The Gospel records: their genuineness, authenticity, historic verity, and inspiration, with some preliminary remarks on the Gospel history

Front matter

THEIR

GENUINENESS, AUTHENTICITY, HISTORIC VERITY, AND INSPIRATION,

WITH SOME

Chapter I. The History Of The Text

§ 2. The Change of the Original Text with regard to its outward

Appearance 13

§ 3. Some General Remarks on the Existing Manuscripts of the

New Testament 16

§ 4. A Consideration of the Variety of Readings presented by the

Manuscripts of the New Testament 20

Chapter II

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SUCCESS IN AX ESSEXTIAL MUTILATION OR CORRUPTIOX OF THE GOSPEL RECORD.

§ 5. Argument from the Agreement of the Respective Copies of

the Four Gospels 27

§6. Arguments drawn from Other Considerations 33

Part II

THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPEL RECORDS. § 7. Introductory Remarks 45

CHAPTER I.

THE OUTWARD HISTORICAL TESTIMONIES.

§8. The Testimony of the Apostolic Fathers 47

§ 9. The Testimony of the Fathers in the Sub-Apostolic Age,

6 CONTENTS.

PAGE.

§ 10. The Formation of a Canon of the universally-acknowledged Books of the New Testament at the Close of the Second

Century 78

§ 11. The Early Versions of the New Testament 85

§ 12. The Testimony of Heretical and Apocryphal Writings 91

§ 13. The Testimony of Heathen Adversaries 120

CHAPTER II.

THE INTERNAL EVIDENCES.

§ 14. The Peculiar Dialect of Greek in which the Evangelists

have written 125

§ 15. Some other Characteristics of the Style in which the Gospels

are written 138

§ 16. The Frequent Allusions of the Evangelists to the History of

their Times 141

§ 17. The Kelation of the Four Gospels to Each Other and to the

Acts of the Apostles 162

§ 18. The Authenticity of the Gospels — a Postulate of Reason, as it alone accounts for the Existence of the Christian Church, and for some of Paul's Epistles, whose authenticity is universally admitted 167

§ 19. The Absurdity of the Mythical Theory 197

Part III

THE HISTORIC VERITY OF THE GOSPEL RECORDS. § 20. Introductory Remarks 199

CHAPTER I.

A CONSIDERATION OF THE OBJECTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN RAISED AGAINST THE CREDIBILITY OF THE EVANGELISTS.

§ 21. The Alleged Discrepancies or Contradictions in the Four

Gospels 200

§ 22. The Assumption that Miracles are Impossible and Unsusceptible of Proof 205

§ 23. The Alleged Lack of Sufficient Testimony by Profane

Writers 219

CONTENTS. 7

CHAPTER II.

THE CREDIBILITY OF THE EVANGELISTS.

PAGE.

§ 24. The Evangelists were in a Condition to inform themselves accurately and thoroughly concerning the Things which they Record 224

§ 25. The Evangelists exhibit in their Narratives no Symptoms of Mental Derangement which might have made them Victims of Delusion 225

J 26. The Evangelists can not be charged with having had any Motive or Design to impose upon the World a Report of what, if it did not take place, they must have known to be false 227

Chapter III

THE DIVINE SEAL STAMPED UPON THE GOSPEL HISTORY BY ITS SUBJECT — THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST.

J 27. The Verity of the Gospel History best accredited by the Personality of Jesus Christ 231

# 28. The admitted Outer Conditions of the Life of Jesus — leaving its astounding Results, as well as the unlimited Scope of the Mind of Jesus and the Perfect Symmetry of his Character, utterly inexplicable, without the admission of a Supernatural and Divine Element 235

§ 29. The Sinlessness of Jesus — the Idea of which could not have been Conceived by the Evangelists, if they had not seen it actualized in his Life — incontestably proving that he was not a mere Man 256

§ 30. The Miracles Wrought on and Performed by Jesus, the Natural and Necessary Outflow of his historically-proved Personality, and, at the same time, the Ground and "Warrant of all other true Miracles Preceding and Succeeding his Appearance on Earth 290

Part IV

THE ATTACKS OF MODERN CRITICISM ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS.

