Chapter V: Section I: Its Evidences Unreliable (5)

HEGESIPPUS was a Jewish Christian, who, according to Eusebius, flourished about A.D. 166. Soter is said to have succeeded Anicetus in the bishopric of Rome in that year, and Hegesippus appears to have been in Rome during the episcopacy of both. He travelled about from place to place, and his testimony to the Gospels is that "in every city the doctrine prevails according to what is declared by the law, and the prophets, and the Lord" ("Eccles. Hist," bk. iv., ch. 22). Further, Eusebius quotes the story of the death of James, the Apostle, written by Hegesippus, and in this James is reported to have said to the Jews: "Why do ye now ask me respecting Jesus, the Son of Man? He is now sitting in the heavens, on the right hand of great power, and is about to come on the clouds of heaven." And when he is being murdered, he prays, "O Lord God and Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" (see "Eccles. Hist.," bk. ii., ch. 23). The full absurdity of regarding this as a testimony to the Gospels will be seen when it is remembered that it is implied thereby that James, the brother and apostle of Christ, knew nothing of his words until he read them in the Gospels, and that he was murdered before the Gospel of Luke, from which alone he could quote the prayer of Jesus, is thought, by most Christians, to have been written. One other fragment of Hegesippus is preserved by Stephanus Gobarus, wherein Hegesippus, speaking against Paul's assertion "that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard," opposes to it the saying of the Lord, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears that hear." This is paralleled by Matt. xiii. 16 and Luke x. 23. "We need not point out that the saying referred to by Hegesippus, whilst conveying the same sense as that in the two Gospels, differs as materially from them as they do from each other, and as we might expect a quotation taken from a different, though kindred, source, like the Gospel according to the Hebrews, to do" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., p. 447). Why does not Paley tell us that Eusebius writes of him, not that he quoted from the Gospels, but that "he also states some particulars from the Gospel of the Hebrews and from the Syriac, and particularly from the Hebrew language, showing that he himself was a convert from the Hebrews. Other matters he also records as taken from the unwritten tradition of the Jews" ("Eccles. Hist.," bk. iv., ch 22). Here, then, we have the source of the quotations in Hegesippus, and yet Paley conceals this, and deliberately speaks of him as referring to our Gospel of Matthew!

EPISTLE OF THE CHURCHES OF LYONS AND VIENNE.--Paley quietly dates this A.D. 170, although the persecution it describes occurred in A.D. 177 (see ante, pp. 257, 258). The "exact references to the Gospels of Luke and John and to the Acts of the Apostles," spoken of by Paley ("Evidences," p. 125), are not easy to find. Westcott says: "It contains no reference by name to any book of the New Testament, but its coincidences of language with the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John, with the Acts of the Apostles, with the Epistles of St. Paul to the Romans, Corinthians (?), Ephesians, Philippians, and the First to Timothy, with the first Catholic Epistles of St. Peter and St. John, and with the Apocalypse, are indisputable" ("On the Canon," p. 336). Unfortunately, neither Paley nor Dr. Westcott refer us to the passages in question, Paley quoting only one. We will, therefore, give one of these at full length, leaving our readers to judge of it as an "exact reference:" "Vattius Epagathus, one of the brethren who abounded in the fulness of the love of God and man, and whose walk and conversation had been so unexceptionable, though he was only young, shared in the same testimony with the elder Zacharias. He walked in all the commandments and righteousness of the Lord blameless, full of love to God and his neighbour" ("Eusebius," bk. v., chap. i). This is, it appears, an "exact reference" to Luke i. 6, and we own we should not have known it unless it had been noted in "Supernatural Religion." Tischendorf, on the other hand, refers the allusion to Zacharias to the Protevangelium of James ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., p. 202).

The second "exact reference" is, that Vattius had "the Spirit more abundantly than Zacharias;" "such an unnecessary and insidious comparison would scarcely have been made had the writer known our Gospel and regarded it as inspired Scripture" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., p. 204). The quotation "that the day would come when everyone that slayeth you will think he is doing God a service," is one of those isolated sayings referred to Christ which might be found in any account of his works, or might have been handed down by tradition. This epistle is the last witness called by Paley, prior to Irenæus, and might, indeed, fairly be regarded as contemporary with him.

