoing by testing\nsome assertions of the author of \"Supernatural Religion.\"\n\n\"Man,\" he asserts, \"is as much under the influence of gravitation as a\nstone is\" (vol. i. p. 40). Well, a marble statue is a stone. Can a\nmarble statue, after it is thrown down, rise up again of itself, and\nstand upon its feet?\n\nAgain--\n\n    \"The law of gravitation suffers no alteration, whether it cause the\n    fall of an apple or shape the orbit of a planet\" (p. 40).\n\nOf course the \"law\" suffers no alteration, but the force of gravitation\nsuffers considerable modification if you catch the apple in your hand,\nor if the planet has an impulse given to it which compels it to career\nround the sun instead of falling upon his surface. Again (page 40):--\n\n    \"The harmonious action of physical laws, and their adaptability to\n    an infinite variety of forms, constitutes the perfection of that\n    code which produces the order of nature. The mere superiority of man\n    over lower forms of organic and inorganic matter does not lift him\n    above physical laws, and the analogy of every grade in nature\n    forbids the presumption that higher forms may exist which are exempt\n    from their control.\"\n\nThe number of fallacies in this short passage is remarkable. In the\nfirst place laws never act, _i.e._ of themselves. They have to be\nadministered. Forces or powers act under the restraint of laws. I think\nI am right in saying that all physical _laws_, as distinguished from\nforces, are limitations of force. No man can conceive of a law acting by\nitself. There is no such thing, for instance, as a \"Reign of Law.\" A\npower acts or, if you please, reigns, according to a law, but laws of\nthemselves can do nothing.\n\nAgain, the author says, \"The mere superiority of man over lower forms of\norganic and inorganic matter does not lift him above physical laws.\"\n\nYes, it does, partially at least, for it enables him, in his sphere, to\ncontrol the very forces whose action is limited by laws. The superiority\nof man is shown in his control of the powers of nature, and making them\nobey his will. All such inventions as the steam engine or the electric\ntelegraph lift man above certain physical laws, by enabling him to\ncontrol the forces with which those laws have to do.\n\nAgain, he writes: \"The analogy of every grade in nature forbids the\npresumption that higher forms may exist which are exempt from their\ncontrol.\" On the contrary, we assert that the analogy of every grade in\nnature encourages the presumption that higher forms may exist which can\ncontrol these forces of nature far more directly and perfectly than we\ncan.\n\nTo proceed. In page 41 we read:--\n\n    \"If in animated beings we have the solitary instance of an efficient\n    cause acting among the forces of nature, and possessing the power of\n    initiation, this efficient cause produces no disturbance of physical\n    law.\"\n\nI cite this place, in order to draw attention to what I suppose must\nhave struck the careful reader, which is the application of the term\n\"solitary instance\" to the action of animated beings amongst the forces\nof nature. If there had been but one animated being in existence, such\nan epithet might not have been out of place; but when one considers that\nthe world teems with such beings, and that by their every movement they\nmodify or counteract, in their own case at least, the mightiest of all\nnature's forces, and that no inconsiderable portion of the earth's\nsurface owes its conformation to their action, we are astonished at\nfinding all this characterized as the solitary instance of an efficient\ncause. But by a sentence at the bottom of this page we are enlightened\nas to the real reason for so strange a view of the place of vital powers\nin the universe. In the eyes of those who persist in, as far as\npossible, ignoring all laws except physical laws, even to the extent of\nendeavouring to prove that moral forces themselves are but mere\ndeveloped forms of physical ones, all manifestations of powers other\nthan those of electricity, gravitation, magnetism, and so forth are\nanomalous, and we have the very word \"anomaly\" applied to them. \"The\nonly anomaly,\" he writes, \"is our ignorance of the nature of vital\nforce. [158:1] But do we know much more of the physical?\"\n\nMen who thus concentrate their attention upon mere physical laws or\nphenomena, get to believe in no others. They are impatient of any things\nin the universe except what they can number, or measure, or weigh. They\nare in danger of regarding the Supreme Being Himself as an \"anomaly.\"\nThey certainly seem to do so, when they take every pains to show that\nthe universe can get on perfectly well without His superintending\npresence and control.\n\nWhatever odium, then, may be attached to the violation of a natural\n_law_, cannot be attached to the action of a superior _force_, making\nitself felt amongst lower grades of natural forces.\n\nIf it be rejoined that this superior force must act according to law, we\nanswer, certainly, but according to what law? Not, of course, according\nto the law of the force which it counteracts, but according to the law\nunder which itself acts.\n\nThe question of miracles, then, is a matter of evidence; but we all know\nwhat a power human beings have of accepting or rejecting evidence\naccording as they look for it or are prejudiced against it.\n\nIf men concentrate their thought upon the lower forces of the universe,\nand explain the functions of life, and even such powers as affection,\nwill, reason, and conscience, as if they were modifications of mere\nphysical powers, and ignore a higher Will, and an all-controlling Mind,\nand a personal superintending Providence, what wonder if they are\nindisposed to receive any such direct manifestation of God as the\nResurrection of Jesus, for the Resurrection of Jesus is the pledge of a\nrighteous Judgment and Retribution which, however it takes place, will\nbe the most astounding \"anomaly\" amidst the mere physical phenomena of\nthe universe, whilst it will be the necessary completion of its moral\norder.\n\nThe proof of miracles is then, as I said, a matter of evidence. When\nHume asserts that \"a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature,\" we\nmeet him with the counter-assertion that it is rather the new\nmanifestation in this order of things of the oldest of powers, that\nwhich originally introduced life into a lifeless world.\n\nWhen he says that \"a firm and unalterable experience has established\nthese laws,\" we say that science teaches us that there must have been\nepochs in the history of the world when new forces made their appearance\non the scene, for it teaches us that the world was once incandescent,\nand so incapable of supporting any conceivable form of animal life, but\nthat at a certain geological period life made its appearance.\n\nNow, we believe that it is just as wonderful, and contrary to the\nexperience of a lifeless world, that life should appear on that world,\nas that it is contrary to the experience of the present state of things,\nthat a dead body should be raised.\n\nWhen he asserts that a miraculous event is contrary to uniform\nexperience, we can only reply that it is not contrary to the experience\nof the Evangelists, of St. Peter and St. Paul, and of the other Apostles\nand companions of the Lord; that it was not contrary to the experience\nof the multitudes who were miraculously fed, and of the multitudes who\nwere miraculously healed. When it is replied to this, that we have\ninsufficient evidence of the fact that these persons witnessed miracles,\nwe rejoin that there is far greater evidence, both in quality and\namount, for these miracles, especially for the crowning one, than there\nis for any fact of profane history; but, if there was twice the evidence\nthat there is, its reception must depend upon the state of mind of the\nrecipient himself.\n\nIf a man, whilst professing to believe in \"a God under whose beneficent\ngovernment we know that all that is consistent with wise and omnipotent\nlaw is prospered and brought to perfection,\" yet has got himself to\nbelieve that such a God cannot introduce into any part of the universe a\nnew power or force, as for instance that He is bound not to introduce\nvital force into a lifeless world, or mental power into a reasonless\nworld, or moral power into a world of free agents, but must leave these\nforces to work themselves out of non-existence;--if it man, I say, has\ngot himself to believe in such a Being, he will not, of course, believe\nin any testimony to miracles as accrediting a Revelation from Him, and\nso he will do his best to get rid of them after the fashion in which we\nhave seen the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" attempt to get rid of\nthe testimony of Justin Martyr to the use of the Four Gospels in his\nday.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXI.\n\nOBJECTIONS TO MIRACLES.\n\n\nI will now briefly dispose of two or three of the collateral objections\nagainst miracles.\n\n1. The author of \"Supernatural Religion\" makes much of the fact that the\nScripture writers recognize that there may be, and have been, Satanic as\nwell as Divine Miracles, and he argues that this destroys all the\nevidential value of a miracle. He writes:--\n\n    \"Even taking the representation of miracles, therefore, which\n    Divines themselves give, they are utterly incompetent to perform\n    their contemplated functions. If they are super-human, they are not\n    super-Satanic, and there is no sense in which they can be considered\n    miraculously evidential of anything.\" (Vol. i. p. 25)\n\nNow, this difficulty is the merest theoretical one,--a difficulty, as\nthe saying is, on paper; and never can be a practical one to any sincere\nbeliever in the holiness of God and the reality of goodness. Take the\nmiracle of miracles, the seal of all that is supernatural in our\nreligion, the Resurrection of Christ. If there be a conflict now going\non between God and Satan, can there be a doubt as to the side to which\nthis miracle is to be assigned? It is given to prove the reality of a\nRedemption which all those who accept it know to be a Redemption from\nthe power of Satan. It is given to confirm the sanctions of morality by\nthe assurance of a judgment to come. If Satan had performed it, he would\nhave been simply casting out himself. If this miracle of the\nResurrection be granted, all else goes along with it, and the children\nof God are fortified against the influence, real or counterfeit, of any\ndiabolical miracle whatsoever.\n\nThe miracles of the New Testament are not performed, as far as I can\nremember, in any single instance, to prove the truth of any one view of\ndoctrinal Christianity as against another, but to evidence the reality\nof the Mission of the Divine Founder as the Son of God, and \"the Son of\nGod was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil.\"\n\n2. With respect to what are called ecclesiastical miracles, _i.e._\nmiracles performed after the Apostolic age, the author of \"Supernatural\nReligion\" recounts the notices of a considerable number, assumes that\nthey are all false, and uses this assumed falsehood as a means of\nbringing odium on the accounts of the miracles of Christ.\n\nMore particularly he draws attention to certain miracles recorded in the\nworks of St. Augustine, of one at least of which he (Augustine) declares\nhe was an eye-witness.\n\nNow, the difficulty raised upon these and similar accounts appears to me\nto be as purely theoretical as the one respecting Satanic miracles. If\nthere be truth in the New Testament, it is evident that the Founder of\nChristianity not only worked miracles Himself, but gave power to His\nfollowers to do the same. When was this power of performing miracles\nwithdrawn from the Church? Our Lord, when He gave the power, gave no\nintimation that it would ever be withdrawn, rather the contrary.\nHowever, even in Apostolic times, the performance of them seems to have\nbecome less frequent as the Church became a recognized power in the\nworld. For instance, in the earlier Epistles of St. Paul the exercise of\nmiraculous gifts seems to have been a recognized part of the Church's\nsystem, and in the later ones (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) they are\nscarcely noticed. [164:1] If we are to place any credence whatsoever in\necclesiastical history, the performance of miracles seems never to have\nceased, though in later times very rare in comparison with what they\nmust have been in the first age.\n\nNow, if the miracles recorded by Augustine, or any of them, were true\nand real, the only inference is that the action of miraculous power\ncontinued in the Church to a far later date than some modern writers\nallow. If, on the contrary, they are false, then they take their place\namong hosts of other counterfeits of what is good and true. They no more\ngo to prove the non-existence of the real miracles which they\ncaricature, than any other counterfeit proves the non-existence of the\nthing of which it is the counterfeit. Nay, rather, the very fact that\nthey are counterfeits proves the existence of that of which they are\ncounterfeits. The Ecclesiastical miracles are clearly not independent\nmiracles; true or false, they depend upon the miraculous powers of the\nearly Church. If any of them are true, then these powers continued in\nthe Church to a late date; if they are false accounts (whether wilfully\nor through mistake, makes no difference), their falsehood is one\ntestimony out of many to the miraculous origin of the dispensation.\n\nThose recorded by Augustine are in no sense evidential. Nothing came of\nthem except the relief, real or supposed, granted to the sufferers. No\nmessage from God was supposed to be accredited by them. No attempt was\nmade to spread the knowledge of them; indeed, so far from this, in one\ncase at least, Augustine is \"indignant at the apathy of the friends of\none who had been miraculously cured of a cancer, that they allowed so\ngreat a miracle to be so little known.\" (Vol. ii. p. 171.) In every\nconceivable respect they stand in the greatest contrast to the\nResurrection of Christ.\n\nEach case of an Ecclesiastical miracle must be examined (if one cares to\ndo so) apart, on its own merits. I can firmly believe in the reality of\nsome, whilst the greater part are doubtful, and many are wicked\nimpostures. These last, of course, give occasion to the enemy to\ndisparage the whole system of which they are assumed to be a part, but\nthey tell against Christianity only in the same sense in which all\ntolerated falsehood or evil in the Church obscures its witness to those\neternal truths of which it is \"the pillar and the ground.\"\n\nNow, all this is equally applicable to Superstition generally in\nrelation to the supernatural. As the counterfeit miracles of the later\nages witness that there must have been true ones to account for the very\nexistence of the counterfeit, so the universal existence of Superstition\nwitnesses to the reality of those supernatural interpositions of which\nit is the distorted image. If Hume's doctrine be true, that a miracle,\n_i.e._ a supernatural interposition, is contrary to universal\nexperience and so incredible--if from the first beginning of things\nthere has been one continuous sequence of natural cause and effect,\nunbroken by the interposition of any superior power, how is it that\nmankind have ever formed a conception of a supernatural power? And yet\nthe conception, in the shape of superstition at least, is absolutely\nuniversal. Tribes who have no idea of the existence of God, use charms\nand incantations to propitiate unseen powers.\n\nNow, the distortion witnesses to the reality of that of which it is the\ndistortion; the caricature to the existence of the feature caricatured.\nAnd so the universality of the existence of Superstition witnesses to\nthe reality of these supernatural revelations and interpositions to\nwhich alone such a thing can be referred as its origin.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXII.\n\nJEWISH CREDULITY.\n\n\nAnother argument which the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" uses to\ndiscredit miracles, is the superstition of the Jews, especially in our\nLord's time, and their readiness to believe any miraculous story. He\nseems to suppose that this superstition reached its extreme point in the\nage in which Christ lived, which he calls \"the age of miracles.\" He also\nassumes that it was an age of strong religious feeling and excitement.\nHe says:--\n\n    \"During the whole life of Christ, and the early propagation of the\n    religion, it must be borne in mind that they took place in an age,\n    and among a people, which superstition had made so familiar with\n    what were supposed to be preternatural events, that wonders awakened\n    no emotion, or were speedily superseded by some new demand on the\n    ever ready belief.\" (Vol. i. p. 98.)\n\nHe proceeds to devote above twenty pages to instances of the\nsuperstition and credulity of the Jews about the time of Christ. The\ncontents of these pages would be amusing if they did not reveal such\ndeep mental degradation in a race which Christians regard as sacred,\nbecause of God's dealings with their fathers.\n\nMost readers, however, of these pages on the Demonology and Angelology\nof the Jews will, I think, be affected by them in a totally different\nway, and will draw a very different inference, from what the writer\nintends. The thoughtful reader will ask, \"How could the Evangelical\nnarratives be the outcome of such a hotbed of superstition as the author\ndescribes that time to have been?\" It is quite impossible, it is\nincredible that the same natural cause, _i.e._ the prevalence of\nsuperstition, should have produced about the same time the Book of Enoch\nand the Gospel according to St. Matthew. And this is the more remarkable\nfrom the fact that the Gospels are in no sense more Sadducean than the\nBook of Enoch. The being and agency of good and evil spirits is as fully\nrecognized in the inspired writings as in the Apocryphal, but with what\na difference! I append in a note a part of the author's reproduction of\nthe Book of Enoch, that the reader may see how necessary it is, on all\nprinciples of common sense, to look for some very different explanation\nof the origin of the Evangelical narratives than that given by the\nauthor of \"Supernatural Religion.\" [168:1]\n\nIn the Evangelical narratives I need hardly say the angels are simply\nmessengers, as their name imports, and absolutely nothing more. When one\ndescribes himself it is in the words, \"I am Gabriel that stand in the\npresence of God, and am sent to speak unto thee and to show thee these\nglad tidings.\"\n\nOn the credulity of the Jews in our Lord's time, I repeat the author's\nremarks:--\n\n    \"During the whole life of Christ, and the early propagation of the\n    religion, it must be borne in mind that they took place in an age,\n    and among a people, which superstition had made so familiar with\n    what were supposed to be preternatural events, that wonders awakened\n    no emotion, or were speedily superseded by some new demand on the\n    ever-ready belief.\" (Vol. i. p. 98.)\n\nNow, if the records of our Lord's life in the Gospels are not a tissue\nof falsehoods from beginning to end, this account of things is\nabsolutely untrue. The miracles of Jesus awakened the greatest\nastonishment, betokening a time as unfamiliar with the actual\nperformance of such things as our own.\n\nFor instance, after the first casting out of a devil recorded in St.\nMark, it is said.--\n\n    \"They were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among\n    themselves, saying, What thing is this? What new doctrine is this?\n    For with authority commandeth He even the unclean spirits, and they\n    do obey Him.\" (Mark i. 29.)\n\nIn the next chapter, after the account of the healing of the sick of the\npalsy, it is said:--\n\n    \"They were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on\n    this fashion.\" (ii. 12.)\n\nAgain (St. Luke v. 26), after the casting out of a devil: \"They were all\namazed.\" Again, Luke ix. 43 (also after the casting out of a devil),\n\"They were all amazed at the mighty power of God.\" [170:1]\n\nFrom the account in St. John, the miracle of the opening of the eyes of\nthe man born blind seems to have excited unbounded astonishment:--\n\n    \"Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes\n    of one that was born blind.\" \"Can a devil open the eyes of the\n    blind?\" (John ix. 32, x. 21.)\n\nBut more than this. If there be any truth whatsoever in the Gospel\nnarrative, the disciples themselves, instead of exhibiting anything\napproaching to the credulity with which the author of \"Supernatural\nReligion\" taxes the contemporaries of Christ, exhibited rather a spirit\nof unbelief. If they had transmitted to us \"cunningly devised fables,\"\nthey never would have recorded such instances of their own slowness of\nbelief as is evinced by their conduct respecting the feeding of the four\nthousand following upon the feeding of the five thousand, when they ask\nthe same question in the face of the same difficulty respecting the\nsupply of food.\n\nAbove all, their slowness of belief in the Resurrection of Christ after\ntheir Master's direct assertion that He would rise again, is directly\nopposed to the idea suggested by the author of \"Supernatural Religion,\"\nthat they were ready to believe anything which seemed to favour His\npretensions.