Now, that Christian literature, commencing not long before the middle of the second century, is full of references to what we may call a more primitive Christian literature, the writings not indeed of Christ himself, but of his apostles and earliest disciples. Those writings were held in great veneration, as giving the original and authentic report of what Christ was, of what he said and did, of the truth which he brought into the world, of a reconciliation to be effected through him between human souls and God, and of the plan and hope which he inaugurated for the renovation of the world. We may, without any absurdity or contradiction, suppose those primitive writings to have been lost, and the religion of which they were the original and authentic record to have come down to us in the living tradition of the Church, in formularies of doctrine or of worship, in rules of government and discipline, and in the writings of the Christian fathers from about the middle of the second century. But what a loss would that have been! what a loss to history! what a loss to Christianity! How diligently would old libraries in Europe, and older monasteries in Arabian and Lybian deserts, be explored and ransacked in the hope of finding those primitive documents of the Christian religion! History, patiently tracing back the greatest of all revolutions to its origin, would say, "We can spare the lost books of Livy and of Tacitus; but give us those lost books in which the 'perverse, unbounded, deadly superstition,' as the Romans called it, portrayed itself at its beginning, and recorded its own earliest conflicts and victories." Earnest and inquiring believers would say, "Give us those lost books; let us have our Christianity, not from the fathers, but from those apostles and evangelists to whose writings the fathers are continually referring us, not as defined and wrought into systems by theologians, nor as formulated by councils, but as it was first received from Christ himself, as it was first revealed in the story of his life and of his death, as it was first written down by men whom he had personally taught and commissioned."

Suppose now, that, as has happened in respect to other books long lost, those books, the primitive documents of Christianity, after having been lost for centuries, are at last recovered. Only a few years ago, an enthusiastic scholar, travelling in search of ancient manuscripts, was so happy as to find in a convent on Mount Sinai a copy of the New Testament, written, as indubitable indications prove, full fifteen hundred years ago, a volume so ancient, that the eyes of Constantine or of Athanasius might have looked upon it. If that "Sinaitic manuscript," when discovered, had been the only extant copy of the primitive Christian documents, it is not difficult to imagine what would have been the importance of the discovery, both in its relation to the earliest history of Chris

tianity, and in its relation to Christianity itself as a divinely revealed religion. Think with what carefulness the precious book would be transcribed and edited for scholars! how many translations of it would be made, that Christians everywhere might read, every man in his own language, the original and authentic record concerning Christ and his work and kingdom! what treasures of learning would be expended in the illustration of it! what commentaries would be made for all sorts of readers, and for various uses, historical, doctrinal, practical, and devotional! Think how the venerable writings of the fathers, from Justin Martyr downward, would be compared with these more venerable writings, so much nearer to the head-spring of the river of the water of life! how the theological systems of this nineteenth-century Christianity would be brought into comparison with what Paul and John and Peter and the Master himself taught concerning God and the way of life! what identities and resemblances would be traced out, or what contrasts would be shown, between the various fabrics of church polity now extant, and the societies of "holy persons in Christ Jesus, with the overseers and servants," when Christianity was new! how the accepted maxims of Christian morality, and the ordinary standards of Christian character, would be tested by comparing them with what was expected and what was demanded of those who were called Christians in the reigns of Claudius and of Nero! what diligence would be employed to ascertain how far the Christian consciousness in our day, with all that believing souls now experience of the power of godliness, is accordant with the Christian consciousness of the apostles, and with their experience of what they preached as the power of God to salvation!

Just such is the actual value, such the use we ought to make, and are making, of the writings included in the New Testament; for our supposition only helps us to realize more freshly a very familiar fact. These writings purport to give us the testimony of personal witnesses concerning the origin of what is to-day one of the most important elements in the history and condition of the world. With these writings in our hands, we know how and where the Christian religion had its beginning; what obstacles it encountered and overcame; by what means, and by what concurrent forces in the providence of God, it was diffused through the civilized world; how it happened to attract so early the attention of the Roman Government; and what its relations were to the Jewish people, and to their immemorial and most peculiar religion. Thus the few documents contained in the New Testament enable us to fill up what, without them, would have been a mysterious and hopeless blank in the history of mankind. At the same time, they have for us another and greater value. They bring us historically nearer to the person of Christ than we can be brought by any possible help without them.

They give us his words as his nearest friends and daily companions caught them from his lips. They show us what impression his unique person made on his immediate disciples, both by all that they heard from him, and by all that they saw in him; what place he held in their religious consciousness, and in all their thinking about the reconciliation between God and men; what place he held in their most reverent yet most tender affection, in their self-sacrificing zeal, in their immortal hope; what they thought of him, and what they said about him, when he had passed away from among them. As we read these writings, we find ourselves brought into the circle nearest to Christ, among his earliest disciples. We sit among those who listened to the Sermon on the Mount. We are with the twelve as they learn from his parables, so slowly, what he teaches so patiently concerning the kingdom of God among men. We are with them on the Lake of Galilee, at Jacob's Well, in the house of the sisters at Bethany, in the grand porches of the Temple. We sit with them on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the city while he foretells its destruction. We are with them in the upper room where he keeps his last passover; and we go out with them, under the full moon, into the garden. We look through their eyes upon his cross and his tomb. We share in their amazement at his resurrection. We stand with them, gazing upward, while a cloud receives him out of their sight. Then we are with them in their consultations, waiting and praying, till they are summoned to their work so humble, and yet so august. As we follow them, we presently lose sight of them. The work they are doing is greater than they are: it overshadows them, and they disappear. It is not for their sake that the story is told, but for Christ's sake. It is of little moment to us that the New Testament gives no complete biography of any apostle, never tells us where Paul died, or Peter, or John, or any of the twelve, save Judas the betrayer, and James the son of Zebedee; but, what is of great moment to us, it does tell us what they thought of Jesus, and what the gospel was which he gave them for the world. We might like to know all about the apostles, where they severally labored, and how they died, as apocryphal legends falsely report; but what the New Testament tells is far better than any thing could be which it does not tell.

