Chapter II: Opinions of the first Christians upon the Acts of the

Apostles, and upon the Epistles and Person of St. Paul.

It is in the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles of St. Paul, that we find the details of his life and the system of his doctrine; but, how can we be certain of the authenticity of these works, whilst we see many of the first Christians doubt and reject them as apocryphal? We find, in fact, that from the earliest period of the church, entire sects of Christians, who believed that many of the Epistles published under the name of this Apostle, were not really his. The Marcionites were confident that the gospels were filled with falshoods, and Marcion, their head, pretended that his gospel was the only true one.

The Manicheans, who formed a very numerous sect at the commencement of Christianity, rejected as false, all the New Testament, and produced other writings, quite different, which they gave as authentic. The Corinthians, as well as the Marcionites, did not admit the Acts of the Apostles. The Encratites and the Severians did not adopt either the Acts or the Epistles of St. Paul. St. John Chrysostom in a homily, which he has made upon the Acts, says, that in his time (that is to say, towards the end of the fourth century) many men were ignorant not only of the name of the author, or of the collector of these Acts, but even did not know this work. The Valentinians, as well as many other sects of Christians accused our scriptures of being filled with errors, imperfections, and contradictions, and of being insufficient without the assistance of traditions; this is a fact that is attested to us by St. Irenæus. The Ebionites or Nazarenes, who, as we shall soon see, were the first Christians, rejected all the Epistles of St. Paul, and regarded him as an impostor and hypocrite.

It will not fail being said to us, that we ought not to rely on the testimony of heretics; but I shall reply, that in the matter in question, their testimony is of the same weight as that of the orthodox, seeing that all the different sects consider themselves as orthodox, and have treated their adversaries as heretics. How shall we unravel the truth if we do not hear both parties? By what signs shall we know those on whom we ought to rely? Shall we cede the cause without examining their adversaries, to writers who utter to us falshoods without number, who contradict each other, who are never agreed amongst themselves, and whose discordant writings are nevertheless produced as proofs of what they advance? In any other subject such a conduct would seem to betray a partiality or even insincerity: but in religious matters, every thing is fair, and there is no necessity of being so nice.

However that may be, it does not follow that because one sect has received or rejected a work, that the work itself is either true or false; there cannot be otherwise than, a diversity of opinions between persons of different parties; their testimony ought to have equal weight, until the partisans of one sect, have been convicted of being greater cheats and liars, than those of the other. If we pay no regard to the authority of heretics, it is because they have not had sufficient power to enforce their opinions. It is power or weakness which makes orthodoxians or heretics: the last are always those who have not power enough to make their opinions current.

What course shall we then pursue to discover on which side is the truth? An impartial man will no more expect to find it in one party than in another, thus the testimony of the one can have no greater weight than that of the other in the eye of an unprejudiced man.

This granted, we cannot rely on the authority of Christian traditions which vary in all sects, and we shall be reduced to recur solely to reason, especially when we find that the works, which are to-day regarded as authentic, have in other times been considered as suppositious, or apocryphal, by some very ancient sects of Christians, and that the works and writings, then regarded as apocryphal, have since been adopted as true.

It appears that in the ancient churches, they read at once the works that we now regard as true, and those that now-pass for suppositious, in such sort, that there is reason to believe they were then held to possess equal claim to authenticity: it is, at least, very, difficult to demonstrate the contrary in the present time. Some churches have attributed the same authority to false or doubtful writings as to true.

The Roman Church to-day adopts as authentic and divinely inspired many books of the Bible, absolutely rejected by the Protestants. How is it possible to decide which is the party that deceives itself?

By what right can we then affirm to-day that the works of St. Paul, formerly rejected by so many Christian sects, are authentic, that is to say, truly belong to this Apostle? On the other hand, how can we attribute to divine inspiration writings filled with inconsistencies, contradictions, mistakes, and false reasonings, in a word, which bear every character of delirium, of ignorance, and of fraud? I acknowledge that those who want valid proofs, always do right to affirm the thing, with the tone of authority; but this tone proves nothing, and always prejudices against those who take it. Nothing is more injurious to the interest of truth, than the arrogance of an usurped authority. These are, however, the arms that are incessantly opposed to those who doubt of religion. It would seem that its defenders have no other arguments than their pretences; it is easy to feel that these arguments are every thing, but convincing.

The Acts of the Apostles, adopted by the Ebionites or Nazarenes, relate amongst other things, that, "Paul was originally a Pagan, that he came to Jerusalem where he dwelt for some time; that being desirous of marrying the daughter of the High Priest he became a proselyte, and was circumcised; but not being able to obtain the woman he desired, he quarrelled with the Jews, began to write against the circumcision, against the observation of the Sabbath, and against legal ordinances."

We know that the name of Nazarenes was the first which was given to the Christians. St. Epiphanius, from whom the preceding passage is taken, says, "that they were thus named because of Jesus of Nazareth," of whom they were the first disciples. The Jews called them Nazarenes from the Hebrew word Nozerim, which signifies one separated or excommunicated; again they designated them under the name of Mineans, that is to say, heretics. They were also by contempt called Ebionites, which signifies poor, mendicant, weak-minded. In fact, the Hebrew Ebion, means poor, miserable, and we know, that the first followers of Christ, were every thing but opulent or intelligent men.

