The building of the Bible

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COKKIGHT DEPOSIT.

The

Building of the Bible

An accurate account of the causes that led to the composition of the New Testament. When and how and where the various books were written.

To which is added a critical history of the ancient manuscripts of the Bible, their physical and chirographical condition, where they may be found today, who owns them, their claims to authenticity, etc.

BY

WILLIAM G. CHILDRESS

3> 5

7.3

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Press of The Standard Printing Co.

Incorporated Louisville, Ky.

-6 1921

Dedication the memory of my father who, for more than forty years, preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to my mother who supported, with ceaseless care and devotion, his faithful work in the Great Cause — both serenely resting now in the beautiful Kingdoms of Eternity — this volume, born of the recollections and dreams of my childhood, is most affectionately dedicated

All Rights Reserved

Foreword

T HAVE many times thought that an account of the origin of the New Testament, gleaned from sources authentic and unquestionable, would be welcomed by Bible readers everywhere. To learn of the old manuscripts from which our sacred writings have been translated; how and under what circumstances they had their birth ; where they may be found today; their physical and paleographical condition ; whether they are yet serviceable, or whether by the corrosion of time they are slowly fading away ; how their present owners obtained them, hidden away, as many of them were, in secret archives and ancient monasteries — these things must surely interest the reader who desires to know the history of the Faith to which he or she claims a singular and earnest devotion. Such a work I hope the present volume will prove to be, a pleasing and searching light thrown upon the noble antiquity of our great Sacred Classic.

THE AUTHOR.

Contents

CHAPTER I Aim and Purpose CHAPTER II Conditions — Spiritual, Political and Educational CHAPTER III Modes of Ancient Writing CHAPTER IV Beginning of the Gospel Dispensation CHAPTER V Paul and the Beginning of the New Testament CHAPTER VI Second Thessalonians- Corinthians CHAPTER VII Romans-Galatians CHAPTER VIII Colossians-Ephesians-Philippians- Philemon-Hebrews CHAPTER IX Pastoral Epistles CHAPTER X Peter-James-Jude-John

CHAPTER XI St. Mark-St. Matthew CHAPTER XII St. Luke-St. John CHAPTER XIII Ancient Manuscripts

CHAPTER XIV Manuscripts Continued CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER I. Aim and Purpose

HE word "Bible", in English as in medi-

A eval Latin, is always treated as a singular noun, but in its original Greek form a plural, correctly expressing the fact that the writings of Christendom are composed or made up of a number of independent records known as books or rolls, and which clearly set before us the different stages and periods in the accepted history of divine revelation. The separation of these writings from all other literature as the "Book of Books' 9 was derived from Jesus, who, with His contemporaries, acknowledged the authority of the Old Testament, which was conveyed in the Greek translation of the Septuagint, as the Word of God to the Gentile Christians by the followers of Christ. From remote ages these sacred writings have been the subject of great veneration. Even as a literary composition the Scriptures form the most remarkable book the world has ever seen. They are of noble antiquity, and contain a record of the deepest interest. The history of their great influence on mankind is the history of civilization. The wisest and the best have borne witness to their power as an instrument of holiness and enlightenment. Jerome aptly termed the Bible the " Divine Library.' ' Polycarp, profound in learning and noble in piety, referred to it as "The pilgrim's unerring Guide to Heaven/ ' Paul impressively called it "The Oracles of God."

What manner of book then is this that comes down to us from the misty ages of time ! It enriches the poverty of the peasant in his lowly cottage, its precepts become the king more than his gorgeous crown. It rebukes the Croesus in his boundless wealth and says to pain and affliction: Behold, I lift the veil from the kingdom of eternity. Come, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, you whose sorrows cloud the sunlight of the soul, and you shall find a haven of eternal rest. "I am sometimes amazed," wrote Rousseau, "at the grandeur and noble simplicity of the Bible. Its grace and beauty, its lofty conceptions and divine diction compel my admiration." A great book, the classic of the ages, the lyre upon which heaven and the angels sing sweetly to dying men. "When I read the Bible," said Charles Spurgeon, "it seems to say: Hear me, man! In thy wanderings, in thy sorrows, listen to my voice ! I am calling thee to the Great Throne.' ' "It is the poetry of Heaven," said Justin Martyr. Sir David Francis, scholar and studious philosopher, declared that "in crushing force and majesty, in lyric flow and fire the poetry of the Scriptures is the most superb that ever burned in the breast of man." It arrests the thought, the mad rush of bewildered men, and implores them to take counsel of God. "Bring it near me," said the dying Cromwell, "and let me lay my hand upon its sacred pages as I pass away."

Of this wonderful book we now propose to write, reviewing, in a limited way, the history of its early origin, its divine and literary growth from a few papyrus rolls to its present majestic and completed form. In a literary sense we will journey through a land of holy memory, blessed with the grace of thy friendly presence, O reader, and for a season live in an age when great and glorious things were done. It is a beautiful story we have to relate, lisped in thy childhood, and treasured in the hearts of all men from the cradle to the grave. Beginning in a manger where the cattle and the swine wondered at His coming, we shall follow in His footsteps along the Jordan and on the shores of the Dead Sea; among the hills of Galilee, and down to the house of sorrow and death. It will be a story of grief, of hope, of gladness, and of despair, but ending when the day is born out of darkness and the clouds have drifted away. We shall follow His weary feet to the fields of Golgotha, see the Cross and learn of the angel, the great stone, and the resurrection. But these mighty things are not all which we shall see and know. The age was full of wonders. It was a time of which the old prophets had written and the divine poets had sung, an hour clothed in the destiny of time.