§ 31. The Relation which the Authenticity and Credibility of the

Gospel Records bear to their Inspiration 305

8 CONTENTS.

PAGE.

§ 32. The Peculiar Agreement and Disagreement of the first three Evangelists in their Narratives, and the Various Explanations of this Singular Phenomenon 309

§ 33. A Consideration of the Inspired Character of the Synoptical Gospels on the Ground of their being chiefly the Result of the Oral Teaching of the Apostles 327

Part V. Remarks On The Gospel History

§ 34. The Condition of the World, Jewish, Greek, and Roman, at

the Advent of Christ 349

§ 35. The Chronology and Harmony of the Gospel Narratives 362

A. The Date of the Birth of Christ 364

B. The Duration of our Lord's Ministry, and the Date of his Death 369

PAET I.

THE GENUINENESS OR INTEGRITY OF THE SACRED TEXT.

THE

GOSPEL RECORDS.

Part I. The Genuineness Oh Integrity Oe The Sacred Text

§1. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

It is to be regretted that nearly all English writers on the Evidences are in the habit of using the words "genuine" and "authentic" as synonyms, and sometimes even of attaching to the word "authentic" the popular sense of "true" or "credible," by which the whole argumentation is obscured. A book is to be called genuine, if it has remained in all material points the same as it was when it proceeded from its author. It is authentic, if it has proceeded at all from the person whose name it bears, or, where the name of the author was not assigned with certainty at the time of its origin, if it originated at the time and under the circumstances it professes to have done. A book may be genuine and authentic, and yet its contents may lack credibility.

We propose, in the order named, to inquire into the

genuineness, the authenticity, and the credibility of

the Gospel records, and then to consider their inspired

character. The object of Part I is to show that the J 11 text of the four canonical Gospels has been preserved in its integrity — is genuine or uncorrupted. The investigation into the genuineness or integrity of the inspired writings is legitimate and of great importance. For though we may have the most satisfactory proofs that they proceeded at first from the apostles or evangelists whose names they bear, they may have been so altered since that time as to convey to us very false information with regard to their original contents. It is admitted on all hands that the original manuscripts disappeared at a very early time, owing to the frailty of the material on which the apostles wrote, and to the frequent use which was made of them by being read in the Churches and constantly transcribed, and that, in common with all other ancient writings, the original text of the New Testament has been exposed to the accidents to which all works preserved by transcription are liable. We will, therefore, consider, first, the history of the text, as the German writers call it — that is, the changes to which the original was unavoidably subjected in the process of transcription — and then prove that all these changes have not impaired the integrity of the original.

Chapter I. The History Of The Text

§ 2. The Change of the Original Text with regard to its Outward Appearance.

Inasmuch as our present mode of publishing books is very different from that of ancient times, we can not but expect that the outward appearance of the original text underwent great changes by being transcribed from century to century, and a consideration of these external changes claims our attention first. The following points are of general interest :

1. The authors of the Xew Testament used the charta — 6 yaprr^, 2 John, 12 — paper made of layers of the papyrus, a plant that was very common in Egypt. Of this paper there were, in the apostles' times, several kinds in use, differing from each other in strength and durability. Of the existing manuscripts, however, none are written on papyrus, but on vellum or parchment and on paper of later origin. Yellum was the most durable, but also the most costly material. The manuscripts on paper are of a date posterior to the seventh century.

2. As to the external form of the manuscripts, the ancients made use of rolls in their writings; yet as this form was unhandy in several respects, the custom arose to write on large sheets, which were folded up like maps in an atlas, four, five, six, or eight fold, of different sizes. This is the form of all manuscripts extant.

3. The Greek manuscripts were mostly written without division of words, in capital letters — which, in the time of Jerome, were called uncials — till the ninth century, when the so-called cursive handwriting — that is, writing with small letters, and capitals only at the head of certain words — came into use, as requiring less space and being better adapted for fast writing. The separation of words from each other by a point or empty space did not become general before the ninth century.