\n\nNow, it may be alleged that these instances of the slowness of belief on\nthe part of our Lord's immediate followers, and the conduct of the\nmultitudes who expressed such wonder at His miracles, are contrary to\none another, but, they are not; for the astonishment of the multitudes\ndid not arise from credulity in the least, but was the expression of\nthat state of mind which must exist (no matter how carefully it is\nconcealed), when some unlooked-for occurrence, totally inexplicable on\nany natural principles, presents itself. I cite it to show how utterly\nunfamiliar that age was with even the pretence of the exhibition of\nmiraculous powers. If there be any substratum of truth whatsoever in the\naccounts of the slowness of belief on the part of the Apostles, it is a\nproof that our Lord's most familiar friends were anything but the\nsuperstitious persons which certain writers assume them to have been.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXIII.\n\nDEMONIACAL POSSESSION.\n\n\nThe question of Demoniacal Possession now demands a passing notice.\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion\" ascribes all such phenomena to\nimposture or delusion; and, inasmuch as these supposed miracles of\ncasting out of evil spirits are associated with other miracles of Christ\nin the same narrative, he uses the odium with which this class of\nmiracles is in this day regarded, for the purpose of discrediting the\nmiracles of healing and the Resurrection of Jesus.\n\nI cannot help expressing my surprise at the difficulty which some\nwriters, who desire fully and faithfully to uphold the supernatural,\nseem to have respecting Demoniacal Possession. The difficulty seems to\nme to be not in the action of evil spirits in this or in that way, but\nin their existence. And yet the whole analogy of nature, and the state\nof man in this world, would lead us to believe, not only in the\nobjective existence of a world of spirits, but in the separation of\ntheir characters into good and evil.\n\nThose who deny the fact of an actually existing spiritual world of\nangels, if they are Atheists, must believe that man is the highest\nrational existence in the universe; but this is absurd, for the\nintellect of man in plainly very circumscribed, and he is slowly\ndiscovering laws which account for the phenomena which he sees, which\nlaws were operative for ages before he discovered them, and imply\ninfinitely more intellect in their invention, so to speak, and\nimposition and nice adjustment with one another, than he shows in their\nmere discovery. A student, for instance, has a problem put before him,\nsay upon the adjustments of the forces of the heavenly bodies. The\nsolution, if it evinces intelligence in him, must evince more and older\nintelligence in the man who sets him the problem; but if the conditions\nof the problem truly represent the acts of certain forces and their\ncompensations, can we possibly deny that there is an intellect\ninfinitely above ours who calculated beforehand their compensations and\nadjustments. All the laws of the universe must be assumed to be, even if\nthey are not believed to be, the work of a personal intellect absolutely\ninfinite, whose operations cannot be confined to this world, for it\ngives laws to all bodies, no matter how distant. The same reasoning,\nthen, which shows that there is an intelligent will, because it can\nsolve a problem, necessitates an infinitely higher Intelligence which\ncan order the motions of distant worlds by laws of which our highest\ncalculative processes are perhaps very clumsy representations.\n\nThose who, like the author of \"Supernatural Religion,\" are good enough\nto admit (with limitations) the existence of a Supreme Being, and yet\ndeny the existence of a spiritual world above ours, seem to me to act\nstill more absurdly. For the whole analogy of the world of nature would\nlead as to infer that, as there is a descending scale of animated beings\nbelow man reaching down to the lowest forms of life, so there is an\nascending scale above him, between him and God. The deniers of the\nexistence of such beings as angels undertake to assert that there are no\nbeings between ourselves and the Supreme Being, because nature (meaning\nby nature certain lower brute forces, such as gravitation and\nelectricity), \"knows nothing\" of them.\n\nThe Scriptures, on the contrary, would lead us to believe that just as\nin the natural world there are gradations of beings between ourselves\nand the lowest forms of life, so in the spiritual world (and we belong\nto both worlds) there are gradations of beings between ourselves and God\nWho created all things.\n\nThe Scriptures would lead us to believe that these beings are\nintelligent free agents, and, as such, have had their time of\nprobation--that some fell under their trial, and are now the enemies of\nGod as wicked men are, and that others stood in the time of trial and\ncontinue the willing servants of God.\n\nThe Scriptures reveal that good angels act as good men do; they\nendeavour, as far as lies in their power, to confirm others in goodness\nand in the service of God; and that evil angels act as evil men act,\nthey endeavour to seduce others and to involve them in their own\ncondemnation.\n\nThe Scriptures say nothing to satisfy our curiosity about these beings,\nas Apocryphal books do. They simply describe the one as sent on errands\nof mercy, and the other as delighting in tempting men and inflicting\npain. The mystery of the fall of some of these angels, and their\nconsequent opposition to God, is no difficulty in itself. It is simply\nthe oldest form of that which is to those who believe in the reality of\nthe holiness and goodness of God the great problem of the universe--the\norigin and continuance of evil. It is simply the counterpart amongst a\nworld of free agents above us of what takes place according to the\n[so-called] natural order of things amongst ourselves.\n\nThat evil angels can tempt the souls of men, and in some cases injure\ntheir bodies, is not a whit more difficult than that evil men can do the\nsame under the government of a God who exerts so universal a providence\nas is described in the Bible, and allowed to some extent by the author\nof \"Supernatural Religion.\"\n\nI confess that I cannot understand the difficulty which some Christian\nwriters evidently feel respecting the existence of such a thing as\nDemoniacal _possession_, whilst they seem to feel, or at least they\n_express_ no difficulty, respecting Demoniacal _temptation_. Demoniacal\npossession is the infliction of a physical evil for which the man is not\naccountable, but demoniacal temptation is an attempt to deprive a man of\nthat for the keeping of which he is accountable, viz. his own innocence.\nDemoniacal possession is a temporal evil. The yielding to demoniacal\ntemptation may cast a man for ever out of the favour of God. And yet\ndemoniacal temptation is perfectly analogous to human temptation. A\nhuman seducer has it in his power, if his suggestions are received, to\ncorrupt innocence, render life miserable, undermine faith in God and in\nChrist, and destroy the hopes of eternity--and a diabolical seducer can\ndo no more.\n\nAgain, the Scriptures seem to teach us that these wicked spirits are the\nauthors of certain temporal evils, and I do not see that there is\nanything unreasonable in the fact, if it be granted, that there are\nspirits who exist independent of bodily frames--that these spirits are\nfree agents, and have different characters, and act according to their\ncharacters, and also that, according to the laws (_i.e._ within the\nlimitations) of their nature, they have power to act upon those below\nthem in the scale of being, just as we can act upon creatures below us\naccording to the limitations, _i.e._ the laws, of our nature. We are in\nour way able to inflict evil or to ward off evil from our fellow\ncreatures, under the limitations, or laws which a higher Power has set\nover us; and the Scriptures teach us that there are other beings in the\ngreat spiritual kingdom of God who are able to do us good or mischief\nunder the conditions which the same Supreme Power has imposed on their\naction. So that the one thing which the Scriptures reveal to us is, that\nthere is a far vaster spiritual kingdom of God than the human race.\n\nWith respect to demoniacal possession, our difficulties arise from two\nthings--from our utter ignorance of the nature and real causes of mental\ndiseases, and from our ignorance of the way in which purely spiritual\nbeings can act upon beings such as ourselves, who ordinarily receive\nimpressions only through our bodily organs. We know not, for instance,\nhow God Himself acts upon our spirits, and yet, if He cannot, He has\nless power over us than we have over one another.\n\nRespecting the fact of God permitting such a thing as possession, there\nis no more real difficulty than is involved in His permitting such a\nthing as madness. The symptoms of possession seem generally to have\nresembled mania, and ascribing certain sorts of mania to evil spirits is\nonly assigning one cause rather than another to a disease of whose\nnature we are profoundly ignorant. [178:1]\n\nAgain, if we take into consideration the fact that in not a few cases\nmadness is produced by moral causes, by yielding to certain temptations,\nas, for instance, to drunkenness, there will be still less difficulty in\nbelieving that madness, arising from the action of an evil being, may be\nthe punishment of yielding to the seductions of that evil being.\n\nThe miraculous cure of demoniacal possession presents, I need hardly\nsay, less physical difficulty than any other cure performed by our Lord.\nAssuming the presence of an evil spiritual existence in the possessed\nperson coming face to face with the most exalted spiritual Power and\nGoodness, the natural result is that the one quails before the other.\n\nBut, in truth, all the difficulties respecting possession arise not so\nmuch from our ignorance, as from our dogmatism. We assert the dogma, or\nat least we quietly assume the dogma, that there are no spiritual or\nintellectual beings between ourselves and God; or, if we shrink from an\nassertion which so nearly implies our own omniscience, we lay down that\nthese superior beings, of whose laws we know nothing, can only act upon\nus in ways precisely similar to those on which we act upon one another.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXIV.\n\nCOMPETENT WITNESSES.\n\n\nAnother objection which the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" urges\nagainst the credibility of our Lord's miracles, is that they were not\nperformed before what he considers competent witnesses.\n\n    \"Their occurrence [he writes] is limited to ages which were totally\n    ignorant of physical laws.\" (Vol. i. p. 201.)\n\nAgain, he speaks of the age as one\n\n    \"in which not only the grossest superstition and credulity\n    prevailed, but in which there was such total ignorance of natural\n    laws that men were incapable of judging of that reality [_i.e._ of\n    miracles].\" (P. 204.