Although Paley does not allude to the "Clementines," books falsely ascribed to Clement of Rome, these are sometimes brought to prove the existence of the Gospels in the second century. But they are useless as witnesses, from the fact that the date at which they were themselves written is a matter of dispute. "Critics variously date the composition of the original Recognitions from about the middle of the second century to the end of the third, though the majority are agreed in placing them, at least, in the latter century" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., p. 5). "It is unfortunate that there are not sufficient materials for determining the date of the Clementine Homilies" ("Gospels in the Second Century," Rev. W. Sanday, p. 161). Part of the Clementines, called the "Recognitions," is useless as a basis for argument, for these "are only extant in a Latin translation by Rufinus, in which the quotations from the Gospels have evidently been assimilated to the canonical text which Rufinus himself uses" (Ibid). Of the rest, "we are struck at once by the small amount of exact coincidence, which is considerably less than that which is found in the quotations from the Old Testament" (Ibid, p. 168). "In the Homilies there are very numerous quotations of expressions of Jesus, and of Gospel History, which are generally placed in the mouth of Peter, or introduced with such formula as 'The teacher said,' 'Jesus said,' 'He said,' 'The prophet said,' but in no case does the author name the source from which these sayings and quotations are derived.... De Wette says, 'The quotations of evangelical works and histories in the pseudo-Clementine writings, from their free and unsatisfactory nature, permit only uncertain conclusions as to their written source.' Critics have maintained very free and conflicting views regarding that source. Apologists, of course, assert that the quotations in the Homilies are taken from our Gospels only. Others ascribe them to our Gospels, with a supplementary apocryphal work, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, or the Gospel according to Peter. Some, whilst admitting a subsidiary use of some of our Gospels, assert that the author of the Homilies employs, in preference, the Gospel according to Peter; whilst others, recognising also the similarity of the phenomena presented by these quotations with those of Justin's, conclude that the author does not quote our Gospels at all, but makes use of the Gospel according to Peter, or the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Evidence permitting of such divergent conclusions manifestly cannot be of a decided character" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., pp. 6, 7).

On Basilides (teaching c. A.D. 135) and Valentinus (A.D. 140), two of the early Gnostic teachers, we need not delay, for there is scarcely anything left of their writings, and all we know of them is drawn from the writings of their antagonists; it is claimed that they knew and made use of the canonical Gospels, and Canon Westcott urges this view of Basilides, but the writer of "Supernatural Religion" characterises this plea "as unworthy of a scholar, and only calculated to mislead readers who must generally be ignorant of the actual facts of the case" (vol. ii., p. 42). Basilides says that he received his doctrine from Glaucias, the "interpreter of Peter," and "it is apparent, however, that Basilides, in basing his doctrines on these apocryphal books as inspired, and upon tradition, and in having a special Gospel called after his own name, which, therefore, he clearly adopts as the exponent of his ideas of Christian truth, absolutely ignores the canonical Gospels altogether, and not only does not offer any evidence for their existence, but proves that he did not recognise any such works as of authority. Therefore, there is no ground whatever for Tischendorf's assumption that the Commentary of Basilides 'On the Gospel' was written upon our Gospels, but that idea is, on the contrary, negatived in the strongest way by all the facts of the case" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., pp. 45, 46). Both with this ancient heretic, as with Valentinus, it is impossible to distinguish what is ascribed to him from what is ascribed to his followers, and thus evidence drawn from either of them is weaker even than usual.

Marcion, the greatest heretic of the second century, ought to prove a useful witness to the Christians if the present Gospels had been accepted in his time as canonical. He was the son of the Christian Bishop of Sinope, in Pontus, and taught in Rome for some twenty years, dating from about A.D. 140. Only one Gospel was acknowledged by him, and fierce has been the controversy as to what this Gospel was. It is only known to us through his antagonists, who generally assert that the Gospel used by him was the third Synoptic, changed and adapted to suit his heretical views. Paley says, "This rash and wild controversialist published a recension or chastised edition of St. Luke's Gospel" ("Evidences," p. 167), but does not condescend to give us the smallest reason for so broad an assertion. This question has, however, been thoroughly debated among German critics, the one side maintaining that Marcion mutilated Luke's Gospel, the other that Marcion's Gospel was earlier than Luke's, and that Luke's was made from it; while some, again, maintained that both were versions of an older original. From this controversy we may conclude that there was a strong likeness between Marcion's Gospel and the third Synoptic, and that it is impossible to know which is the earlier of the two. The resolution of the question is made hopeless by the fact that "the principal sources of our information regarding Marcion's Gospel are the works of his most bitter denouncers Tertullian and Epiphanius" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., p. 88). "At the very best, even if the hypothesis that Marcion's Gospel was a mutilated Luke were established, Marcion affords no evidence in favour of the authenticity or trustworthy character of our third Synoptic. His Gospel was nameless, and his followers repudiated the idea of its having been written by Luke; and regarded even as the earliest testimony for the existence of Luke's Gospel, that testimony is not in confirmation of its genuineness and reliability, but, on the contrary, condemns it as garbled and interpolated" (Ibid, pp. 146, 147).

It is scarcely worth while to refer to the supposed evidence of the "Canon of Muratori," since the date of this fragment is utterly unknown. In the year 1740 Muratori published this document in a collection of Italian antiquities, stating that he had found it in the Ambrosian library at Milan, and that he believed that the MS. from which he took it had been in existence about 1000 years. It is not known by whom the original was written, and it bears no date: it is but a fragment, commencing: "at which, nevertheless, he was present, and thus he placed it. Third book of the Gospel according to Luke." Further on it speaks of "the fourth of the Gospels of John." The value of the evidence of an anonymous fragment of unknown date is simply _nil_. "It is by some affirmed to be a complete treatise on the books received by the Church, from which fragments have been lost; while others consider it a mere fragment itself. It is written in Latin, which by some is represented as most corrupt, whilst others uphold it as most correct. The text is further rendered almost unintelligible by every possible inaccuracy of orthography and grammar, which is ascribed diversely to the transcriber, to the translator, and to both. Indeed, such is the elastic condition of the text, resulting from errors and obscurity of every imaginable description, that, by means of ingenious conjectures, critics are able to find in it almost any sense they desire. Considerable difference of opinion exists as to the original language of the fragment, the greater number of critics maintaining that the composition is a translation from the Greek, while others assert it to have been originally written in Latin. Its composition is variously attributed to the Church of Africa, and to a member of the Church in Rome" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., pp. 238, 239). On a disputable scrap of this kind no argument can be based; there is no evidence even to show that the thing was in existence at all until Muratori published it; it is never referred to by any early writer, nor is there a scintilla of evidence that it was known to the early Church.

