The Lost Gospel and Its Contents by Michael F. Sadler (most popular ebook readers TXT) 📖

if he had never entertained the idea before, a very short conversation with an Alexandrian Jew would have furnished him with all the "philosophy" required to make the four statements in which he simply identifies the Logos with the Divine Nature of his Lord.

Of course, I do not for a moment believe that the Apostle was enabled to write the exordium of his Gospel by any such inspiration. There is not a more direct utterance of the Holy Spirit in all Scripture than that which we have in the prelude to the Fourth Gospel.

But in the eyes of a Christian the grace of the Holy Spirit is shown in the power and explicitness, and above all in the simplicity of the assertions which identify the human conception, if such it can be called, of Platonism, or Judaism, with the highest divine truth.

I believe that if the Apostle wrote those sentences at the time handed down by the Church's tradition, that is, when Cerinthian and other heresies respecting our Lord's nature were beginning to be felt, the power of the Holy Spirit was put forth to restrict him to these few simple utterances, and to restrain his human intellect from overloading them with philosophical or controversial applications of them, which would have marred their simplicity and diminished their power. [117:1]


SECTION XIX.

EXTERNAL PROOFS OF THE AUTHENTICITY OF OUR FOUR GOSPELS.


We have now shown that Justin Martyr, the principal witness brought forward by the author of "Supernatural Religion" to discredit the Four Evangelists, either made use of the very books which we now possess, or books which contain exactly the same information respecting our Lord's miraculous Birth, Death, Resurrection, and moral teaching. We have seen, also, that Justin gives us, along with the teaching of the Synoptics, that peculiar teaching respecting the pre-existent Divine nature of Jesus which, as far as can be ascertained, was to be found only in the Fourth Gospel, and which is consequently called Johannean; and that, besides this, he refers to the history, and adopts the language, and urges the arguments which are to be found only in St. John.

We have also shown that there are no internal considerations whatsoever for supposing that Justin did not make use of the Fourth Gospel. Instead, for instance, of the doctrine of St. John being a development of that held by Justin Martyr, the facts of the case all point to the contrary.

We must now see whether there is external evidence which makes it not only probable, but as certain as any fact in literary history can be, that Justin must have known and made use of our present Evangelists; that if he was a teacher in such an acknowledged centre of ecclesiastical information or tradition as Rome, and appears to quote our Gospels (with no matter what minor variations and inaccuracies), he did actually quote the same and no other; and if his inaccuracies, and discrepancies, and omissions of what we suppose he ought to have mentioned, were doubled or trebled, it would still be as certain as any fact of such a nature can be, that he quoted the Four Evangelists, because they must have been read and commented on in his day and in his church as the Memoirs of the Apostles, which took their place by the side of the prophets of the Old Testament in the public instruction of the Church. In order to this I shall have to examine the external evidence for the Canon of the New Testament--so far, that is, as the Four Gospels are concerned.

In doing this I shall not take the usual method of tracing the evidence for the various books in question downwards from the Apostolic time--the reader will find this treated exhaustively in "Dr. Westcott on the Canon"--but I shall trace it upwards, beginning at a time at which there cannot be the smallest doubt that the New Testament was exactly the same as that which we now possess.

For this purpose I shall take the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius as the starting-point. The reader is, of course, aware that he is the earliest ecclesiastical writer whose history has come down to us, the historians who wrote before his time being principally known to us through fragments preserved in his book. He was born of Christian parents about the year A.D. 270, and died about 340. He probably wrote his history about or before the year 325.

The reader, though he may not have read his history, will be aware, from the quotations from it in "Supernatural Religion," that Eusebius carefully investigated the history of the Canon of Scripture, and also the succession of ecclesiastical writers. His history is, in fact, to a great extent, a sketch of early Church literature. In dealing with the history of the Canon, he particularly notices whether a large number of writers have quoted certain books of Scripture, of whose acceptance by the whole Church doubts were entertained. This is important, as it shows that not only himself, but the Church, during the three ages whose history he has recorded, did not receive books of Scripture except upon what they deemed to be sufficient evidence, and that evidence was the reception of each book from Apostolic times by the whole Church. I will now give the testimony of Eusebius to the authenticity of the Four Gospels.