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"The discussion of miracles, then, is not one regarding miracles\n    actually performed within our own knowledge, but merely regarding\n    miracles said to have been performed eighteen hundred years ago, the\n    reality of which was not verified at the time by any scientific\n    examination.\" (P. 208.)\n\nFrom this we gather that the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" considers\nthat the miracles of Christ should have been tested by scientific men;\nbut we ask, By what scientific men? It is clear that if the testing was\nto have been satisfactory to those who think like the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion,\" they must have been scientific men who\napproached the whole matter in a spirit of scepticism. Our Blessed Lord\n(I speak it with all reverence), if He cared to satisfy such men, should\nhave delayed His coming to the present time, or should have called up\nout of the future, or created for this purpose, men who had doubts\nrespecting the personality of God, who held Him to be fitly described as\nthe Unknown and the Unknowable; who, to say the least, were in a state\nof suspense as to whether, if there be a Supreme Being, He can reveal\nHimself or make His will known. In fact, He must have called up, or\ncreated for the purpose, some individuals of a school of physicists\nwhich had no existence till 1,800 years after His time. For, if He had\ncalled into existence such witnesses as Sir Isaac Newton, or Sir\nHumphrey Davy, or Cuvier, or Faraday, they would have fallen down and\nworshipped.\n\nBut, in truth, such witnesses, whether believing or sceptical, would\nhave found no place for their science, for the miracles of Christ were\nof such a kind that the most scientific doubter could have no more\naccounted for them than the most ignorant. The miracle of which, next to\nour Lord's own Resurrection, we have the fullest evidence, is that of\nthe feeding of the 5,000; for it is recorded by each one of the four\nEvangelists. Now, if this miracle had been performed in the presence of\nthe members of all the scientific societies now in existence, their\nknowledge of natural laws could have contributed nothing to its\ndetection or explanation. They could have merely laid it down to trick\nor deception, just as any of the unscientific persons present could have\ndone, and perhaps did. The miracle was performed in the open. Our Lord\nmust have been on some elevated ground where His voice could have\nreached some considerable part of the multitude, and on which every act\nof His could be observed. More than a thousand loaves would have been\nnecessary, requiring the assistance of, say a hundred men, to collect\nthem and bring them from a distance. This, too, is not one of those\nmiracles which can be explained by the convenient hypothesis of a\n\"substratum of truth.\" It is either a direct exhibition of the creative\npower of God, or a fiction as unworthy of a moment's serious\nconsideration as a story in the \"Arabian Nights.\"\n\nIt is folly to imagine that such an act required scientific men to\nverify it. If the matter was either a reality, or presented that\nappearance of reality which the narrative implies, then the scientific\nperson would have been stupefied, or in trembling and astonishment he\nwould have fallen on his face like another opponent of the truth; or,\nmay be, his very reason would have been shattered at the discovery that\nhere before him was that very supernatural and divine Working in Whose\nexistence he had been doing his best to persuade his fellow creatures to\ndisbelieve.\n\nThe Scripture narratives, if they are not altogether devoid of truth,\nlead us to believe that our Lord performed His miracles in the face of\nthree sects or parties of enemies, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians;\neach one rejecting His claims on grounds of its own. They were also\nperformed in a populous city, of which all the rulers and the mass of\nthe inhabitants were hostile to His pretensions. Such a place could\nnever have been chosen as the scene of a miraculous event, known by\nthose who promulgated it to have had no foundation in truth, and withal\nassumed to have been known throughout the city at the time, and to have\nbeen productive of a series of results, miraculous and ordinary, which\nwere asserted to have commenced at the moment of its occurrence.\n\nThe writer of \"Supernatural Religion\" would disparage the accounts of\nour Lord's supernatural works and Resurrection, because such accounts\nare to be found only in the writings of \"enthusiastic followers,\" not in\nthose of indifferent persons; but the nature of the case almost excludes\nall other testimony: for the miracles of our Lord were wrought for an\nevidential purpose,--to convince the Jews especially that He was the\nChrist, the hope of their fathers, and, as such, was not only to be\nbelieved in, but to be obeyed and followed. The only sign of real true\nbelief was that the man who professed to believe joined that society\nwhich was instituted for the purpose of propagating and keeping alive\nthe truth of His Messiahship. If any one who professed to believe\nstopped short of joining this society, his testimony to miracles would\nhave been valueless, for the miracles were wrought to convince him of\nthe truth of a matter in which, if he believed, he was bound to profess\nhis belief, and, if he did not, he laid himself open to the charge of\nnot really believing the testimony.\n\nNow, of course, the reader is aware that we have a signal proof of the\nvalidity of this argument in the well-known passage in Josephus which\nrelates to our Lord. Josephus was the historian, and the only historian,\nof the period in which our Lord flourished. The eighteenth book of his\n\"Antiquities of the Jews\" covers the whole period of our Lord's life. If\nour Lord had merely attracted attention as a teacher of righteousness,\nwhich it is allowed on all hands that He did, it was likely that He\nwould have been mentioned in this book along, with others whose teaching\nproduced far less results. Mention appears to be made of Him in the\nfollowing words:--\n\n    \"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to\n    call him a man, for He was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of\n    such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him\n    both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ.\n    And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us,\n    had condemned Him to the cross, those that loved Him at the first\n    did not forsake Him; for He appeared to them alive again the third\n    day; as the Divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand\n    other wonderful things concerning Him. And the tribe of Christians,\n    so named from Him, are not extinct at this day.\"\n\nNow, on external grounds there seems little doubt of the genuineness of\nthis passage. It is in all copies of the historian's work, and is quoted\nin full by Eusebius, though not alluded to by fathers previous to his\nday. [183:1] If it is an interpolation, it must have been by the hand of\na Christian; and yet it is absolutely inconceivable that any Christian\nshould have noticed the Christian Church in such words as \"the tribe of\nChristians, so named from Him, are not extinct at this day.\" It would\nhave been absurd beyond measure to have described the Christians, so\nearly as Justin's time even, as \"not extinct,\" when they were filling\nthe world with their doctrine, and their increase was a source of great\nperplexity and trouble to the Roman Government. It is just what a Jew of\nJosephus' time would have written who really believed that Jesus wrought\nmiracles, but expected that nothing permanent would result from them.\n\nAnd yet there can be no doubt but that the passage is open to this\ninsurmountable objection, that if Josephus had written it he would have\nprofessed himself a Christian, or a man of incredible inconsistency.\nSetting aside the difficulty connected with the acknowledgment of Jesus\nas the Christ, inasmuch as this name was frequently given to Him by\nthose who did not believe in Him, yet how could Josephus state that His\nResurrection was predicted by the prophets of his nation, and continue\nin appearance an unbeliever?\n\nBut, whether genuine or not, this passage is decisive as to the\nimpossibility of what is styled an independent testimony to our Lord:\n\"He that is not with Me is against Me.\" The facts of our Lord's chief\nmiracles and Resurrection were such, that the nearer men lived to the\ntime the more impossible it would have been for them to have suspended\ntheir judgment.\n\nSo that, instead of having the witness of men who, by their prudent\nsuspension of judgment, betrayed their lurking unbelief, we have the\ntestimony of men who, by their surrender of themselves, soul and body,\nevinced their undoubting faith in a matter in which there could be\nreally no middle opinion.\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXV.\n\nDATE OF TESTIMONY.\n\n\nOne point remains--the time to which the testimony to our Lord's\nmiracles reaches back. Can it be reasonably said to reach to within\nfifty years of His Death, or to within twenty, or even nearer?\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion\" asserts that it was not\ncontemporaneous or anything like it. In fact, one might infer from his\nbook that the miracles of Christ were not heard of till say a century,\nor three quarters of a century, after His time, for he says, \"they were\nnever heard of out of Palestine until long after the events are said to\nhave occurred.\" [185:1] (P. 192.)\n\nIn such a case, \"long after\" is very indefinite. It may be a century, or\nthree quarters of a century, or perhaps half a century. It cannot be\nless, for every generation contains a considerable number of persons\nwhose memories reach back for forty or fifty years. In a place of 3,000\ninhabitants, in which I am now writing, there are above fifty persons\nwho can perfectly remember all that took place in 1830. There are some\nwhose memories reach to twenty years earlier. Now let the reader try and\nimagine, if he can, the possibility of ascribing a number of remarkable\nacts--we will not say miraculous ones--to some one who died in 1830, and\nassuming also that these events were the basis of a society which had\ncommenced with his death, and was now making way, and that the chief\ndesign of the society was to make known or keep up the memory of these\nevents, and that there had been a literature written between the present\ntime and the time of the said man's death, every line of which had been\nwritten on the assumption that the events in question were true, and yet\nthese events had never really taken place. We must also suppose that the\nperson upon whom these acts are attempted to be fastened was regarded\nwith intense dislike by the great majority of his contemporaries, who\ndid all they could to ruin him when alive, and blacken his memory after\nhe had died, and who looked with especial dislike on the idea that he\nwas supposed to have done the acts in question. Let the reader, I say,\ntry and imagine all this, and he will see that, in the case of our Lord,\nthe author's \"long after\" must be sixty or seventy years at the least;\nmore likely a hundred.