4. Punctuation marks were seldom used by the ancients. The numerous mistakes of the fathers, or their uncertainty, how particular passages were to be read and understood, clearly prove that there was no regular or accustomed system of punctuation in use in the fourth century. Toward the middle of the fifth century Euthalius, of Alexandria, wrote the Pauline epistles, and afterward the Gospels, stichometrically ; that is, in lines regulated by the sense, so that each terminated where some pause was to be made; when the line was not filled, the remainder was, at first, left empty, but afterward, in order to save space, it was filled up, and a point was made to indicate the pause. The lines of tbe books were generally numbered and the number marked at the end. Although some full points are to be found in the Codex Alexandrinus, the Codex Yaticanus, and the Codex Bezse — as they also are in inscriptions four hundred years before the Christian era — yet there is abundant evidence that our present system of Greek punctuation was not fully adopted before the ninth century.

5. The same remarks apply to the accents, spiritus — breathings— and the so-called iota subscriptum. The accents were gradually introduced. Some of the oldest manuscripts have them, others not, and it is only toward the end of the tenth century that they became general. The rough breathing — spiritus asper — was anciently a full letter in the form of the Latin H, and so it is found on monuments — e. gr., Ho>=6t. Afterward the first half of the letter (I) was used for the rough breathing, and the other half (I) for the smooth breathing, and from these two signs the modern form of breathings (") arose. According to the oldest manuscripts, it seems that the writers of the New Testament did not use these two signs, at least not uniformly. The iota subscription was anciently written as a letter in the line — iota postscriptum — afterward entirely omitted, but came into general use as iota subscription with the introduction of the cursive characters. Whether a word was originally meant for aur-fi, &uttj, or avzrj, must be determined by the context alone.

6. Our present division of the sacred text into chapters and verses is of still more recent date. The first general division was made in the thirteenth century, in all probability, by the Cardinal Hugo Carensis, and the latter by Eobert Stephanus in 1551, after a variety of other divisions had been in partial use before. Tertullian already speaks of capitula in portions of the New Testament Scriptures. But this division did neither extend over all the books of the New Testament, nor was it in general use, as far as it went. In early use was the division into xe<pdXaca, portions much smaller than our chapters and larger than our verses. The Gospel of Matthew had 355 such ze<pdAata, that of Mark 234, that of Luke 341, that of John 231, altogether 1,162. This division was introduced by Ammonius, of Alexandria, in his Gospel Harmony — to tied T£<j<jdpu)v koyyihov — and afterward completed by Eusebius. A later division was that into rirloi — tituli — introduced in the fifth century. The Gospel of Matthew was divided into 68, that of Mark into 48, that of Luke into 83, and that of John into 18 such tituli. Our present division has, of course, no claims whatever to the authority of the text, and being, in a number of instances, certainly faulty, the reader must take care not to be misled by it; yet, as it is in universal use, and is of great advantage for the purpose of reference, it is not expedient to make a change. Besides the older divisions, which we have named, selections of the New Testament Scriptures — pericopce — were made for the public reading on each Sunday in the ecclesiastical year. The time and manner of their introduction are uncertain. Those from the Acts and the Epistles were probably first introduced by Euthalius; but those from the Gospels were undoubtedly earlier, at least in the Latin Church. These selections were often bound up separately, in their regular order, and are also of moment in Biblical criticism.

7. The inscriptions or titles of the various books of the New Testament, it is generally admitted, were not originally written by the apostles, but were subsequently added as the seal which the Church stamped upon them in settling the canon. The subscriptions annexed to some of the Epistles are manifestly spurious. They are altogether wanting in some ancient manuscripts of the best note, and in others they are greatly varied. Some contain false assertions.

£ 3. Some General Remarks on the Existing Manuscripts.

