The Lost Gospel and Its Contents Part 22

The other reproductions of the language of St. Paul's Epistles are numerous, and I give them in a note. [194:1] The reader will see at a glance that the Theology or Christology of Clement was that of the earliest writings of the Church of which we have any remains, and to these he himself frequently and unmistakably refers.

The earlier Epistles of St. Paul, as those to the Thessalonians, Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, are acknowledged on all hands, even by advanced German Rationalists, to be the genuine works of the Apostle Paul; indeed one might as well deny that such a man ever existed as question their authenticity. The First Epistle to the Corinthians, which is the longest and most dogmatic of the earlier ones, cannot have been written after the year 58. In a considerable number of chronological tables to which I have referred, the earliest date is the year 52, and the latest 58.

To the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, which is undoubtedly the earliest of all, the earliest date a.s.signed is 47, and the latest 53.

Now it is ever to be remembered that in each of these--the First to the Thessalonians and the First to the Corinthians--we have enunciations of the great crowning supernatural event of Scripture--the Resurrection of Christ and our Resurrection as depending upon it, which are unsurpa.s.sed in the rest of Scripture.

So that in the first Christian writing which has come down to us, we have the great fact of Supernatural Religion, which carries with it all the rest.

The fullest enunciation of the evidences of the Resurrection is in a writing whose date cannot be later than 58, and runs thus:--

"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that [196:1] He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present [twenty-five years after the event]

but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen of James, then of all the Apostles, and last of all He was seen of me also." (1 Cor.

xv. 1.)

If the reader compares this with the accounts in any one of the Four, he will find that it gives the fullest list of our Lord's appearances which has come down to us, and this, be it remembered, forming part of the most categorical declaration of what the Gospel is, to be found in the New Testament. [196:1]

A man, then, writes in A.D. 57 or earlier, that another, Who had died in A.D. 32 had been seen by a number of persons, and among these, by 500 persons at once, of whom the greater part were alive when he wrote, and implying that the story had been believed ever since, and received by him (the writer) from those who had seen this Jesus, and that the fact was so essential to the religion that it was itself called "the Gospel,"

a name continually given to the whole system of Christianity, and moreover that he himself, when in company with others, had seen this Jesus at noon-day, and, the history a.s.serts, had been blinded by the sight. Now let the reader recall to his mind any public man who died twenty-five years ago, that is, in 1850, and imagine this man appearing, not as a disembodied spirit, but in his resuscitated body to first one of his friends, then to eleven or twelve, then to another, then to five hundred persons at one time, and a flourishing and aggressive inst.i.tution founded upon this his appearance, and numbers of persons giving up their property, and breaking with all their friends, and adopting a new religion, and a new course of life of great self-denial, and even encountering bitter persecution and death, simply because they believed this man to be alive from the dead, and moreover some professing to do miracles, and to confer the power of doing miracles in the name and by the power of this risen man.

Let the reader, I say, try to imagine all this, and then he will be able to judge of the credulity with which the author credits his readers when he writes:--

"All history shows how rapidly pious memory exaggerates and idealizes the traditions of the past, and simple actions might readily be transformed into miracles as the narrative circulated, in a period so p.r.o.ne to superst.i.tion, and so characterized by love of the marvellous." (Vol. ii. p. 209.)

"All history," the author says; but why does he not give us a few instances out of "all history," that we might compare them with this Gospel account, and see if there was anything like it?

Such a story, if false, is not a myth. A myth is the slow growth of falsehood through long ages, and this story of the Resurrection was written circ.u.mstantially within twenty years of its promulgation, by one who had been an unbeliever, and who had conferred with those who must have been the original promoters of the falsehood, if it be one.

To call such a story a myth, is simply to shirk the odium of calling it by its right name, or more probably to avoid having to meet the astounding historical difficulty of supposing that men endured what the Apostles endured for what they must have known to have been a falsehood, and the still more astounding difficulty that One Whom the author of "Supernatural Religion" allows to have been a Teacher Who "carried morality to the sublimest point attained or even attainable by humanity," and Whose "life, as far as we can estimate it, was uniformly n.o.ble and consistent with his lofty principles," should have impressed a character of such deep-rooted fraud and falsehood on His most intimate friends.