\n\nLet us now summon another witness to the supernatural, whose testimony\nwe promised to consider, and this shall be Clement of Rome--the earliest\nauthor to whom it has suited the purpose of the author of \"Supernatural\nReligion\" to refer.\n\nIf we are to rely upon the almost universal consent of ancient authors\nrather than the mere conjectures of modern critics, he is the person\nalluded to by St. Paul in the words, \"With Clement also, and with other\nmy fellow labourers, whose names are written in the book of life.\"\n(Phil. iv. 3.)\n\nOf this man Eusebius writes:--\n\n    \"In the twelfth year of the same reign (Domitian's), after Anecletus\n    had been bishop of Rome twelve years, he was succeeded by Clement,\n    whom the Apostle, in his Epistle to the Philippians, shows had been\n    his fellow-labourer in these words: 'With Clement also and the rest\n    of my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life.' Of\n    this Clement there is one Epistle extant, acknowledged as genuine,\n    of considerable length and of great merit, which he wrote in the\n    name of the Church at Rome, to that of Corinth, at the time when\n    there was a dissension in the latter. This we know to have been\n    publicly read for common benefit, in most of the Churches both in\n    former times and in our own.\" (Eccles. Hist. B. III. xv. xvi.)\n\nOrigen confirms this. Clement of Alexandria reproduces several pages\nfrom his Epistle, calling him \"The Apostle Clement,\" [187:1] and\nIrenaeus speaks of him as the companion of the Apostles:--\n\n    \"This man, as he had seen the blessed Apostles and been conversant\n    with them, might be said to have the preaching of the Apostles still\n    echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes.\" (Bk.\n    III. ch. iii. 3)\n\nIrenaeus, it is to be remembered, died at the end of the second century,\nand his birth is placed within the first quarter of it, so that, in all\nprobability, he had known numbers of Christians who had conversed with\nClement.\n\nAccording to the author of \"Supernatural Religion,\" the great mass of\ncritics assign the Epistle of Clement to between the years A.D. 95-100.\n\nIn dealing with this Epistle I shall, for argument's sake, assume that\nClement quoted from an earlier Gospel than any one of our present ones,\nand that the one he quoted might be the Gospel according to the Hebrews,\nand I shall ask the same question that I asked respecting Justin\nMartyr--What views of Christ's Person and work and doctrine did he\nderive from this Gospel of his?\n\nThe Epistle of Clement is one in which we should scarcely expect to find\nmuch reference to the Supernatural, for it is written throughout for the\none practical purpose of healing the divisions in the Church of Corinth.\nThese the writer ascribes to envy, and cites a number of Scripture\nexamples of the evil effects of this disposition and the good effects of\nthe contrary one. He adheres to this purpose throughout, and every word\nhe writes bears more or less directly on his subject. Yet in this\ndocument, from which, by its design, the subject of the supernatural\nseems excluded, we have all the leading features of supernatural\nChristianity. We have the Father sending the Son (ch. xlii.); we have\nthe Son coming of the seed of Jacob according to the Flesh (ch. xxxii.);\nwe have the words, \"Our Lord Jesus Christ, the sceptre of the Majesty of\nGod, did not come in the pomp of pride and arrogance, although He might\nhave done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy Spirit had declared\nregarding Him\" (ch. xvi.); and at the end of the same we have:--\n\n    \"If the Lord thus humbled Himself, what shall we do who have through\n    Him come under the yoke of His grace?\"\n\nClement describes Him in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews as\nOne--\n\n    \"Who, being the brightness of His [God's] Majesty, is by so much\n    greater than the angels as He hath by inheritance obtained a more\n    excellent name than they.\" (Ch. xxxvi.)\n\nWe have Clement speaking continually of the Death of Jesus as taking\nplace for the highest of supernatural purposes,--the reconciliation of\nall men to God. \"Let us look,\" he writes, \"steadfastly to the Blood of\nChrist, and see how precious that Blood is to God, which, having been\nshed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole\nworld.\" (Ch. vii.) Again, \"And thus they made it manifest that\nRedemption should flow through the Blood of the Lord to all them that\nbelieve and hope in God.\" (Ch. xii.) Again, \"On account of the love He\nbore us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His Blood for us by the will of God,\nHis Flesh for our flesh, and His Soul for our souls.\" (Ch. xlix.) His\nsufferings are apparently said by Clement to be the sufferings of God.\n(Ch. ii.) But, above all, the statement of the truth of our Lord's\nResurrection, and of ours through His, is as explicit as possible:--\n\n    \"Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord continually proves to us\n    that there shall be a future resurrection, of which He has rendered\n    the Lord Jesus the first fruits by raising Him from the dead.\" (Ch.\n    xxiv.)\n\n    \"[The Apostles] having therefore received their orders, and being\n    fully assured by the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and\n    established in the Word of God, with full assurance of the Holy\n    Ghost, they went forth proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at\n    hand.\" (Ch. xlii.)\n\nWhen we look to Clement's theology, we find it to have been what would\nnow be called, in the truest and best sense of the word, \"Evangelical,\"\nthus:--\n\n    \"We too, being called by His Will in Christ Jesus, are not justified\n    by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness,\n    or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that\n    faith through which from the beginning Almighty God has justified\n    all men.\" (Ch. xxxii.)\n\nAgain:--\n\n    \"All these the Great Creator and Lord of all has appointed to exist\n    in peace and harmony; while He does good to all, but most abundantly\n    to us who have fled for refuge to His compassion through Jesus\n    Christ our Lord.\"\n\nAnd he ends his Epistle with the following prayer:--\n\n    \"May God, who seeth all things, and Who is the Ruler of all Spirits\n    and the Lord of all Flesh--Who chose our Lord Jesus, and us through\n    Him to be a peculiar people--grant to every soul that calleth upon\n    His glorious and holy Name, faith, fear, peace, patience, long\n    suffering, self-control, purity and sobriety, to the well pleasing\n    of His Name through our High Priest and Protector Jesus Christ.\"\n    (Ch. lviii.)\n\nBut with all this his Christianity seems to have been Ecclesiastical, in\nthe technical sense of the word. He seems to have had a much clearer and\nfirmer hold than Justin had of the truth that Christ instituted, not\nmerely a philosophy or system of teaching, but a mystical body or\nvisible Church, having its gradations of officers corresponding to the\nofficers of the Jewish Ecclesiastical system, and its orderly\narrangements of worship. (Ch. xl-xlii.)\n\nNow this is the Christianity of a man who lived at least sixty or\nseventy years nearer to the fountain head of Christian truth than did\nJustin Martyr, whose witness to dogmatical or supernatural Christianity\nwe have shown at some length.\n\nIt is also gathered out of a comparatively short book, not one sixth of\nthe length of the writings of Justin, and composed solely for an\nundogmatic purpose.\n\nHis views of Christ and His work are precisely the same as those of\nJustin. By all rule of rationalistic analogy they ought to have been\nless \"ecclesiastical,\" but in some respects they are more so.\n\nClement certainly seems to bring out more fully our Lord's Resurrection\n(taking into consideration, that is, the scope of his one remaining book\nand its brevity), and the Resurrection of Christ is the crowning miracle\nwhich stamps the whole dispensation as supernatural.\n\nSo far, then, as the Supernatural is concerned, it makes no difference\nwhatsoever whether Clement used the Gospel according to St. Matthew or\nthe Gospel according to the Hebrews. His Gospel, whatever it was, not\nonly filled his heart with an intense and absorbing love of Christ, and\na desire that all men should imitate Him, but it filled his mind with\nthat view of the religion of Christ which we call supernatural and\nevangelical, but which the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" calls\necclesiastical.\n\nThe question now arises, not so much from whom, but when, did he receive\nthis view of Christ and His system. I do not mean, of course, the more\nminute features, but the substance. To what period must his\nreminiscences as a Christian extend? What time must his experiences\ncover? Irenaeus, in the place I have quoted, speaks of him as the\ncompanion of Apostles, Clement of Alexandria as an Apostle, Eusebius and\nOrigen as the fellow-labourer of St. Paul. Now, I will not at present\ninsist upon the more than likelihood that such was the fact. I will, for\nargument's sake, assume that he was some other Clement; but, whoever he\nwas, one thing respecting him is certain--that the knowledge of\nChristianity was not poured into him at the moment when he wrote his\nEpistle, nor did he receive it ten--twenty--thirty years before. St.\nPeter and St. Paul were martyred in A.D. 68; the rest of the Apostolic\nCollege were dispersed long before. This Epistle shows little or no\ntrace of the peculiar Johannean teaching or tradition of the Apostle who\nsurvived all the others; so, unless he had received his Christian\nteaching some years before the Martyrdom of the two Apostles Peter and\nPaul, that is, some time before A.D. 68, probably many years, I do not\nsee that there can have been the smallest ground even for the tradition\nof the very next generation after his own that he knew the Apostles.\nSuch a tradition could not possibly have been connected with the name of\na man who became a Christian late in the century.\n\nNow, supposing that he was sixty-five years old when he wrote his\nEpistle, he was born about the time of our Lord's Death: he was\nconsequently a contemporary of the generation that had witnessed the\nDeath and Resurrection of Christ and the founding of the Church. If he\nhad ever been in Jerusalem before its destruction, he must have fallen\nin with multitudes of surviving Christians of the 5,000 who were\nconverted on and just after the day of Pentecost.