First of all he describes the origin of the Gospel of St. Mark in the following words:--

"So greatly, however, did the splendour of piety enlighten the minds
of Peter's hearers, that it was not sufficient to hear but once, nor
to receive the unwritten doctrine of the Gospel of God, but they
persevered, in every variety of entreaties, to solicit Mark as the
companion of Peter, and whose Gospel we have, that he should leave
them a monument of the doctrine thus orally communicated, in
writing. Nor did they cease with their solicitations until they had
prevailed with the man, and thus become the means of that history
which is called the Gospel according to Mark. They say also, that
the Apostle (Peter), having ascertained what was done by the
revelation of the Spirit, was delighted with the zealous ardour
expressed by these men, and that the history obtained his authority
for the purpose of being read in the Churches. This account is given
by Clement in the Sixth Book of his Institutions, whose testimony
also is corroborated by that of Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis." (Bk.
ii. chap. xv. Crusé's translation.)

This is narrated as having taken place in the reign of Claudius, i.e. , between A.D. 41 and A.D. 54.

The next Gospel whose origin he describes is that of St. Luke, in the following words:--

"But Luke, who was born at Antioch, and by profession a physician,
being for the most part connected with Paul, and familiarly
acquainted with the rest of the Apostles, has left us two inspired
books, the institutes of that spiritual healing art which he
obtained from them. One of these is his Gospel, in which he
testifies that he has recorded, 'as those who were from the
beginning eye-witnesses and ministers of the word,' delivered to
him, whom also, he says, he has in all things followed. The other is
his Acts of the Apostles, which he composed, not from what he had
heard from others, but from what he had seen himself. It is also
said that Paul usually referred to his Gospel, whenever in his
Epistles he spoke of some particular Gospel of his own, saying,
'according to my Gospel.'" (Bk. iii. ch. iv. Crusé's translation.)

Further on, he describes the publication of the First and Fourth Gospels, thus:--

"Of all the disciples, Matthew and John are the only ones that have
left us recorded comments, and even they, tradition says, undertook
it from necessity. Matthew also, having first proclaimed the Gospel
in Hebrew, when on the point of going also to other nations,
committed it to writing in his native tongue, and thus supplied the
want of his presence to them by his writings. But after Mark and
Luke had already published their Gospels they say that John, who,
during all this time, was proclaiming the Gospel without writing, at
length proceeded to write it on the following occasion. The three
Gospels previously written had been distributed among all, and also
handed to him; they say that he admitted them, giving his testimony
to their truth; but that there was only wanting in the narrative the
account of the things done by Christ among the first of His deeds,
and at the commencement of the Gospel. And this was the truth. For
it is evident that the other three Evangelists only wrote the deeds
of our Lord for one year after the imprisonment of John the Baptist,
and intimated this in the very beginning of their history. For after
the fasting of forty days, and the consequent temptation, Matthew
indeed specifies the time of his history in these words, 'But,
hearing that John was delivered up, he returned from Judea into
Galilee.' Mark in like manner writes: 'But, after John was delivered
up, Jesus came into Galilee.' And Luke, before he commenced the
deeds of Jesus, in much the same way designates the time, saying,
'Herod thus added this wickedness above all he had committed, and
that he shut up John in prison.' For these reasons the Apostle John,
it is said, being entreated to undertake it, wrote the account of
the time not recorded by the former Evangelists, and the deeds done
by our Saviour, which they have passed by (for these were the events
that occurred before the imprisonment of John), and this very fact
is intimated by him when he says, 'This beginning of miracles Jesus
made,' and then proceeds to make mention of the Baptist, in the
midst of our Lord's deeds, as John was at that time 'baptizing at
Aenon, near to Salim.' He plainly also shows this in the words,
'John was not yet cast into prison.' The Apostle, therefore, in his
Gospel, gives the deeds of Jesus before the Baptist was cast into
prison, but the other three Evangelists mention the circumstances
after