ters of the second century are scanty, and are of such a character that, assuming the genuineness of the Gospels, we have really no reason to expect more definite references to their writers, and more numerous quotations from or allusions to them than we actually do find or seem to find. A few letters, as the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, now made complete by the discovery of a new MS. and of a Syriac version of it; the Epistle ascribed to Barnabas, now complete in the original; the short Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, and the Epistles (of very doubtful genuineness) attributed to Ignatius; an allegorical work, the Shepherd of Hermas, which nowhere quotes either the Old Testament or the New; a curious romance, the Clementine Homilies; and the writings of the Christian Apologists, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Theophilus, Athenagoras, Hermias, who, in addressing heathens, could not be expected to talk about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which would be to them names without significance, these few documents constitute nearly all the literature of the period. As we should not expect the Gospels to be quoted by name in the writings of the Apologists, though we do find John expressly mentioned by Theophilus, so in such a discussion as that of Justin Martyr with Trypho the Jew, Justin could not cite in direct proof of his doctrines works the authority of which the Jew would not recognize, though he might use them, as he does, in attestation of historic facts which he regarded as fulfilling prophecies of the Old Testament.

The author of Supernatural Religion, in discussing the evidence of the use of our present Gospels in the first three quarters of the second century, proceeds on two assumptions: one, that in the first half of this century vast numbers of spurious Gospels and other writings bearing the names of Apostles and their followers were in circulation in the early Church; and the other, that we have a right to expect great accuracy of quotation from the Christian Fathers, especially when they introduce the words of Christ with such a formula as "he said" or "he taught." Now this last assumption admits of being thoroughly tested, and it

contradicts the most unquestionable facts. Instead of such accuracy of quotation as is assumed as the basis of his argument, it is beyond all dispute that the Fathers often quote very loosely, from memory, abridging, transposing, paraphrasing, amplifying, substituting synonymous words or equivalent expressions, combining different passages together, and occasionally mingling their own inferences with their citations. In regard to the first assumption, a careful sifting of the evidence will show, I believe, that there is really no proof that in the time of Justin Martyr (with the possible exception of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which in its primitive form may have been the Hebrew original from which our present Greek Gospel ascribed to Matthew was mainly derived) there was a single work, bearing the title of a Gospel, which as a history of Christ's ministry came into competition with our present four Gospels, or which took the place among Christians which our Gospels certainly held in the last quarter of the second century. Much confusion. has arisen from the fact that the term "Gospel" was in ancient times applied to speculative works which gave the writer's view of the Gospel, i.e., of the doctrine of Christ, or among the Gnostics, which set forth their gnosis; e.g., among the followers of Basilides, Hippolytus tells us, "the Gospel" is ἡ τῶν ὑπερκοσμίων γνῶσις, “ the knowledge of supermundane things" (Ref. Hær. vii. 27). Again, the apocryphal Gospels of the Nativity and the Infancy, or such works as the so-called Gospel of Nicodemus, describing the descent of Christ into Hades, have given popular currency to the idea that there were floating about in the middle of the second century a great number of Gospels, rival histories of Christ's ministry; which these apocryphal Gospels, however, are not and do not pretend to be. Other sources of confusion, as the blunders of writers like Epiphanius, I pass over. Το enter into a discussion and elucidation of this subject here is of course impossible: I will only recommend the reading of Mr. Norton's full examination of it in the third volume of his Genuineness of the Gospels, which needs, to be sure, a little supplementing, but the main positions of which I believe to be impregnable.

Resting on these untenable assumptions, the author of Supernatural Religion subjects this early fragmentary literature to a minute examination, and explains away what seem to be quotations from or references to our present Gospels in these different works as borrowed from some of the multitudinous Gospels which he assumes to have been current among the early Christians, especially if these quotations and references do not present a perfect verbal correspondence with our present Gospels, as is the case with the great majority of them. Even if the correspondence is verbally exact, this proves nothing, in his view; for the quotations of the words of Jesus might be borrowed from other current Gospels which resembled ours as much as Matthew, Mark, and Luke resemble each other. But, if the verbal agreement is not exact, we have in his judgment a strong proof that the quotations are derived from some apocryphal book. So he comes to the conclusion that there is no certain trace of the existence of our present Gospels for about one hundred and fifty years after the death of Christ; i.e., we will say, till about A.D. 180.