After a full and searching analysis of all the documents, orthodox and heretical, supposed to have been written in the first two centuries after Christ, the author of "Supernatural Religion" thus sums up:--"After having exhausted the literature and the testimony bearing on the point, we have not found a single distinct trace of any one of those Gospels during the first century and a half after the death of Jesus.... Any argument for the mere existence of our Synoptics based upon their supposed rejection by heretical leaders and sects has the inevitable disadvantage, that the very testimony which would show their existence would oppose their authenticity. There is no evidence of their use by heretical leaders, however, and no direct reference to them by any writer, heretical or orthodox, whom we have examined" (vol. ii., pp, 248, 249). Nor is the fact of this blank absence of evidence of identity all that can be brought to bear in support of our proposition, for there is another fact that tells very heavily against the identity of the now accepted Gospels with those that were current in earlier days, namely, the noteworthy charge brought against the Christians that they changed and altered their sacred books; the orthodox accused the unorthodox of varying the Scriptures, and the heretics retorted the charge with equal pertinacity. The Ebionites maintained that the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew was the only authentic Gospel, and regarded the four Greek Gospels as unreliable. The Marcionites admitted only the Gospel resembling that of Luke, and were accused by the orthodox of having altered that to suit themselves. Celsus, writing against Christianity, formulates the charge: "Some believers, like men driven by drunkenness to commit violence on themselves, have altered the Gospel history, since its first composition, three times, four times, and oftener, and have re-fashioned it, so as to be able to deny the objections made against it" ("Origen Cont. Celsus," bk. ii., chap. 27, as quoted by Norton, p. 63). Origen admits "that there are those who have altered the Gospels," but pleads that it has been done by heretics, and that this "is no reproach against true Christianity" (Ibid). Only, most reverend Father of the Church, if heretics accuse orthodox, and orthodox accuse heretics, of altering the Gospels, how are we to be sure that they have come down unaltered to us? Clement of Alexandria notes alterations that had been made. Dionysius, of Corinth, complaining of the changes made in his own writings, bears witness to this same fact: "It is not, therefore, matter of wonder if some have also attempted to adulterate the sacred writings of the Lord, since they have attempted the same in other works that are not to be compared with these" ("Eusebius," bk. iv., ch. 23). Faustus, the Manichæan, the great opponent of Augustine, writes: "For many things have been inserted by your ancestors in the speeches of our Lord, which, though put forth under his name, agree not with his faith; especially since--as already it has been often proved by us--that these things were not written by Christ, nor his Apostles, but a long while after their assumption, by I know not what sort of half Jews, not even agreeing with themselves, who made up their tale out of report and opinions merely; and yet, fathering the whole upon the names of the Apostles of the Lord, or on those who were supposed to have followed the Apostles; they mendaciously pretended that they had written their lies and conceits _according to_ them" (Lib. 33, ch. 3, as quoted and translated in "Diegesis," pp. 61, 62).

The truth is, that in those days, when books were only written, the widest door was opened to alterations, additions, and omissions; incidents or remarks written, perhaps, in the margin of the text by one transcriber, were transferred into the text itself by the next copyist, and were thereafter indistinguishable from the original matter. In this way the celebrated text of the three witnesses (1 John, v. 7) is supposed to have crept into the text. Dealing with this, in reference to the New Testament, Eichhorn points out that it was easy to alter a manuscript in transcribing it, and that, as manuscripts were written for individual use, such alterations were considered allowable, and that the altered manuscript, being copied in its turn, such changes passed into circulation unnoticed. Owners of manuscripts added to them incidents of the life of Christ, or any of his sayings, which they had heard of, and which were not recorded in their own copies, and thus the story grew and grew, and additional legends were incorporated with it, until the historical basis became overlaid with myth. The vast number of readings in the New Testament, no less--according to Dr. Angus, one of the present Revision Committee--than 100,000, prove the facility with which variations were introduced into MSS. by those who had charge of them. In heated and angry controversy between different schools of monks appeals were naturally made to the authority of the Scriptures, and what more likely--indeed more certain--than that these monks should introduce variations into their MS. copies favouring the positions for which they were severally contending?