1. The autographs — manuscripts of the New Testament which were written either by the apostles themselves or by amanuenses under their immediate inspection, (Bom. xvi, 22; Gal. vi, 11; 2 Thess. iii, 17; 1 Cor. xvi, 21,) have long since peiushed, and we have no information whatever concerning their history. It has been thought that Ignatius and Tertullian appealed to them. Ignatius in his letter to the Philadelphia's says that he heard some say: "If I do not find it & rots ap%aioiq, I do not believe it in the Gospel;" but ra apy^aia can here mean only the Old Testament writings, since the context shows, that the objection quoted came from Judaizers, who were unwilling to believe any thing in the Gospels that was not contained in the Old Testament. Tertullian appeals to the autenticce liter ce of the apostles as being read at his time in the Churches at Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus, etc. From this passage it might seem as if the autographs were referred to ; but from another passage in the same author it plainly appears, that not autographs, but correct copies of them, in the original language, made and preserved by the respective Churches, were meant. If the autographs had existed at that time, the Church fathers would certainly have appealed to them in their controversies with the heretics on the genuineness of disputed passages.

2. No existing manuscript of the New Testament can be traced higher than the fourth century. The number of manuscripts that have thus far become known is about seven hundred. They belong to different centuries, from the fifth, perhaps the fourth, down to the sixteenth, and are accordingly written in different characters, the oldest in uncials, by far the most in cursive letters, partly without, partly with divisions into words and sections, with or without accents, and with punctuation marks of different kinds. These very points, the shape of the letters, the material, and orthography furnish the principal data for determining the time and country, when and where the manuscripts were made. Sometimes other internal data are furnished by the manuscripts, giving, in a few instances, the name of the copyist and the year when the manuscript was made, or containing menologies, in which the festival days of the saints are mentioned, on which certain portions of Scripture are to be read in the Churches. As these menologies often designate such days as were celebrated in honor of certain saints from otherwise known dates, in certain countries, they furnish important data for determining the time and place when and where the manuscript was made.

3. Very few manuscripts contain the whole either of the Old or of the New Testament. By far the greater part — five hundred — have only the four Gospels, because they were most frequently read in the Churches; two hundred the Acts and catholic epistles; three hundred the Pauline epistles, and one hundred the Apocalypse. Almost all of them, especially the more ancient manuscripts, are imperfect, either from the injuries of time or from neglect. All manuscripts, the most ancient not excepted, have erasures and corrections; which, however, were not always effected so dextrously but that the original writing may sometimes be seen.

4. Before the invention of paper, the great scarcity of parchment in different places induced many persons to obliterate the works of ancient writers, in order to write in their place another work. Such manuscripts are termed Codices Palimpsesti or Bescripti. In general, a Codex Bescriptus is easily known, as it rarely happens that the former writing is so completely erased as not to exhibit some traces ; in a few instances both writings are legible. Very valuable discoveries have been made in these rewritten manuscripts.

5. Besides the manuscripts which contain the whole New Testament, or certain books of it in full, there are others which contain only the selections or pericopce; they are called Codices Ecclesiastici or Lectionaria. These selections were often prefaced with some remarks respecting the day on which they were to be read, and such remarks have, in some instances, crept into the text.

6. Some manuscripts have not only the Greek text, but are accompanied with a version, which is either interlined or in a parallel column ; these are called Codices Bilingues. The greatest number is in Greek and Latin; and the Latin version is, in general, one of those which existed before the time of Jerome.

7. A comparative description of the different manuscripts, and an account of the various critical methods adopted to arrange them in certain classes or families, can be of interest and profit only to the professional scholar, but does not lie within our scope, and is to be sought in the special works on Biblical Text Criticism. Yet a few words of explanation may be expected by the general reader on the critical references of various readings, which he will find in the footnotes of the text in the author's Commentary. The manuscripts in uncials have, since Wetstein, been designated with the cajrital letters of the Latin alphabet, and where these do not suffice, with the Greek capitals; those in cursive characters — minuscles — with the common Arabic ciphers. But as the manuscripts of both kinds — the uncial and cursive — are divided into four classes, namely, into codices, containing the Gospels, the Acts and catholic epistles, the Pauline epistles, and the Apocalypse, both the capital letters and ciphers commence in them four times anew. Thus, a codex, that contains the whole New Testament, comes up in the four classes with the capital or cipher peculiar to each class. As these two marks, capitals and ciphers, often vary in the different classes in the same manuscripts, and as new documents are constantly coming into the lists, it is necessary to notice — when they are simply quoted with their capitals or ciphers — to which book of the New Testament the quotations refer, in order to find them in the lists of the codices.