We may use a story as an illustration, without vouching for it as true. Many years ago, it is said, there was published in Ireland, with the design of making an impression on Roman-Catholic readers, a little tract purporting to be "A Genuine Letter from St. Peter." It was read by many, and heard by many who could not read, with eager and reverent curiosity. Nor was there any deception in the case. The little tract was just what it purported to be, "A Genuine Letter from St. Peter." It was simply the First Epistle of Peter, taken from the New

Testament; and the reading or hearing of it was almost like sitting down with the holy apostle himself to hear him talk to Christians about Christ and salvation. Just such is the privilege which we have in reading the primitive documents of Christianity. Would you count it a privilege to hear from John the apostle? You have before you three very characteristic letters from him, one of them quite extended; and, what is more, he has written down for you in his old age, and you have received from him, his oft-repeated stories of things which he remembered about Jesus, but which had not till then been written. In like manner, you have two letters from Peter, "epistles general," or "catholic," they are called, one of them addressed, comprehensively, to the "strangers" or sojourners, "chosen," "sanctified," "obedient," and "sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ," who were dispersed through those northern districts of Asia Minor, where Pliny, forty years afterward, found so many Christians; the other inscribed in yet more general terms "to them who have obtained like precious faith with us." We need not name all the writers whom this one little volume of the New Testament brings into direct communication with us; but we cannot refrain from mentioning distinctly the characteristic letters of Paul, that great apostle, whose labors were so abundant, whose missionary journeys had so wide a circuit, and whose writings, whether addressed to individual friends or to communities of Christians, are so full of his individual life, throbbing, as it were, in every sentence, with the intensity of his Christian thought and feeling.

But are these documents really what they are supposed to be? Intelligent readers are aware that this question has been discussed with great learning and diligence on both sides, and, on the part of some writers, with great audacity of conjecture and assertion. A full consideration of the evidences which go to prove that we have in the New Testament the primitive and authentic documents of the Christian religion, and that such documents taken together, as we find them, could not have come into being otherwise than contemporaneously with the origin of that religion, would be impracticable within the limits of this Preliminary Dissertation. Yet a few thoughts may be suggested which the readers of "The Life and Epistles of St. Paul" will find occasion to appreciate and to verify.

I. First of all, the remarkable fact, already referred to, that these documents do not give us the means of tracing the life of any apostle to its end, and that neither Paul nor any one of the original twelve (save Judas, and James the brother of John) is mentioned or alluded to in the New Testament as dead, cannot but impress an unprejudiced mind. The earliest authentic Christian

writing, outside of the New Testament (a letter from the church at Rome to the church at Corinth, written by Clement, "whose name is in the book of life")," mentions the deaths of Paul and Peter in a very natural way. How does it happen that neither the death of Paul nor that of Peter is mentioned in any of the New-Testament writings? We may raise a more particular question on this point. It has been said that the historical book called "The Acts of the Apostles" was not written by Luke, the companion of Paul, but was put together by some unknown compiler of traditions in the latter part of the second century; and that the "most excellent Theophilus," to whom it is inscribed, was none other than Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch from A.D. 168 to A.D. 183. But, on that supposition, how does it happen that the book terminates abruptly, leaving Paul still a prisoner in his own hired house at Rome two years after his arrival there? Could not the compiler of traditions, when that apostle had been dead a hundred years, find some tradition that would enable him to carry on the story? What became of the appeal to Cæsar? Did the appellant have a trial? or did he remain a prisoner till his death? Surely such a termination of the story would have been impossible at any date subsequent to the death of Paul. But if the book was written, as it purports to have been, by one who was with Paul on the journey, and arrived with him at Rome; and if the Gospel according to Luke, and then this book, its sequel, were written while the prisoner was waiting for his trial,—there is the best possible reason for such a breaking-off without ending the story; and that is the only reason that can be conceived of without violating all probability. The narrative is brought down to a point very near the date at which the writing was ended.

May not the fact, then, that in these collected writings the apostles disappear without our knowing what became of them, be taken as proof that they were, in their origin, contemporaneous with the apostles? Had there been time for tradition concerning the apostles to grow into fable, and for a halo of myth to form itself around each saintly name, the story of what they did, and whither they went, and where and how they died, could not have been left so imperfect as we have it in the New Testament.

II. The attention of biblical scholars was long ago arrested by a certain peculiarity of language or style, which, in one degree or another, characterizes all the New-Testament writings. It can hardly be denied that the entire volume was written by Hellenist Jews; that is, by persons who used the Greek language with Hebrew idioms. Of course, then, it was written when the Christian community, for whose use at the first these writings were designed, consisted 2 Clem. Rom. i. 5.

1 Phil. iv. 3.