The most likely way in which the Gospels grew into their present forms is, that the various traditions relating to Christ were written down in different places for the instruction of catechumens, and that these, passing from hand to hand, and mouth to mouth, grew into a large mass of disjointed stories, common to many churches. This mass was gradually sifted, arranged, moulded into historical shape, which should fit into the preconceived notions of the Messiah, and thus the four Gospels gradually grew into their present form, and were accepted on all hands as the legacy of the apostolic age. No careful reader can avoid noticing the many coincidences of expression between the three synoptics, and deducing from these coincidences the conclusion that one narrative formed the basis of the three histories. Ewald supposes the existence of a _Spruchsammlung_--collected sayings of Christ--but such a collection is not enough to explain the phenomena we refer to. Dr. Davidson says: "The rudiments of an original oral Gospel were formed in Jerusalem, in the bosom of the first Christian Church; and the language of it must have been Aramæan, since the members consisted of Galileans, to whom that tongue was vernacular. It is natural to suppose that they were accustomed to converse with one another on the life, actions, and doctrines of their departed Lord, dwelling on the particulars that interested them most, and rectifying the accounts given by one another, where such accounts were erroneous, or seriously defective. The Apostles, who were eye-witnesses of the public life of Christ, could impart correctness to the narratives, giving them a fixed character in regard to authenticity and form. In this manner an original oral Gospel in Aramæan was formed. We must not, however, conceive of it as put into the shape of any of our present Gospels, or as being of like extent; but as consisting of leading particulars in the life of Christ, probably the most striking and the most affecting, such as would leave the best impression on the minds of the disciples. The incidents and sayings connected with their Divine Master naturally assumed a particular shape from repetition, though it was simply a rudimental one. They were not compactly linked in regular or systematic sequence. They were the oral germ and essence of a Gospel, rather than a proper Gospel itself, at least, according to our modern ideas of it. But the Aramæan language was soon laid aside. When Hellenists evinced a disposition to receive Christianity, and associated themselves with the small number of Palestinian converts, Greek was necessarily adopted. As the Greek-speaking members far out-numbered the Aramæan-speaking brethren, the oral Gospel was put into Greek. Henceforward Greek, the language of the Hellenists, became the medium of instruction. The truths and facts, before repeated in Hebrew, were now generally promulgated in Greek by the apostles and their converts. The historical cyclus, which had been forming in the Church at Jerusalem, assumed a determinate character in the Greek tongue" ("Introduction to the New Testament," by S. Davidson, LL.D., p. 405. Ed. 1848). Thus we find learned Christians obliged to admit an uninspired collection as the basis of the inspired Gospel, and laying down a theory which is entirely incompatible with the idea that the Synoptic Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Our Gospels are degraded into versions of an older Gospel, instead of being the inspired record of contemporaries, speaking "that we do know."

Canon Westcott writes of the three Synoptic Gospels, that "they represent, as is shown by their structure, a common basis, common materials, treated in special ways. They evidently contain only a very small selection from the words and works of Christ, and yet their contents are included broadly in one outline. Their substance is evidently much older than their form.... The only explanation of the narrow and definite limit within which the evangelic history (exclusive of St. John's Gospel) is confined, seems to be that a collection of representative words and works was made by an authoritative body, such as the Twelve, at a very early date, and that this, which formed the basis of popular teaching, gained exclusive currency, receiving only subordinate additions and modifications. This Apostolic Gospel--the oral basis, as I have endeavoured to show elsewhere, of the Synoptic narratives--dates unquestionably from the very beginning of the Christian society" ("On the Canon," preface, pp. xxxviii., xxxix). Mr. Sanday speaks of the "original documents out of which our Gospel was composed" ("Gospels in the Second Century," page 78), and he writes: "Doubtless light would be thrown upon the question if we only knew what was the common original of the two Synoptic texts" (Ibid, p. 65). "The first three Gospels of our Canon are remarkably alike, their writers agree in relating the same thing, not only in the same manner, but likewise in the very words, as must be evident to every common reader who has paid the slightest attention to the subject.... [Here follow a number of parallel passages from the three synoptics.] The agreement between the three evangelists in these extracts is remarkable, and leads to the question how such coincidences could arise between works which, from the first years of Christianity until the beginning of the seventeenth century, were understood to be perfectly independent, and to have had each a separate and independent origin. The answer to this question may at last, after more than a hundred years of discussion, be given with tolerable certainty, if we are allowed to judge of this subject according to the rules of reason and common sense, by which all other such difficulties are resolved. 'The most eminent critics'--we quote from 'Marsh's Michaelis,' vol. iii., part 2, page 170--'are at present decidedly of opinion that one of the two suppositions must necessarily be adopted--either that the three evangelists copied from each other, or that all the three drew from _a common source_, and that the notion of an absolute independence, in respect to the composition of our three first Gospels, is no longer tenable'.... The alternative between _a common source_ and _copying from each other_, is now no longer in the same position as in the days of Michaelis or Bishop Marsh. To decide between the two is no longer difficult. No one will now admit that either of the four evangelists has copied from the other three, 1. Because in neither of the four is there the slightest notice of the others. 2. Because, if either of the evangelists may be thought, from the remarkable similarity of any particular part of his narrative, to have copied out of either of the other Gospels, we immediately light upon so many other passages, wholly inconsistent with what the other three have related on the same subject, that we immediately ask why he has not copied from the others on those points also. It only remains, therefore, for us to infer that there was a common source, first traditional and then written--the [Greek: Apomnemoneumata], in short, or 'Memorials,' etc., of Justin Martyr, and that from this source the four canonical Gospels, together with thirty or forty others, many of which are still in existence, were, at various periods of early Christianity, compiled by various writers" ("Christian Records," Dr. Giles, pp. 266, 270, 271). Dean Alford puts forward a somewhat similar theory; he considers that the oral teaching of the apostles to catechumens and others, the simple narrative of facts relating to Christ, gradually grew into form and was written down, and that this accounts for the marked similarity of some passages in the different Gospels. He says:--"I believe, then, that the Apostles, in virtue not merely of their having been eye-and-ear witnesses of the Evangelic history, but especially of _their office_, gave to the various Churches their testimony in _a narrative of facts_, such narrative being modified in each case by the individual mind of the Apostle himself, and his sense of what was requisite for the particular community to which he was ministering.... It would be easy and interesting to follow the probable origin and growth of this cycle of narratives of the words and deeds of our Lord in the Church at Jerusalem, for both the Jews and the Hellenists--the latter under such teachers as Philip and Stephen--commissioned and authenticated by the Apostles. In the course of such a process some portions would naturally be written down by private believers for their own use, or that of friends. And as the Church spread to Samaria, Caesarea, and Antioch, the want would be felt in each of those places of similar cycles of oral teaching, which, when supplied, would thenceforward belong to, and be current in, those respective Churches. And these portions of the Evangelic history, oral or partially documentary, would be adopted under the sanction of the Apostles, who were as in all things, so especially in this, the appointed and divinely-guided overseers of the whole Church. This _common substratum of Apostolic teachings_--never formally adopted by all, but subject to all the varieties of diction and arrangement, addition and omission, incident to transmission through many individual minds, and into many different localities--_I believe to have been the original source of the common part of our three Gospels_" ("Greek Test.," Dean Alford, vol. i., Prolegomena, ch. i., sec. 3, par. 6; ed. 1859. The italics are Dean Alford's).