The first faithful, were Jews converted by Jesus himself, or by the most ancient Apostles, such as Peter, James, and John, who as well as their master, lived in Judaism. These Apostles, disciples, and new converts, differed from the Jews in nothing but the belief in Jesus Christ, whom they regarded as the Messiah predicted by the prophets; otherwise they believed themselves bound constantly to observe the Mosaic law, persuaded that their Messiah was come to accomplish and not to destroy this law. In consequence of this, they observed circumcision, the abstinence from certain meats, separation from the Gentiles, in a word, the Jewish rites and ordinances.

Thus the first Apostles, and their adherents, were only Jews, persuaded that the Messiah was already come, and was going soon to commence his reign, which made them hated and persecuted as schismatics or heretics by their fellow-citizens. St. Jerome informs us, "that even down to his time, the Jews used to anathematize the Christians, under the name of Nazarenes, three times a day in their synagogues."

All this evidently proves, that the Nazarenes, of Ebionites, were the first Christians, taught by the most considerable of the Apostles, and that the first Christians were only reformed Jews; this is clearly the only idea we can form of Christianity, such as it was taught by Jesus Christ himself.

How then comes it that since Jesus, Christianity has been so separated from Judaism? a slight attention will prove to us that this is owing to St. Paul. Repulsed by the Jews, or perhaps desirous of playing a more important part, we see him separate himself from his brethren of Jerusalem, and undertake the conversion of the Gentiles, for whom the Jews entertained no sentiment but horror. Encouraged by his first successes and wishing to extend them, he dispensed the Pagans from the painful ceremony of circumcision; he declared that the law of Moses, was only a law of servitude, from which Jesus was come to free mankind; he pretended that all the old law was merely the emblem and figure of the new; he announced himself as the Apostle of the Gentiles, and leaving Peter and the other Nazarenes to preach the gospel of circumcision, he preached his own gospel, which he himself called the gospel of uncircumcision: in a word, he made a divorce with the Jewish laws, to which his apostolic brethren believed they ought to hold themselves attached, at least, in most respects.

The conduct of Paul, must naturally have displeased his seniors in the Apostleship, but fear appears to have deter mined them to cede, at least for a time, to our missionary who had already made a considerable party. Nevertheless the Acts of the Apostles and the writings of Paul, prove to us his quarrels with his brethren, who, according to appearances, never viewed with a friendly eye, his enterprizes and innovations. Moreover, Eusebius and St. Epiphanius inform us, that our Apostle was regarded as an apostate, an impostor, and an enemy by the Ebionites, that is to say, by the first faithful. But St. Paul's party having in the end prevailed, the Jewish law was entirely banished from Christianity, and the Ebionites, or Nazarenes, though of more ancient date and though formed by Christ and his first apostles were declared heretics.

It is proper to remark in this place that these Ebionites, or first Christians, believed that Jesus was but a man, as much on the side of his father as on that of his mother, that is to say, the son of Joseph and Mary; but that he was a wise, just, and excellent person, thus meriting the appellation of the son of God, because of his holy life and good qualities whence we see that the first Christians were as well as the first Apostles, true Socinians. But St. Paul to give, without doubt, more lustre to his ministry, and his adherents after him, willing to extol the holiness of their religion, made a God of Jesus, a dogma which it is no more permitted to doubt, especially since the partizans of Paul have become more numerous, and stronger than those of St. Peter and the other Nazarenes, or Jewish founders of primitive Christianity, which thus totally changed its face as to its capital dogmas.

Having thus become masters of the field of battle, Paul, his adherents, and the disciples formed in their school, saw themselves in possession of the power of regulating belief, of inventing new dogmas, of making gospels, and of arranging them in their own manner, of forging to themselves titles, and of excommunicating as heretics all those who showed themselves unteachable. It is thus that the author of the Acts of the Apostles, only speaks, as it were, of his master, of St. Paul, and glances very slightly over the Acts of the Apostles of the contrary party. The same author (St. Luke) is presumed to have composed his gospel from the notes furnished him by St. Paul, though he had neither known nor seen Jesus Christ.

Faustus, the Manichean, said on the subject of the gospels, "that they had been composed a long time after the Apostles, by some obscure individuals, who fearing that faith would not be given to histories of facts with which they must have been unacquainted, published under the name of the Apostles their own writings, so filled with mistakes and discordant relations and opinions, that we can find in them neither connection nor agreement with themselves."

A little further on he loudly accuses his adversaries, who had the credit of being orthodox, and says to them, "It is thus that predecessors have inserted in the writings of our Lord many things which, though they bear his name, do not # at all agree with his doctrine. That is not surprising since we have often proved that these things have not been written by himself nor by his Apostles, but that for the greater part they are founded on tales, on vague reports, and collected by I know not who, half Jews, but little agreed among themselves, who have nevertheless published them under the name of our Lord, and thus have attributed to him their own errors and deceptions."

Origeo informs us, that Celsus exclaimed against the licence that the Christians of his time, had taken of altering many times imprudently the originals of their gospels, in order to be able to deny or to retract those things, which embarrassed them.