\n\nHis Christian reminiscences, then, must have extended far into the age\nof the contemporaries of Christ. A man who was twenty-five years old at\nthe time of the Resurrection of Christ would scarcely be reckoned an old\nman at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Clement consequently\nmight have spent twenty of the best years of his life in the company of\npersons who were old enough to have seen the Lord in the Flesh. [193:1]\n\nSo that his knowledge of the Death and Resurrection of Christ, and the\nfounding of the Church, even if he had never seen St. Paul or any other\nApostle, must have been derived from a generation of men, all the older\nmembers of which wore Christians of the Pentecostal period.\n\nNow when we come to compare the Epistle of Clement with the only\nremaining Christian literature of the earliest period, _i.e._ the\nearlier Epistles of St. Paul, we find both the account of Christ and the\nTheology built upon that account, to be the same in the one and in the\nother.\n\nThe supernatural fact respecting Christ to which the earliest Epistles\nof St. Paul most prominently refer, was His Resurrection as the pledge\nof ours, and this is the fact respecting Christ which is put most\nprominently forward by Clement, and for the same purpose. The First\nEpistle to the Corinthians is referred to by Clement in the words:--\n\n    \"Take up the Epistle of the Blessed Apostle Paul. What did he write\n    to you at the time when the Gospel first began to be preached?\n    Truly, under the inspiration of the Spirit ([Greek: pneumatikos]) he\n    wrote to you concerning himself and Cephas and Apollos, because even\n    then parties had been formed among you.\" (Ch. xlvii.)\n\nThe other reproductions of the language of St. Paul's Epistles are\nnumerous, and I give them in a note. [194:1] The reader will see at a\nglance that the Theology or Christology of Clement was that of the\nearliest writings of the Church of which we have any remains, and to\nthese he himself frequently and unmistakably refers.\n\nThe earlier Epistles of St. Paul, as those to the Thessalonians,\nGalatians, Corinthians, and Romans, are acknowledged on all hands, even\nby advanced German Rationalists, to be the genuine works of the Apostle\nPaul; indeed one might as well deny that such a man ever existed as\nquestion their authenticity. The First Epistle to the Corinthians, which\nis the longest and most dogmatic of the earlier ones, cannot have been\nwritten after the year 58. In a considerable number of chronological\ntables to which I have referred, the earliest date is the year 52, and\nthe latest 58.\n\nTo the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, which is undoubtedly the\nearliest of all, the earliest date assigned is 47, and the latest 53.\n\nNow it is ever to be remembered that in each of these--the First to the\nThessalonians and the First to the Corinthians--we have enunciations of\nthe great crowning supernatural event of Scripture--the Resurrection of\nChrist and our Resurrection as depending upon it, which are unsurpassed\nin the rest of Scripture.\n\nSo that in the first Christian writing which has come down to us, we\nhave the great fact of Supernatural Religion, which carries with it all\nthe rest.\n\nThe fullest enunciation of the evidences of the Resurrection is in a\nwriting whose date cannot be later than 58, and runs thus:--\n\n    \"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached\n    unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by\n    which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto\n    you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first\n    of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins\n    according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He\n    rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And that He\n    was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that [196:1] He was\n    seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater\n    part remain unto this present [twenty-five years after the event]\n    but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen of James, then of\n    all the Apostles, and last of all He was seen of me also.\" (1 Cor.\n    xv. 1.)\n\nIf the reader compares this with the accounts in any one of the Four,\nhe will find that it gives the fullest list of our Lord's appearances\nwhich has come down to us, and this, be it remembered, forming part of\nthe most categorical declaration of what the Gospel is, to be found in\nthe New Testament. [196:1]\n\nA man, then, writes in A.D. 57 or earlier, that another, Who had died in\nA.D. 32 had been seen by a number of persons, and among these, by 500\npersons at once, of whom the greater part were alive when he wrote, and\nimplying that the story had been believed ever since, and received by\nhim (the writer) from those who had seen this Jesus, and that the fact\nwas so essential to the religion that it was itself called \"the Gospel,\"\na name continually given to the whole system of Christianity, and\nmoreover that he himself, when in company with others, had seen this\nJesus at noon-day, and, the history asserts, had been blinded by the\nsight. Now let the reader recall to his mind any public man who died\ntwenty-five years ago, that is, in 1850, and imagine this man appearing,\nnot as a disembodied spirit, but in his resuscitated body to first one\nof his friends, then to eleven or twelve, then to another, then to five\nhundred persons at one time, and a flourishing and aggressive\ninstitution founded upon this his appearance, and numbers of persons\ngiving up their property, and breaking with all their friends, and\nadopting a new religion, and a new course of life of great self-denial,\nand even encountering bitter persecution and death, simply because they\nbelieved this man to be alive from the dead, and moreover some\nprofessing to do miracles, and to confer the power of doing miracles in\nthe name and by the power of this risen man.\n\nLet the reader, I say, try to imagine all this, and then he will be able\nto judge of the credulity with which the author credits his readers when\nhe writes:--\n\n    \"All history shows how rapidly pious memory exaggerates and\n    idealizes the traditions of the past, and simple actions might\n    readily be transformed into miracles as the narrative circulated, in\n    a period so prone to superstition, and so characterized by love of\n    the marvellous.\" (Vol. ii. p. 209.)\n\n\"All history,\" the author says; but why does he not give us a few\ninstances out of \"all history,\" that we might compare them with this\nGospel account, and see if there was anything like it?\n\nSuch a story, if false, is not a myth. A myth is the slow growth of\nfalsehood through long ages, and this story of the Resurrection was\nwritten circumstantially within twenty years of its promulgation, by one\nwho had been an unbeliever, and who had conferred with those who must\nhave been the original promoters of the falsehood, if it be one.\n\nTo call such a story a myth, is simply to shirk the odium of calling it\nby its right name, or more probably to avoid having to meet the\nastounding historical difficulty of supposing that men endured what the\nApostles endured for what they must have known to have been a falsehood,\nand the still more astounding difficulty that One Whom the author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" allows to have been a Teacher Who \"carried\nmorality to the sublimest point attained or even attainable by\nhumanity,\" and Whose \"life, as far as we can estimate it, was uniformly\nnoble and consistent with his lofty principles,\" should have impressed a\ncharacter of such deep-rooted fraud and falsehood on His most intimate\nfriends.\n\nThe author of \"Supernatural Religion\" has, however, added another to the\nmany proofs of the truth of the Gospel. In his elaborate book of 1,000\npages of attack on the authenticity of the Evangelists he has shown,\nwith a clearness which, I think, has never been before realized, the\ngreat fact that from the first there has been but one account of Jesus\nChrist. In the writings of heathens, of Jews, of heretics, [199:1] in\nlost gospels, in contemporary accounts, in the earliest traditions of\nthe Church, there appears but one account, the account called by its\nfirst proclaimers the Gospel; and the only explanation of the existence\nof this Gospel is its truth.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n\n\n[FOOTNOTES]\n\n\n[3:1] Papias, for instance, actually mentions St. Mark by name as\nwriting a gospel under the influence of St. Peter. The author of\n\"Supernatural Religion\" devotes ten pages to an attempt to prove that\nthis St. Mark's Gospel could not be ours. (Vol. i. pp. 448-459.)\n\n[6:1] I need hardly say that I myself hold the genuineness of the Greek\nrecension. The reader who desires to see the false reasonings and\ngroundless assumptions of the author of \"Supernatural Religion\"\nrespecting the Ignatian epistles thoroughly exposed should read\nProfessor Lightfoot's article in the \"Contemporary Review\" of February,\n1875. In pages 341-345 of this article there is an examination of the\nnature and trustworthiness of the learning displayed in the footnotes of\nthis pretentious book, which is particularly valuable. I am glad to see\nthat the professor has modified, in this article, the expression of his\nformer opinion that the excerpta called the Curetonian recension is to\nbe regarded as the only genuine one. \"Elsewhere,\" the professor writes\n(referring to an essay in his commentary on the Philippians), \"I had\nacquiesced in the earlier opinion of Lipsius, who ascribed them (_i.e._,\nthe Greek or Vossian recension) to an interpolator writing about A.D.\n140. Now, however, I am obliged to confess that I have grave and\nincreasing doubts whether, after all, they are not the genuine\nutterances of Ignatius himself.\"\n\n[10:1] [Greek: Ou gar monon en Hellesi dia Sokratous hypo logou elenchthe\ntauta, alla kai en Barbarois hyp' autou tou Logou morphothentos kai\nanthropou genomenou kai Iesou Christou klethentous.]\n\n[10:2] Such is a perfectly allowable translation of [Greek: kai ton par'\nautou hyion elthonta kai didaxanta hemas tauta, kai ton ton allon\nhepomenon kai exomoioumenon agathon angelon straton, pneuma te to\nprophetikon sebometha kai proskynoumen.] As there is nothing approaching\nto angel worship in Justin, such a rendering seems absolutely necessary.\n\n[15:1] \"For the law promulgated in Horeb is now old, and belongs to you\nalone; but this is for all universally. Now law placed against law has\nabrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in\nlike manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal and final\nlaw--namely, Christ--has been given to us.\" (Heb. viii. 6-13; Dial. ch.\nxi.)\n\n[15:2] \"For the true spiritual Israel and descendants of Judah, Jacob,\nIsaac, and Abraham (who in uncircumcision was approved of and blessed by\nGod on account of his faith, and called the father of many nations) are\nwe who have been led to God through this crucified Christ, as shall be\ndemonstrated while we proceed.