Eichhorn's theory of the growth of the Gospels is one very generally accepted; he considers that the present Gospels were not in common circulation before the end of the second century, and that before that time other Gospels were in common use, differing considerably from each other, but resting on a common foundation of historical fact; all these, he thinks, were versions of an "original Gospel," a kind of rough outline of Christ's life and discourses, put together without method or plan, and one of these would be the "Memoirs of the Apostles," of which Justin Martyr speaks. The Gospels, as we have them, are careful compilations made from these earlier histories, and we notice that, at the end of the second, and the beginning of the third, centuries, the leaders of the Church endeavour to establish the authority of the four more methodically arranged Gospels, so as to check the reception of other Gospels, which were relied upon by heretics in their controversies.

Strauss gives a careful _resume_ of the various theories of the formation of the Gospels held by learned men, and shows how the mythic theory was gradually developed and strengthened; "according to George, _mythus_ is the creation of a fact out of an idea" ("Life of Jesus," Strauss, vol. i., p. 42; ed. 1846), and the mythic theory supposes that the ideas of the Messiah were already in existence, and that the story of the Gospels grew up by the translation of these ideas into facts: "Many of the legends respecting him [Jesus] had not to be newly invented; they already existed in the popular hope of the Messiah, having been mostly derived, with various modifications, from the Old Testament, and had merely to be transferred to Jesus, and accommodated to his character and doctrines. In no case could it be easier for the person who first added any new feature to the description of Jesus, to believe himself its genuineness, since his argument would be: Such and such things must have happened to the Messiah; Jesus was the Messiah; therefore, such and such things happened to him" (Ibid, pp. 81, 82). "It is not, however, to be imagined that any one individual seated himself at his table to invent them out of his own head, and write them down as he would a poem; on the contrary, these narratives, like all other legends, were fashioned by degrees, by steps which can no longer be traced; gradually acquired consistency, and at length received a fixed form in our written Gospels" (Ibid, p. 35). From the considerations here adduced--the lack of quotations from our Gospels in the earliest Christian writers, both orthodox and heretical; the accusations against each made by the other of introducing chants and modifications in the Gospels; the facility with which MSS. were altered before the introduction of printing; the coincidences between the Gospels, showing that they are drawn from a common source; from all these facts we finally conclude _that there is no evidence that the Four Gospels mentioned about that date_ (A.D. 180) _were the same as those we have now._