The author of "Supernatural Religion" has, however, added another to the many proofs of the truth of the Gospel. In his elaborate book of 1,000 pages of attack on the authenticity of the Evangelists he has shown, with a clearness which, I think, has never been before realized, the great fact that from the first there has been but one account of Jesus Christ. In the writings of heathens, of Jews, of heretics, [199:1] in lost gospels, in contemporary accounts, in the earliest traditions of the Church, there appears but one account, the account called by its first proclaimers the Gospel; and the only explanation of the existence of this Gospel is its truth.

THE END.

[FOOTNOTES]

[3:1] Papias, for instance, actually mentions St. Mark by name as writing a gospel under the influence of St. Peter. The author of "Supernatural Religion" devotes ten pages to an attempt to prove that this St. Mark's Gospel could not be ours. (Vol. i. pp. 448-459.)

[6:1] I need hardly say that I myself hold the genuineness of the Greek recension. The reader who desires to see the false reasonings and groundless a.s.sumptions of the author of "Supernatural Religion"

respecting the Ignatian epistles thoroughly exposed should read Professor Lightfoot's article in the "Contemporary Review" of February, 1875. In pages 341-345 of this article there is an examination of the nature and trustworthiness of the learning displayed in the footnotes of this pretentious book, which is particularly valuable. I am glad to see that the professor has modified, in this article, the expression of his former opinion that the excerpta called the Curetonian recension is to be regarded as the only genuine one. "Elsewhere," the professor writes (referring to an essay in his commentary on the Philippians), "I had acquiesced in the earlier opinion of Lipsius, who ascribed them (_i.e._, the Greek or Vossian recension) to an interpolator writing about A.D.

140. Now, however, I am obliged to confess that I have grave and increasing doubts whether, after all, they are not the genuine utterances of Ignatius himself."

[10:1] [Greek: Ou gar monon en h.e.l.lesi dia Sokratous hypo logou elenchthe tauta, alla kai en Barbarois hyp' autou tou Logou morphothentos kai anthropou genomenou kai Iesou Christou klethentous.]

[10:2] Such is a perfectly allowable translation of [Greek: kai ton par'

autou hyion elthonta kai didaxanta hemas tauta, kai ton ton allon hepomenon kai exomoioumenon agathon angelon straton, pneuma te to prophetikon sebometha kai proskynoumen.] As there is nothing approaching to angel worship in Justin, such a rendering seems absolutely necessary.

[15:1] "For the law promulgated in h.o.r.eb is now old, and belongs to you alone; but this is for all universally. Now law placed against law has abrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in like manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal and final law--namely, Christ--has been given to us." (Heb. viii. 6-13; Dial. ch.

xi.)

[15:2] "For the true spiritual Israel and descendants of Judah, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham (who in uncirc.u.mcision was approved of and blessed by G.o.d on account of his faith, and called the father of many nations) are we who have been led to G.o.d through this crucified Christ, as shall be demonstrated while we proceed." (Phil. iii. 3, compared with Romans, iv.

12-18; Dial. ch. xi.)

[17:1] This, of course, was a Jewish adversary's view of the Christian doctrine of the G.o.dhead of Christ, which Justin elsewhere modifies by showing the subordination of the Son to the Father in all things.

[19:1] [Greek: En gar tois apomnemoneumasi, ha phemi hypo ton apostolon autou kai ton ekeinois parakolouthesanton syntetachthai, hoti hidros hosei thromboi katecheito autou euchomenou.] (Dial. ch. ciii.)

[20:1] [Greek: Kai to eipein metonomakenai auton Petron hena ton apostolon, kai gegraphthai en tois apomnemoneumasin autou gegenemenon kai touto, k.t.l.]

On this question the author of "Supernatural Religion" remarks, "According to the usual language of Justin, and upon strictly critical grounds, the [Greek: autou] in this pa.s.sage must be ascribed to Peter; and Justin therefore seems to ascribe the Memoirs to that Apostle, and to speak consequently of a Gospel of Peter." (Vol. i. p. 417.)