\" (Phil. iii. 3, compared with Romans, iv.\n12-18; Dial. ch. xi.)\n\n[17:1] This, of course, was a Jewish adversary's view of the Christian\ndoctrine of the Godhead of Christ, which Justin elsewhere modifies by\nshowing the subordination of the Son to the Father in all things.\n\n[19:1] [Greek: En gar tois apomnemoneumasi, ha phemi hypo ton apostolon\nautou kai ton ekeinois parakolouthesanton syntetachthai, hoti hidros\nhosei thromboi katecheito autou euchomenou.] (Dial. ch. ciii.)\n\n[20:1] [Greek: Kai to eipein metonomakenai auton Petron hena ton\napostolon, kai gegraphthai en tois apomnemoneumasin autou gegenemenon\nkai touto, k.t.l.]\n\nOn this question the author of \"Supernatural Religion\" remarks,\n\"According to the usual language of Justin, and upon strictly critical\ngrounds, the [Greek: autou] in this passage must be ascribed to Peter;\nand Justin therefore seems to ascribe the Memoirs to that Apostle, and\nto speak consequently of a Gospel of Peter.\" (Vol. i. p. 417.)\n\n[28:1] That of our Lord being born in a cave.\n\n[29:1] [Greek: Ioannou gar kathezomenou.]\n\n[34:1] Justin has [Greek: hidros hosei thromboi]; St. Luke, [Greek: ho\nhidros autou hosei thromboi haimatos]. The author of \"Supernatural\nReligion\" lays great stress upon the omission of [Greek: haimatos], as\nindicating that Justin did not know anything about St. Luke; but we have\nto remember, first, that St. Luke alone mentions _any_ sweat of our Lord\nin His agony; secondly, that the account in Justin is said to be taken\nfrom \"Memoirs drawn up by Apostles and _those who followed them_,\" _St.\nLuke being only one of those who followed_; thirdly, Justin and St. Luke\nboth use a very scarce word, [Greek: thromboi]; fourthly, Justin and St.\nLuke both qualify this word by [Greek: hosei]. If we add to this the\nfact that [Greek: thromboi] seems naturally associated with blood in\nseveral authors, the probability seems almost to reach certainty, that\nJustin had St. Luke's account in his mind. The single omission is far\nmore easy to be accounted for than the four coincidences.\n\n[37:1] And He said unto them, \"These are the words which I spake unto\nyou while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which\nwere written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms\nconcerning me.\" (Luke xxiii. 44.)\n\n[48:1] It is the reading of Codices B and C of the Codex Sinaiticus of\nthe Syriac, and of a number of Fathers and Versions.\n\n[51:1] [Greek: Hekastos gar tis apo merous tou spermatikou theiou logou\nto syngenes horon kalos ephthenxato.]\n\n[63:1] For instance, in vol. ii. p. 42, &c., he speaks of one\nof Tischendorf's assertions as \"a conclusion the audacity of\nwhich can scarcely be exceeded.\"--Then, \"This is, however, almost\nsurpassed by the treatment of Canon Westcott.\"--Then, \"The unwarranted\ninference of Tischendorf.\"--\"There is no ground for Tischendorf's\nassumption.\"--\"Tischendorf, the self-constituted modern Defensor Fidei,\nasserts with an assurance which can scarcely be characterized otherwise\nthan as an unpardonable calculation upon the ignorance of his\nreaders.\"--\"Canon Westcott says, with an assurance which, considering\nthe nature of the evidence, is singular.\"--\"Even Dr. Westcott states,\"\n&c.--For Tertullian his contempt seems unbounded: indeed we way say the\nsame of all the Fathers. Numberless times does he speak of their\n\"uncritical spirit.\" The only person for whom he seems to have a respect\nis the heretic Marcion. Even rationalists, such as Credner and Ewald,\nare handled severely when they differ from him. The above are culled\nfrom a few pages.\n\n[69:1] [Greek: Hoti Theos hypemeine gennethenai kai anthropos\ngenesthai.]\n\n[69:2] [Greek: Ex hon diarrheden outous autos ho staurotheis hoti Theos\nkai anthropos, kai stauroumenos kai apothneskon kekerygmenos\napodeiknytai.]\n\n[70:1] The reader must remember that Justin puts this expression, which\nseems to imply a duality of Godhead, into the mouth of an adversary. In\nother places, as I shall show, he very distinctly guards against such a\nnotion, by asserting the true and proper Sonship of the Word and his\nperfect subordination to His Father. There is a passage precisely\nsimilar in ch. lv.\n\n[71:1] \"I continued: Moreover, I consider it necessary to repeat to you\nthe words which narrate how He is both Angel and God and Lord, and Who\nappeared as a Man to Abraham.\" (Dial. ch. lviii.)\n\n\"Permit me, further, to show you from the Book of Exodus, how this same\nOne, Who is both Angel, and God, and Lord, and Man.\" (Dial. ch. lix.)\n\n\"God begat before all creatures, a Beginning, a certain rational Power\nfrom Himself, Who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the\nLord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord\nand Logos.\" (Dial. ch. lxi.)\n\n\"The Word of Wisdom, Who is Himself this God, begotten of the Father of\nall things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the\nBegetter, will bear evidence to me,\" &c. (Dial. lxi.)\n\n\"Therefore these words testify explicitly that He is witnessed to by Him\nWho established these things [_i.e._ the Father] as deserving to be\nworshipped, as God and as Christ.\" (Dial. lxiii.)\n\nThe reader will find other declarations, most of which are equally\nexplicit, in Dial. ch. lvi. (at the end), ch. lvii. (at the end), lxii.\n(middle), lxviii. (at middle and end), lxxiv. (middle), lxxv., lxxvi.\n(made Him known, being Christ, as God strong and to be worshipped),\nlxxxv. (twice called the Lord of Hosts), lxxxvii. (where Christ is\ndeclared to be pre-existent God), cxiii. (he [Joshua] was neither\nChrist, Who is God, nor the Son of God), cxv. (our Priest, Who is God,\nand Christ, the Son of God, the Father of all), cxxiv. (Now I have\nproved at length that Christ is called God), cxxv. (He ministered to the\nwill of the Father, yet nevertheless is God), cxxvi. (thrice in this\nchapter), cxxvii., cxxviii., cxxix.\n\n[73:1] I adopt this phrase because, it is used by Justin. His words are\n[Greek: arithmo onta heteron]. (Dial. ch. lxii.)\n\n[74:1] [Greek: Hoti archen pro panton ton ktismaton ho Theos gegenneke\ndynamin tina ex heautou logiken, k.t.l.]\n\n[77:1] Dr. Pusey translates this passage thus:--\"For all that the\nphilosophers and legislators at any time declared or discovered aright,\nthey accomplished according to their portion of discovery and\ncontemplation of the Word; but as they did not know all the properties\nof the Word which is Christ,\" &c.\n\n[77:2] Translated by Dr. Pusey, \"Seminal Divine Word.\"\n\n[78:1] A few pages further on I shall show that the mode of reasoning\nadopted by the author of \"Supernatural Religion,\" in drawing inferences\nfrom the ways in which Justin expresses the idea of St. John's [Greek:\nho logos sarx egeneto] would, if we adopted it, lead us to some very\nstartling conclusions.\n\n[84:1] The following are some instances:--\"God sent not His Son into the\nworld to condemn the world.\" \"He Whom God sent.\"--John iii. 17, 23. \"My\nmeat is to do the will of Him that sent me.\" \"Jesus Christ, Whom Thou\nhast sent.\" \"As my Father sent me, so send I you,\" &c.\n\n[85:1] This passage does not occur among the remarks upon Justin\nMartyr's quotations, but among those on the Clementine Homilies.\nHowever, it seems to be used to prove that the Gospel of St. John was\npublished after the writing of the Clementines, which the author seems\nto think were themselves posterior to Justin.\n\n[86:1] I say the \"necessary\" developments, because Holy Scripture is\ngiven to the Church to be expounded and applied, and in order to this\nits doctrine must be collected out of many scattered statements, and\nstated and guarded, and this is its being developed. The Persons, the\nattributes, and the works of the three Persons of the Godhead are so\ndescribed in Holy Scripture as Divine, and They are so conjoined in the\nworks of Creation, Providence, and Grace, that we cannot but contemplate\nThem as associated together, and cannot but draw an impassable gulf\nbetween Their existence and that of all creatures, and we cannot but\nadoringly contemplate Their relations one to another, and hence the\nnecessary development of the Christian dogma as contained in the Creeds.\n\n[91:1] [Greek: Ton di' hemas tou anthropous kai dia ten hemeteran\nsoterian katelthonta ek ton ouranon, kai sarkothenta ek Pneumatos\nHagiou kai Marias tes parthenou, kai enanthropesanta, k.t.l.]\n\n[94:1] Though of course not as regards _time_, for all Catholics hold\nthe Eternal Generation, that there never was a time in which the Father\nwas not a Father; nor as regards power or extension, for whatever the\nFather does that the Son does also, and wherever the Father is there is\nthe Son also.\n\n[100:1] Eusebius, B. ii. ch. v.\n\n[106:1] Apol. i. 14.\n\n[107:1] The spirit of this verse, and its form of expression, are quite\nthose of the Gospel of St. John; and it serves to form a link of union\nbetween the three Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth, and to point to the\nvast and weighty mass of discourses of the Lord which are not related\nexcept by St. John. Alford in loco.\n\n[117:1] If the reader desires to see Logos doctrine expressed in\nphilosophic terminology, he can find it in some of the extracts from\nPhilo given in the notes of \"Supernatural Religion\" vol. ii. pp.\n272-298. Can there be a greater contrast than that between St. John's\nterse, concise, simple, enunciations and the following: [Greek: Kai ou\nmonon phos, alla kai pantos heterou photos archetypon mallon de\narchetypou presbyteron kai anoteron, Logon echon paradeigmatos to men\ngar paradeigma ho plerestatos en autou Logos, k.t.l.]--De Somniis, i.\n15, Mang. i. 634. There is no particularly advanced philosophic\nterminology here, and yet there is a profound difference between both\nthe thought and wording of this sentence of Philo and St. John's four\nenunciations of the Logos. Again, [Greek: Delon de hoti kai he\narchetypos sphragis, hon phamen einai kosmon noeton, autos an eie to\narchetypon paradeigma, idea ton ideon, ho Theou Logos.]--De Mundi\nOpificio Mang. vol. i. p. 8. \"It is manifest also that the archetypal\nseal, which we call that world which is perceptible only to the\nintellect, must itself be the archetypal model, the idea of ideas, the\nword of God.\" (Yonge's Translation.)\n\n[126:1] \"When He came into the world He was manifested as God and man.