G. _That there is evidence that two of them were not the same._ "The testimony of Papias is of great interest and importance in connection with our inquiry, inasmuch as he is the first ecclesiastical writer who mentions the tradition that Matthew and Mark composed written records of the life and teaching of Jesus; but no question has been more continuously contested than that of the identity of the works to which he refers with our actual Canonical Gospels. Papias was Bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, in the first half of the second century, and is said to have suffered martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius about A.D. 164-167. About the middle of the second century he wrote a work in five books, entitled 'Exposition of the Lord's Oracles,' which, with the exception of a few fragments preserved to us chiefly by Eusebius and Irenæus, is unfortunately no longer extant. This work was less based on written records of the teaching of Jesus than on that which Papias had been able to collect from tradition, which he considered more authentic, for, like his contemporary, Hegesippus, Papias avowedly prefers tradition to any written works with which he was acquainted" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., pp. 449, 450). Before giving the testimony attributed to Papias, we must remark two or three points which will influence our judgment concerning him. Paley speaks of him, on the authority of Irenæus, as "a hearer of John, and companion of Polycarp" ("Evidences," p. 121); but Paley omits to tell us that Eusebius points out that Irenæus was mistaken in this statement, and that Papias "by no means asserts that he was a hearer and an eye-witness of the holy Apostles, but informs us that he received the doctrines of faith from their intimate friends" ("Eccles. Hist.", bk. iii., ch. 39). Eusebius subjoins the passage from Papias, which states that "if I met with any one who had been a follower of the elders anywhere, I made it a point to inquire what were the declarations of the elders: what was said by Andrew, Peter, or Philip; what by Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any other of the disciples of our Lord; what was said by Aristion, and the Presbyter John, disciples of the Lord" (Ibid). Seeing that Papias died between A.D. 164 and 167, and that the disciples of Jesus were Jesus' own contemporaries, any disciple that Papias heard, when a boy, would have reached a portentous age, and, between the age of the disciple and the youth of Papias, the reminiscences would probably be of a somewhat hazy character. It is to Papias that we owe the wonderful account of the vines (ante, p. 234) of the kingdom of God, given by Irenæus, who states that "these things are borne witness to in writing by Papias, the hearer of John, and a companion of Polycarp.... And he says, in addition, 'Now these things are credible to believers.' And he says that 'when the traitor, Judas, did not give credit to them, and put the question, How then can things about to bring forth so abundantly be wrought by the Lord? the Lord declared, They who shall come to these (times) shall see'" ("Irenæus Against Heresies," bk. v., ch. 33, sec. 4). The recollections of Papias scarcely seem valuable as to quality. Next we note that Papias could scarcely put a very high value on the Apostolic writings, since he states that "I do not think that I derived so much benefit from books as from the living voice of those that are still surviving" ("Eccles. Hist," bk. iii., ch. 39), i.e., of those who had been followers of the Apostles. How this remark of Papias tallies with the supposed respect shown to the Canonical Gospels by primitive writers, it is for Christian apologists to explain. We then mark that we have no writing of Papias to refer to that pretends to be original. We have only passages, said to be taken from his writings, preserved in the works of Irenæus and Eusebius, and neither of these ecclesiastical penmen inspire the student with full confidence; even Eusebius mentions him in doubtful fashion; "there are said to be five books of Papias;" he gives "certain strange parables of our Lord and of his doctrine, and some other matters rather too fabulous;" "he was very limited in his comprehension, as is evident from his discourses" ("Eccles. Hist.," bk. iii., ch. 39). We thus see that the evidence of Papias is discredited at the very outset, perhaps to the advantage of the Christians, however, for his testimony is fatal to the Canonical Gospels. Papias is said to have written: "And John the Presbyter also said this: Mark being the interpreter of Peter, whatsoever he recorded he wrote with great accuracy, but not, however, in the order in which it was spoken or done by our Lord, but as before said, he was in company with Peter, who gave him such instruction as was necessary, but not to give a history of our Lord's discourses; wherefore Mark has not erred in anything, by writing some things as he has recorded them; for he was carefully attentive to one thing, not to pass by anything that he heard, or to state anything falsely in these accounts" ("Eccles. Hist.," bk iii., ch. 39). How far does this account apply to the Gospel now known as "according to St. Mark?" Far from showing traces of Petrine influence, such traces are conspicuous by their absence. "Not only are some of the most important episodes in which Peter is represented by the other Gospels _as_ a principal actor altogether omitted, but throughout the Gospel there is the total absence of anything which is specially characteristic of Petrine influence and teaching. The argument that these omissions are due to the modesty of Peter is quite untenable, for not only does Irenæus, the most ancient authority on the point, state that this Gospel was only written after the death of Peter, but also there is no modesty in omitting passages of importance in the history of Jesus, simply because Peter himself was in some way concerned in them, or, for instance, in decreasing his penitence for such a denial of his master, which could not but have filled a sad place in the Apostle's memory. On the other hand, there is no adequate record of special matter which the intimate knowledge of the doings and sayings of Jesus possessed by Peter might have supplied to counterbalance the singular omissions. There is infinitely more of the spirit of Peter in the first Gospel than there is in the second. The whole internal evidence, therefore, shows that this part of the tradition of the Presbyter John transmitted by Papias does not apply to our Gospel" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., pp. 459, 460). But a far stronger objection to the identity of the work spoken of by Papias with the present Gospel of Mark, is drawn from the description of the document as given by him. "The discrepancy, however, is still more marked when we compare with our actual second Gospel the account of the work of Mark, which Papias received from the Presbyter. Mark wrote down from memory some parts [Greek: enia] of the teaching of Peter regarding the life of Jesus, but as Peter adapted his instructions to the actual circumstances [Greek: pros tas chreias] and did not give a consecutive report [Greek: suntaxis] of the discourses or doings of Jesus, Mark was only careful to be accurate, and did not trouble himself to arrange in historical order [Greek: taxis] his narrative of the things which were said or done by Jesus, but merely wrote down facts as he remembered them. This description would lead us to expect a work composed of fragmentary reminiscences of the teaching of Peter, without orderly sequence or connection. The absence of orderly arrangement is the most prominent feature in the description, and forms the burden of the whole. Mark writes 'what he remembered;' 'he did not arrange in order the things that were either said or done by Christ;' and then follow the apologetic expressions of explanation--he was not himself a hearer or follower of the Lord, but derived his information from the occasional preaching of Peter, who did not attempt to give a consecutive narrative, and, therefore, Mark was not wrong in merely writing things without order as he happened to hear or remember them. Now it is impossible in the work of Mark here described to recognise our present second Gospel, which does not depart in any important degree from the order of the other two Synoptics, and which, throughout, has the most evident character of orderly arrangement.... The great majority of critics, therefore, are agreed in concluding that the account of the Presbyter John recorded by Papias does not apply to our second Canonical Gospel at all" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. 