But here a question naturally arises: How is it, if no trace of their existence is previously discoverable, that our four Gospels are suddenly found toward the end of the second century to be received as sacred books throughout the whole Christian world? His reply is, "It is totally unnecessary for me to account for this."* He stops his investigation of the subject just at the point where we have solid facts, not conjectures, to build upon. When he comes out of the twilight into the full blaze of day, he shuts his eyes, and refuses to see anything. Such a procedure cannot be satisfactory to a sincere inquirer after the truth. The fallacy of this mode of reasoning is so well illustrated by Mr. Norton, that I must quote a few sentences. He says:

About the end of the second century the Gospels were reverenced as sacred books by a community dispersed over the world, composed of men of different nations and languages. There were, to say the least, sixty thousand copies of them in existence; † they were read in the

*Supernatural Religion, 6th edition (1875), and 7th edition (1879), vol. i. p. ix. (Preface.) † See Norton's Genuineness of the Gospels, 2d ed., i. 45-54.

churches of Christians; they were continually quoted, and appealed to, as of the highest authority; their reputation was as well established among believers from one end of the Christian community to the other, as it is at the present day among Christians in any country. But it is asserted that before that period we find no trace of their existence; and it is, therefore, inferred that they were not in common use, and but little known, even if extant in their present form. This reasoning is of the same kind as if one were to say that the first mention of Egyptian Thebes is in the time of Homer. He, indeed, describes it as a city which poured a hundred armies from its hundred gates; but his is the first mention of it, and therefore we have no reason to suppose that, before his time, it was a place of any considerable note.*

As regards the general reception of the four Gospels in the last quarter of the second century, however, a slight qualification is to be made. Some time in the latter half of the second century, the genuineness of the Gospel of John was denied by a few eccentric individuals (we have no ground for supposing that they formed a sect), whom Epiphanius (Hær. li., comp. liv.) calls Alogi (Ahoyo), a nickname which has the double meaning of "deniers of the doctrine of the Logos," and "men without reason." They are probably the same persons as those of whom Irenæus speaks in one passage (Hær. iii. 11. § 9), but to whom he gives no name. But the fact that their difficulty with the Gospel was a doctrinal one, and that they appealed to no tradition in favor of their view; that they denied the Johannean authorship of the Apocalypse likewise, and absurdly ascribed both books to Cerinthus, who, unless all our information about him is false, could not possibly have written the Fourth Gospel, shows that they were persons of no critical judgment. Zeller admits (Theol. Fahrb. 1845, p. 645) that their opposition does not prove that the Gospel was not generally regarded in their time as of Apostolic origin. The fact that they ascribed the Fourth Gospel to Cerinthus, a heretic of the first century, contemporary with the Apostle John, shows that they could not pretend that this Gospel was a recent work.

Further, while the Gnostics generally agreed with the

Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, second edition, vol. i. pp. 195, 196.

Catholic Christians in receiving the four Gospels, and especially the Gospel of John, which the Valentinians, as Irenæus tells us, used plenissime (Hær. iii. 11. § 7), the Marcionites are an exception. They did not, however, question the genuineness of the Gospels, but regarded their authors as under the influence of Jewish prejudices. Marcion therefore rejected all but Luke, the Pauline Gospel, and cut out from this whatever he deemed objectionable. We may note here, incidentally, that the author of Supernatural Religion, in the first six editions of his work, contended, in opposition to the strongest evidence, that Marcion's Gospel, instead of being, as all ancient testimony represents it, a mutilated Luke, was the earlier, original Gospel, of which Luke's was a later amplification. This theory was started by Semler, that varium, mutabile et mirabile capitulum, as he is called by a German writer (Matthæi, N. T. Gr., i. 687); and after having been adopted by Eichhorn and many German critics was so thoroughly refuted by Hilgenfeld in 1850, and especially by Volkmar in 1852, that it was abandoned by the most eminent of its former supporters, as Ritschl, Zeller, and partially by Baur. But individuals differ widely in their power of resisting evidence opposed to their prejudices, and the author of Supernatural Religion has few equals in this capacity. We may therefore feel that something in these interminable discussions is settled, when we note the fact that he has at last surrendered. His conversion is due to Dr. Sanday, who in an article in the Fortnightly Review (June, 1875, p. 855, ff.), reproduced in substance in his work on The Gospels in the Second Century, introduced the linguistic argument, showing that the very numerous and remarkable peculiarities of language and style which characterize the parts of Luke which Marcion retained are found so fully and completely in those which he rejected as to render diversity of authorship utterly incredible.

But to return to our first point, the unquestioned reception of our present Gospels throughout the Christian world in the last quarter of the second century, and that, I add, without the least trace of any previous controversy on the