§4 A Consideration of the Variety or Readings presented by the Manuscripts of the New Testament.

Alarming as it may appear to the simple, pious Christian, to be told of fifty thousand up to one hundred and fifty thousand different readings, as they have been variously estimated, in the books of the New Testament, and much as infidels have boasted of this discovery, a slight examination of the matter will not only completely remove all apprehensions, but furnish us with the most conclusive proof that Divine Providence has provided the very best security for the integrity of the documents, upon which our faith rests.

In the first place, the number of various readings, great as it appears, is really less, in proportion, than that of the various readings extant in most classic authors, when compared with the quantity of text examined, and the number of manuscripts and other authorities collated in each particular case. Nineteen out of twenty, at least, are to be dismissed at once from consideration, because they are found in so few authorities, and their origin is so easily explained, that no critic would regard them as having any claim to be inserted in the text. Of those which remain, a very great majority are entirely unimportant. They consist in transpositions or omissions of letters, the use of different grammatical forms, the exchange of synonymous words and transpositions of words in sentences ; and a very small number affects the sense of all. Only six passages have been discovered where a vital doctrine is affected by the different readings ; but even in these instances the doctrine itself is not periled, because it is plainly taught in other passages.

The great value of the immense amount of labor, which has been expended for nearly a century upon the received text of the New Testament, consists not so much in the emendations of that text, as in establishing the fact, that the original text has been transmitted to us with remarkable integrity, that far the greater part of the variations among different copies are of no authority or of no importance, and that some of them are so trifling as not to admit of being made apparent in a translation.

The condition of the text, then, is such as we have to expect from the human agents through whom the documents were transmitted to posterity. The copyist was naturally exposed to mistakes of the eye by the unbroken current uncials — capitals; thus letters of similar form were interchanged, some words were omitted, others written twice, others transposed, and sometimes whole sentences were erroneously divided.

Those who copied from dictation — a common practice — were liable to errors by confounding sounds. Mistakes were also made, at a later period, by writing out abbreviations. Again, some words had been left out, and then were set as glosses in the margin ; the copyist wishing to restore the original text, inserted the gloss or glosses in the text, but often in the wrong place. Errors of this kind are more frequent in the manuscripts of the New Testament than in those of other ancient writings, because the former were more frequently copied than the latter, and there were, therefore, more intermediate links between the autographs and the later copies. Other corruptions of the text arose from the efforts to correct it or make it plainer by removing the peculiarities of the New Testament diction, or by the reception of glosses into the text, which had at first been written in the margin to explain a difficulty, especially in the synoptical Gospels. The higher the authority of these writings rose, the more natural became the desire of the later copyist to amend a supposed error of an earlier one. To have prevented such variations of the original text would have required such a continuous miracle on the part of God, as would not have been in accordance with God's dealings with man, nor consistent with the freedom of human agency. "They," says Dr. Hill, in his Lectures on Divinity, "who seem to think that the all-ruling providence of God should have preserved every copy of the original from any kind of vitiation, forget the extent of the miracle which they ask, when they demand, that all who ever were employed in copying the New Testament should at all times have been effectually guarded by the Spirit of God from negligence, and their works kept safe from the injuries of time. They forget, moreover, that the very circumstance to which they object has, in the wisdom of God, been highly favorable to the cause of truth. The infidel has enjoyed his triumph and has exposed his ignorance. Men of erudition have been encouraged to apply their talents to a subject which opens so large a field for their exercise. Their research and their discoveries have demonstrated the futility of the objection, and have shown that the great body of the people in every country, who are incapable of such research, may safety rest in the Scriptures as they are, and that the most scrupulous critics, by the inexhaustible sources of correction which lie open to them, may attain nearer to an absolute certainty with regard to the true reading of the books of the New Testament, than of any other ancient book in any language. If they require more, their demand is unreasonable; for the religion of Jesus does not profess to satisfy the careless, or to overpower the obstinate, but rests its pretensions upon evidence sufficient to bring conviction to those who with honest hearts inquire after the truth, and are willing to exercise their reason in attempting to discover it."