1, pp. 460, 461). "This document, also, is mentioned by Papias, as quoted by Eusebius; the account which they give of it is not applicable to the work which we now have. For the 'Gospel according to St. Mark' professes to give a continuous history of Christ's life, as regularly as the other three Gospels, but the work noticed by Papias is expressly stated to have been memoranda, taken down from time to time as Peter delivered them, and it is not said that Mark ever reduced these notes into the form of a more perfect history" ("Christian Records," Rev. Dr. Giles, pp. 94, 95). "It is difficult to see in what respects Mark's Gospel is more loose and disjointed than those of Matthew and Luke.... We are inclined to agree with those who consider the expression [Greek: ou taxei] unsuitable to the present Gospel of Mark. As far as we are able to understand the entire fragment, it is most natural to consider John the Presbyter or Papias assigning a sense to [Greek: ou taxei] which does not agree with the character of the canonical document" ("Introduction to the New Testament," Dr. Davidson, p. 158). This Christian commentator is so disgusted with the conviction he honestly expresses as to the unsuitability of the phrase in question as applied to Mark, that he exclaims: "We presume that John the Presbyter was not infallible.... In the present instance, he appears to have been mistaken in his opinion. His power of perception was feeble, else he would have seen that the Gospel which he describes as being written [Greek: ou taxei], does not differ materially in arrangement from that of Luke. Like Papias, the Presbyter was apparently destitute of critical ability and good judgment, else he could not have entertained an idea so much at variance with fact" (Ibid, p. 159). We may add, for what it is worth, that "according to the unanimous belief of the early Church this Gospel was written at _Rome._ Hence the conclusion was drawn that it must have been composed in _the language of the Romans_; that is, Latin. Even in the old Syriac version, a remark is annexed, stating that the writer preached the Gospel in Roman (Latin) at Rome; and the Philoxenian version has a marginal annotation to the same effect. The Syrian Churches seem to have entertained this opinion generally, as may be inferred not only from these versions, but from some of their most distinguished ecclesiastical writers, such as Ebedjesu. Many Greek Manuscripts, too, have a similar remark regarding the language of our Gospel, originally taken, perhaps from the Syriac" (Ibid, pp. 154, 155). We conclude, then, that the document alluded to by the Presbyter John, as reported by Papias through Eusebius, cannot be identical with the present canonical Gospel of Mark. Nor is the testimony regarding Matthew less conclusive: "Of Matthew he has stated as follows: 'Matthew composed his history in the Hebrew dialect, and every one translated it as he was able'" ("Eccles. Hist," Eusebius, bk. iii., ch. 39). The word here translated "history" is [Greek: ta logia] and would be more correctly rendered by "oracles" or "discourses," and much controversy has arisen over this term, it being contended that [Greek: logia] could not rightly be extended so as to include any records of the life of Christ: "It is impossible upon any but arbitrary grounds, and from a foregone conclusion, to maintain that a work commencing with a detailed history of the birth and infancy of Jesus, his genealogy, and the preaching of John the Baptist, and concluding with an equally minute history of his betrayal, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection, and which relates all the miracles, and has for its evident aim throughout the demonstration that Messianic prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus, could be entitled [Greek: ta logia] the oracles or discourses of the Lord. For these and other reasons ... the majority of critics deny that the work described by Papias can be the same as the Gospel in our Canon bearing the name of Matthew" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., pp. 471, 472). But the fact which puts the difference between the present "Matthew" and that spoken of by Papias beyond dispute is that Matthew, according to Papias, "wrote in the Hebrew dialect," i.e., the Syro-Chaldaic, or Aramæan, while the canonical Matthew is written in Greek. "There is no point, however, on which the testimony of the Fathers is more invariable and complete than that the work of Matthew was written in Hebrew or Aramaic" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., p. 475). This industrious author quotes Papias, Irenæus, Pantænus in Eusebius, Eusebius, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Jerome, in support of his assertion, and remarks that "the same tradition is repeated by Chrysostom, Augustine and others" (Ibid, pp. 475-477). "We believe that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, meaning by that term the common language of the Jews of his time, because such is the uniform statement of all ancient writers who advert to the subject. To pass over others whose authority is of less weight, he is affirmed to have written in Hebrew by Papias, Irenæus, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome. Nor does any ancient author advance a contrary opinion" ("Genuineness of the Gospels," Norton, vol. i., pp. 196, 197). "Ancient historical testimony is unanimous in declaring that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, i.e., in the Aramæan or Syro-Chaldaic language, at that time the vernacular tongue of the Jews in Palestine" (Davidson's "Introduction to the New Testament," p. 3). After a most elaborate presentation of the evidences, the learned doctor says: "Let us now pause to consider this account of the original Gospel of Matthew. It runs through all antiquity. None doubted of its truth, as far as we can judge from their writings. There is not the least trace of an opposite tradition" (Ibid, p. 37). The difficulty of Christian apologists is, then, to prove that the Gospel written by Matthew in Hebrew is the same as the Gospel according to Matthew in Greek, and sore have been the shifts to which they have been driven in the effort. Dean Alford, unable to deny that all the testimony which could be relied upon to prove that Matthew wrote at all, also proved that he wrote in Hebrew, and aware that an unauthorised translation, which could not be identified with the original, could never claim canonicity, fell back on the remarkable notion that he himself translated his Hebrew Gospel into Greek; in the edition of his Greek Testament published in 1859, however, he gives up this notion in favour of the idea that the original Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek.