[28:1] That of our Lord being born in a cave.

[29:1] [Greek: Ioannou gar kathezomenou.]

[34:1] Justin has [Greek: hidros hosei thromboi]; St. Luke, [Greek: ho hidros autou hosei thromboi haimatos]. The author of "Supernatural Religion" lays great stress upon the omission of [Greek: haimatos], as indicating that Justin did not know anything about St. Luke; but we have to remember, first, that St. Luke alone mentions _any_ sweat of our Lord in His agony; secondly, that the account in Justin is said to be taken from "Memoirs drawn up by Apostles and _those who followed them_," _St.

Luke being only one of those who followed_; thirdly, Justin and St. Luke both use a very scarce word, [Greek: thromboi]; fourthly, Justin and St.

Luke both qualify this word by [Greek: hosei]. If we add to this the fact that [Greek: thromboi] seems naturally a.s.sociated with blood in several authors, the probability seems almost to reach certainty, that Justin had St. Luke's account in his mind. The single omission is far more easy to be accounted for than the four coincidences.

[37:1] And He said unto them, "These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me." (Luke xxiii. 44.)

[48:1] It is the reading of Codices B and C of the Codex Sinaiticus of the Syriac, and of a number of Fathers and Versions.

[51:1] [Greek: Hekastos gar tis apo merous tou spermatikou theiou logou to syngenes horon kalos ephthenxato.]

[63:1] For instance, in vol. ii. p. 42, &c., he speaks of one of Tischendorf's a.s.sertions as "a conclusion the audacity of which can scarcely be exceeded."--Then, "This is, however, almost surpa.s.sed by the treatment of Canon Westcott."--Then, "The unwarranted inference of Tischendorf."--"There is no ground for Tischendorf's a.s.sumption."--"Tischendorf, the self-const.i.tuted modern Defensor Fidei, a.s.serts with an a.s.surance which can scarcely be characterized otherwise than as an unpardonable calculation upon the ignorance of his readers."--"Canon Westcott says, with an a.s.surance which, considering the nature of the evidence, is singular."--"Even Dr. Westcott states,"

&c.--For Tertullian his contempt seems unbounded: indeed we way say the same of all the Fathers. Numberless times does he speak of their "uncritical spirit." The only person for whom he seems to have a respect is the heretic Marcion. Even rationalists, such as Credner and Ewald, are handled severely when they differ from him. The above are culled from a few pages.

[69:1] [Greek: Hoti Theos hypemeine gennethenai kai anthropos genesthai.]

[69:2] [Greek: Ex hon diarrheden outous autos ho staurotheis hoti Theos kai anthropos, kai stauroumenos kai apothneskon kekerygmenos apodeiknytai.]

[70:1] The reader must remember that Justin puts this expression, which seems to imply a duality of G.o.dhead, into the mouth of an adversary. In other places, as I shall show, he very distinctly guards against such a notion, by a.s.serting the true and proper Sonship of the Word and his perfect subordination to His Father. There is a pa.s.sage precisely similar in ch. lv.

[71:1] "I continued: Moreover, I consider it necessary to repeat to you the words which narrate how He is both Angel and G.o.d and Lord, and Who appeared as a Man to Abraham." (Dial. ch. lviii.)

"Permit me, further, to show you from the Book of Exodus, how this same One, Who is both Angel, and G.o.d, and Lord, and Man." (Dial. ch. lix.)

"G.o.d begat before all creatures, a Beginning, a certain rational Power from Himself, Who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then G.o.d, and then Lord and Logos." (Dial. ch. lxi.)

"The Word of Wisdom, Who is Himself this G.o.d, begotten of the Father of all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the Begetter, will bear evidence to me," &c. (Dial. lxi.)

"Therefore these words testify explicitly that He is witnessed to by Him Who established these things [_i.e._ the Father] as deserving to be worshipped, as G.o.d and as Christ." (Dial. lxiii.)