The Church was at all times enabled to ascertain, in all essential points, the true text of the New Testament writings, by means of the great number of old manuscripts of the very ancient versions, which were made from copies much nearer the original manuscripts than any that we have, and of the many quotations with which the works of the Christian fathers and other early writers abound. For a full description of these means, as well as for the rules in using them, the canons of criticism, which have been

JW~ investigated and digested by many learned men, we must again refer the reader to the elaborate works that have been written on this subject. "We will only add, that it may please Divine Providence to bring to light ancient documents, not yet discovered, an instance of which we have had but a few years ago in the discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus, by Tischendorf. However that may be, with the apparatus and the clearly-ascertained principles of criticism which we possess now, we may confidently indulge the hope of recovering the original purity of the text, where it is yet obscured. With regard to the duty of the critical examination of the correctness of the received text, the eminent English commentator, Dr. Ellicott, makes, in the recently-published "Aids to Faith," the following remarks, which must commend themselves to every candid mind : "Let the interpreter be seduced by no timidity or prejudices from ascertaining the true text. Let him not fall back upon the too often repeated statement, that, as readings affect no great points of doctrine, the subject may be left in abeyance. It is, indeed, most true, that different readings of such a character as 1 Tim. iii, 16, or interpolations such as 1 John v, 7, are few and exceptional. It is, indeed, a cause for devout thankfulness, that out of the vast number of various readings so few affect vital questions; still it is indisputably a fact, that but few pages of the New Testament can be turned over without our finding points of the greatest interest affected by very trivial variations of reading. On the presence or absence of an article in John v, 1, the whole chronology of our Lord's ministerial life may be said almost entirely to depend. A very slight alteration in

THEIR GEXCIXEXESS. 25

Hark viij 31. would indicate a fact of deep historical interest, and is of very great significance in reference alike to commands subsequently given to the apostles to preach the Gospel, and to former prohibitions. (Matt. x. 5.) The absence of two words in Eph. i — now rendered somewhat more probable by the testimony of the Codex Sinaiticus — gives a fresh aspect to an important Epistle, disposes at once of several prima facie difficulties, and. further, must be taken greatly into account in the adjustment of some subordinate, but interesting questions with which the Epistle has been thought to stand in connection. (Col. iv, 16.) The presence or absence of a few words in Matt, xxviii, 9, affects considerably our ability to remove one of the many seeming discrepancies in the narratives of the first hours of the morn of the resurrection. We could multiply such examples ; but perhaps enough has been said. There are, indeed, several grounds for thinking that there is an improved feeling on the whole subject; and there seem some reasons for hoping that, though no authoritative revision is likely to take place, nor, at jDresent. perhaps, even to be desired, vet that the time is coming when there will be a considerable agreement on many of the results of modern criticism."

Chapter II

IMPOSSIBILITY OF SUCCESS IN AN ESSENTIAL MUTILA- TION OR CORRUPTION OF THE GOSPEL RECORDS.

We have seen that there is nothing in the various readings to shake our faith in the integrity of the sacred text. On the contrary, the very disagreement of the manuscripts shows that there could have been no collusion; but that the manuscripts were written, independently of each other, by persons separated by distance of time, remoteness of place, and diversity of opinion. This extensive independency of manuscripts on each other is the effectual check of willful alteration; which, whenever attempted, must have been immediately corrected by the agreement of copies from various and distant regions out of the reach of the interpolator. We are aware that we here enter upon an argumentation, where the question of genuineness coincides with that of authenticity. This, however, does not militate against the distinction which we have made between the two terms. We may use an argument for the genuineness of the Gospel Records, though it may also apply to their authenticity, and in doing so we furnish the reader with a natural transition and proper introduction to Part II.