Of his earlier theory of translation by Matthew, Davidson justly says: "It is easy to perceive its gratuitous character. It is a clumsy expedient, devised for the purpose of uniting two conflicting opinions--for saving the credit of ancient testimony, which is on the side of a Hebrew original, and of meeting, at the same time, the difficulties supposed to arise from the early circulation of the Greek.... The advocates of the double hypothesis go in the face of ancient testimony. Besides, they believe that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, for the use of Jewish converts. Do they also suppose his Greek Gospel to have been intended for the same class? If so, the latter was plainly unnecessary: one Gospel was sufficient for the same persons. Or do they believe that the second edition of it was designed for Gentile Christians? if so, the notion is contradicted by internal evidence, which proves that it was written specially for Jews. In short, the hypothesis is wholly untenable, and we are surprised that it should have found so many advocates" ("Introduction to the New Testament," p. 52). The fact is, that no one knows who was the translator--or, rather, the writer--of the Greek Gospel. Jerome honestly says that it is not known who translated it into Greek. Dr. Davidson has the following strange remarks: "The author indeed must ever remain unknown; but whether he were an apostle or not, he must have had the highest sanction in his proceeding. His work was performed with the cognisance, and under the eye of Apostolic men. The reception it met with proved the general belief of his calling, and competency to the task. Divine superintendence was exercised over him" (Ibid, pp. 72, 73). It is difficult to understand how Dr. Davidson knows that divine superintendence was exercised over an unknown individual. Dr. Giles argues against the hypothesis that our Greek Gospel is a translation: "If St. Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, why has the original perished? The existing Greek text is either a translation of the Hebrew, or it is a separate work. But it cannot be a translation, for many reasons, 1. Because there is not the slightest evidence on record of its being a translation. 2. Because it is unreasonable to believe that an authentic work--written by inspiration--would perish, or be superseded by, an unauthenticated translation--for all translations are less authentic than their originals. 3. Because there are many features in our present Gospel according to St. Matthew, which are common to the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke; which would lead to the inference that the latter are translations also. Besides, there is nothing in the Gospel of St. Matthew, as regards its style or construction, that would lead to the inference of its being a translation, any more than all the other books contained in the New Testament. For these reasons we conclude that the 'Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew,' which perhaps no one has seen since Pantænus, who brought it from India, and the 'Greek Gospel according to St. Matthew,' are separate and independent works" ("Christian Records." Rev. Dr. Giles, pp. 93, 94). It must not be forgotten that there was in existence in the early Church a Hebrew Gospel which was widely spread, and much used. It was regarded by the Ebionites, or Jewish Christians, later known as Nazarenes, as the only authentic Gospel, and Epiphanius, writing in the fourth century, says: "They have the Gospel of Matthew very complete; for it is well known that this is preserved among them as it was first written in Hebrew" ("Opp.," i. 124, as quoted by Norton). But this Gospel, known as the "Gospel according to the Hebrews," was not the same as the Greek "Gospel according to St. Matthew." If it had been the same, Jerome would not have thought it worth while to translate it; the quotations that he makes from it are enough to prove to demonstration that the present Gospel of Matthew is not that spoken of in the earliest days. "The following positions are deducible from St. Jerome's writings: 1. The authentic Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew. 2. The Gospel according to the Hebrews was used by the Nazarenes and Ebionites. 3. This Gospel was identical with the Aramæan original of Matthew" (Davidson's "Introduction to the New Testament," p. 12). To these arguments may be added the significant fact that the quotations in Matthew from the Old Testament are taken from the Septuagint, and not from the Hebrew version. The original Hebrew Gospel of Matthew would surely not have contained quotations from the Greek translation, rather than from the Hebrew original, of the Jewish Scriptures. If our present Gospel is an accurate translation of the original Matthew, we must believe that the Jewish Matthew, writing for Jews, did not use the Hebrew Scriptures, with which his readers would be familiar, but went out of his way to find the hated Septuagint, and re-translated it into Hebrew. Thus we find that the boasted testimony said to be recorded by Papias to the effect that Matthew and Mark wrote our two first synoptical Gospels breaks down completely under examination, and that instead of proving the authenticity of the present Gospels, it proves directly the reverse, since the description there given of the writings ascribed to Matthew and Mark is not applicable to the writings that now bear their names, so that we find that in Papias _there is evidence that two of the Gospels were not the same_.