\nAnd it is easy to perceive the man in Him when He hungers and shows\nexhaustion, and is weary and athirst, and withdraws in fear, and is in\nprayer and in grief, and sleeps on a boat's pillow, and entreats the\nremoval of the cup of suffering, and sweats in an agony, and is\nstrengthened by an angel, and betrayed by a Judas, and mocked by\nCaiaphas, and set at naught by Herod, and scourged by Pilate, and\nderided by the soldiers, and nailed to the tree by the Jews, and with a\ncry commits His spirit to His Father, and drops His head and gives up\nthe ghost, and has His side pierced by a spear, and is wrapped in linen\nand laid in a tomb, and is raised by the Father from the dead. And the\nDivine in Him, on the other hand, is equally manifest when He is\nworshipped by angels, and seen by shepherds, and waited for by Simeon,\nand testified of by Anna, and inquired after by wise men, and pointed\nout by a star, and at a marriage makes wine of water, and chides the sea\nwhen tossed by the violence of winds, and walks upon the deep, and makes\none see who was blind from birth, and raises Lazarus when dead for four\ndays, and works many wonders, and forgives sins, and grants power to His\ndisciples.\"\n\n[152:1] History affords multitudes of instances, but an example may be\nselected from one of the most critical periods of modern history. Let it\nbe granted that Louis the Sixteenth of France and his Queen had all the\ndefects attributed to them by the most hostile of serious historians;\nlet all the excuses possible be made for his predecessor, Louis the\nFifteenth, and also for Madame de Pompadour, can it be pretended that\nthere are grounds for affirming that the vices of the two former so far\nexceeded those of the latter, that their respective fates were plainly\nand evidently just? That whilst the two former died in their beds, after\na life of the most extreme luxury, the others merited to stand forth\nthrough coming time, as examples of the most appalling and calamitous\ntragedy. (Mivart's \"Genesis of Species,\" ch. ix.)\n\n[155:1] What sign showest Thou us? Destroy this temple, and in three\ndays I will raise it up: but He spake of the temple of His Body. (John\nii. 19-21) An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and\nthere shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the Prophet Jonas,\nfor as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so\nshall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the\nearth. (Matt. xii. 39, 40) God commandeth all men everywhere to repent,\nbecause He hath appointed a day on which He will judge the world in\nrighteousness by that man whom He hath chosen, whereof He hath given\nassurance unto all men in that He raised Him from the dead. (Acts xvii.\n30.)\n\n[158:1] This sentence seems extremely carelessly worded. The author\ncannot possibly mean that our ignorance is the anomaly, for throughout\nhis whole work he assumes that ignorance is the rule in all matters,\nmoral, physical, historical. The Fathers of the second century knew\nnothing of the Evangelists. St. John knows nothing of the writings of\nhis brother Evangelists. They are all assumed to be ignorant of what\nthey have not actually recorded. We know nothing of vital force, or\nphysical force, or of a revelation. In fact, God Himself is the\nUnknowable.\n\n[164:1] Perhaps 1 Tim. i. 20, iv. 14; 2 Tim i. 6, may refer to such\ngifts; but the contrast between such slight intimations and the full\nrecognition in 1 Cor. xii. and xiv. is very great.\n\n[168:1] \"The author [of the book of Enoch] not only relates the fall of\nthe angels through love for the daughters of men, but gives the names of\ntwenty-one of them, and their leaders, of whom Jequn was he who seduced\nthe Holy Angels, and Ashbeel it was who gave them evil counsel and\ncorrupted them. A third, Gadreel, was he who seduced Eve. He also taught\nto the children of men the use and manufacture of all murderous weapons,\nof coats of mail, shields, swords, and of all the implements of war.\nAnother evil angel, named Penemue, taught them many mysteries of wisdom.\nHe instructed men in the art of writing, with paper and ink, by means of\nwhich, the author remarks, many fall into sin, even to the present day.\nKaodeja, another evil angel, taught the human race all the wicked\npractices of spirits and demons, and also magic and exorcism. The\noffspring of the fallen angels and of the daughters of men, were giants\nwhose height was 3,000 ells, of these are the demons working evil upon\nearth. Azayel taught men various arts, the making of bracelets and\nornaments, the use of cosmetics, the way to beautify the eyebrows,\nprecious stones and all dye-stuffs and metals, &c. The stars are\nrepresented as animated beings. Enoch sees seven stars bound together in\nspace like great mountains, and flaming with fire, and he enquires of\nthe angel who leads him on account of what sin they are so bound. Uriel\ninforms him that they are stars which have transgressed the commands of\nthe Most High, and they are thus bound until ten thousand worlds, the\nnumber of the days of their transgression, shall be accomplished.\" So\nfar for the \"Angelology.\" As to the demons, \"Their number is infinite\n... they are about as close as the earth thrown up out of a newly made\ngrave. It is stated that each man has 10,000 demons at his right hand,\nand 1,000 on his left. The crush in the synagogue on the Sabbath arises\nfrom them, also the dresses of the Rabbins become so old and torn\nthrough their rubbing; in like manner also they cause the tottering of\nthe feet. He who wishes to discover these spirits must take sifted ashes\nand strew them about his bed, and in the morning he will perceive their\nfootprints upon them like a cock's tread. If any one wish to see them,\nhe must take the after-birth of a black cat, which has been littered by\na first-born black cat, and whose mother was also a first-birth, burn\nand reduce it to powder, and put some of it on his eyes, and he will see\nthem.\" (Vol. i. pp. 104 and 111). And this is the stuff which the author\nwould have us believe was the real origin of the supernatural in the\nlife of Jesus!\n\n[170:1] See also Mark v. 42 (healing of Jairus' daughter), \"They were\nastonished with a great astonishment.\" Mark vii. 37 (healing of deaf man\nwith impediment in his speech), \"They were beyond measure astonished.\"\nLuke v. 9, \"He was astonished at the draught of fishes;\" viii. 56, \"Her\nparents were astonished.\"\n\n[178:1] There cannot be the slightest doubt but that certain cases of\nmadness or mania present all the appearances of possession as it is\ndescribed in Scripture. Another personality, generally intensely evil,\nhas possession of the mind, speaks instead of the afflicted person,\nthrows the patient into convulsions,--in fact, exhibits all the symptoms\nof the ancient demoniacs. I have now before me the record of five or six\nsuch cases attested by German physicians.\n\n[183:1] The reader will find the references to it discussed in a\ndissertation at the end of Whiston's \"Josephus.\" Lardner utterly denies\nits authenticity. Daubuz, however, has, I think, clearly proved its\nstyle and phraseology to be those of Josephus.\n\n[185:1] Singular that he should say \"out of Palestine,\" for if they were\nfalse they would be first heard of at a distance from the scene of their\nsupposed occurrence. Jerusalem, so full of bitter enemies of Christ, was\nthe last place in which His Resurrection was likely to be promulgated.\n\n[187:1] Miscellanies, IV. ch. xvii.\n\n[193:1] Let the reader remember that, if this be an assumption, the\ncontrary assumption is infinitely the more unlikely. Our assumption is\nfounded on the direct assertion of two writers of the second century,\none of whom asserts that Clement was a close companion of Apostles,\nanother that he was an Apostle: meaning, of course, such an one as\nBarnabas. A writer of the early part of the next century, Origen,\nasserts that he was the person mentioned in St. Paul's Epistle, and the\nprincipal Ecclesiastical Historian who lived within two hundred years of\nhis time corroborates this.\n\n[194:1] \"Ye ... were more willing to give than to receive\" (ch. ii.). A\nreminiscence of St. Paul's quotation of Christ's words to be found in\nActs xx. 35.\n\n\"Ready to every good work\" (ch. ii). Titus iii. 1. \"Every kind of honour\nand happiness was bestowed upon you (ch. iii). Reminiscence of I\nCorinth. iv. 8.\n\n\"Let us be imitators of them who in goat skins and sheep skins went\nabout proclaiming the coming of Christ\" (ch. xvii). Heb. xi. 37.\n\n\"To us who have fled for refuge to his compassions\" (ch. xx.).\nReminiscence of Heb. vii.\n\n\"Let us esteem those who have the rule over us.\" I Thess. v. 12, 13;\nHeb. xiii. 17.\n\n\"Not by preferring one to another.\" 1 Tim. v. 21.\n\n\"A future Resurrection, of which He has rendered the Lord Jesus the\nfirst fruits by raising Him from the dead\" (ch. xxiv.). 1 Cor. xv. 20;\nCol. i. 18.\n\n\"Nothing is impossible with God except to lie\" (ch. xxvii.). Tit. i. 2;\nHeb. vi. 18.\n\n\"From whom [Jacob] was descended our Lord Jesus Christ according to the\nflesh\" (ch. xxxii.). Rom. ix. 5.\n\n\"For [Scripture] saith, 'eye hath not seen,'\" &c. (ch. xxxiv.). Cor. ii.\n9.\n\n\"Not only they that do them, but also those that take pleasure in them\nthat do them\" (ch. xxxv.). Rom. i. 32. Ch. xxxvi. contains distinct\nreference to Heb. i. I gave an extract above.\n\n\"Let us take our body for an example. The head is nothing without the\nfeet ... yea, the very smallest members of our body are necessary and\nuseful\" (ch. xxxvii.), 1 Corinth. xii. 12, &c.\n\n\"Let every one be subject to his neighbour according to the special gift\nbestowed upon him\" ([Greek: kathos kai etethe en to charismati autou])\n(ch. xxxviii.). Rom. xii. 1-4; Ephes. iv. 8-12.\n\n\"The blessed Moses, also, 'a faithful servant in all his house'\" (ch.\nxliii.). Heb. iii. 5.\n\n\"Have we not all one God and one Christ? Is there not one Spirit of\ngrace poured upon us? Have we not one calling in Christ?\" (ch. xlvi.).\nEphes. iv. 4-6.\n\n\"And have reached such a height of madness as to forget that we are\nmembers one of another\" (ch. xlvi.). Rom. xii. 5.\n\n\"Love beareth all things ... is long suffering in all things\" (ch.\nxlix.). 1 Cor. xiii. 4.\n\n[196:1] One is in amazement when one reads, in the work of a man who\nprofesses to have such a love of truth, the words, \"The fact is, that we\nhave absolutely no contemporaneous history at all as to what the first\npromulgators of Christianity actually asserted\" (vol. i. p. 193). This\nwriter, as far as I remember, gives us no reason to believe that he\ndoubts the authenticity of St. Paul's earlier Epistles. Again, what is\n\"contemporary history?\" Surely, if a man was now to write the history of\nthe Crimean war in 1854-5, it would be a contemporary history.\n\n[199:1] Celsus, for instance, who had been some time dead when Origen\nrefuted him, knew no other account than the one which he calumniated;\nJosephus the Jew knew no other, Trypho suggests no counter story. The\nwild exaggerations of the heretics refuted by Irenaeus all presupposed\nthe one narrative, and can have had no other basis.","title":"The Lost Gospel and Its Contents: Or, The Author of \"Supernatural Religion\" Refuted by Himself","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":54582}