We shall confine our researches to the New Testament, leaving, we hope, with due veneration, the old Covenant to the glory of its antiquity, to the memory of its noble achievements in the patriarchal age. We will note the state of the world, religiously and politically, when the New Dispensation came, vexed from its cradle with pagan darkness and blinding superstition, giving an account, also, of the various sects that arose during the first century. We shall relate how the New Testament came to be written and the circumstances that attended its early beginning, in a land hostile and impatient of its teachings, and the constant dangers under which its slow circulation was brought about. It will be interesting to know how the weary and suffering saints endured hunger and poverty and death that the world might have the blessings which this gift of heaven could bring.

In the age of which we speak education, culture, and the means of writing were confined to wealth and position, to an aristocratic and fortunate few. The cost of parchment and papyrus — small as that may seem today — was much beyond the poor, and so they found themselves at the mercy of the copyist who traveled through Italy, Greece, and Palestine. Education among the masses was a blessing unknown to the early Christians. The young men of a few noted families, blessed by birth and fortune, attended the Grecian schools, and in a manner moulded the thought of the age, but the faith of the Despised Nazarene, and the history of His lowly life, found no thought or favour in the minds of these scions of the court and the crown. They had no time to waste in recording the deeds and doctrines of a superstitious and fanatical band, a people cursed and reviled by pagan philosophers and the learned rabbis of the Jews. Hence the circulation of the Gospel of Christ, depending upon tradition and oral teaching, was attended with many discouraging trials and gloomy misfortunes. Coming to their relief a band of strolling scribes, calling themselves "Brothers of the Common Life," went from door to door, from palace to hovel, writing the Gospels and letters of the Apostles, which were known, at that time, as constituting the sacred writings of the Christians. This was during the first and second centuries. It was a timely, noble work, one which the friendless Christians felt to be ordained of heaven to help their poverty and to clothe them in an armour of defense. These records, Gospels and Letters were written on papyrus, a substance made of the "paper reed." In ancient times this reed was widely cultivated in the Delta of Egypt. Tradition weaves a story to the effect that the bulrushes, of which the ark for the infant Moses was made, were in fact the papyrus reed. Parchment was not extensively used until the ninth century. It was a revival of the use of skins, prepared by a method, or formula, attributed to Eumenes II, King of Pergamum, in the year 197, B. C. The cost of its preparation prohibited its use among the fathers of the Church.

The struggles and privations under which the poor laboured to obtain these papyrus manuscripts of the Gospel were pitiful but always inspiring. They toiled with ceaseless energy, denying themselves the comforts of life to obtain for themselves, their children, and the generations to follow this absorbing and beautiful story of Christ and His disciples. The world has never witnessed a more intense devotion to faith and duty than these children of the Saviour showed in that primitive age. Under the falling roof and crumbling chimney, where merciless poverty sometimes blighted the joys of childhood and the repose of age; where sorrows came and hope vanished like a dream, these precious writings, breathing of heaven and immortality, were often found pointing the way to a holier and better life. A single Gospel or a letter was sometimes all a family could possess. The New Testament, as we have it today, was never seen until after the fourth century. A letter of Paul, of Peter, or John was many times all they possessed. After the Gospels were written, from the year

64 A. D., a few copies began to circulate, but their possession was confined to a favoured class, and rarely reached the homes of the plebeian element.

To accomplish the purpose we have in view it will be necessary to review the ancient manuscripts from which our English Bible was translated. We will give, as minutely as the facts will allow, a history of the principal and generally accepted Codices which are considered to be the best. It shall be our task to tell by whom these manuscripts were written, the place and time of their composition, and the circumstances attending their beginning and completion. It will be interesting to know where these Codices may now be found, in whose care they repose, and the condition they are in today. We will describe the text in which they were written, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Sometimes it was necessary to rewrite, or reink many manuscripts, where the ink — inferior at best — had faded, so as to render them almost useless. It cannot be successfully claimed that any original, strictly speaking, exists today. Time is an inexorable and merciless master, and all things crumble at the touch of his crushing, iron hand. A few manuscripts in their original writing have recently been found, but they have been, for nearly two thousand years, sleeping in the ruins of Herculaneum, or beneath the walls of some old Grecian city, long abandoned by the walks of men. The Codices which we own today are copies of the ancient originals, but eloquent of the care with which they have been preserved. They are found in old churches, monasteries, and in libraries, public and private. Their great importance cannot be estimated. They are the foundation, yea, the very pillars on which our beautiful and divine literature is laid. Without them all would be lost, and the sacred structure of our Christian faith would crumble down.

Unexampled patience and care were used in the preparation and copying of these manuscripts. The ancients, as we are today, were exacting and watchful of errors, demanding of every scribe an accurate text and a legible hand. Charlemagne issued a special decree that prevented any one from copying manuscripts who was deficient in learning, or wanting in a fair knowledge of Hebrew and Greek. This he believed to be a sensible ruling, since the writer was dealing in sacred things, man's destiny and his duty to God.

Copying schools were established in Palestine, Greece, and in parts of Italy. The work was done largely by young men who were schooled in clerical work. "Be careful/ ' said Theodosias to a young copyist, "angels are standing at thy side!"

Many manuscripts, even in that early age, were beautiful in design and in artistic finish. The unique profession, and the sacredness of the matter to be written, appealed alike to the mind and soul, and called into action the writer's noblest gifts. In 1879 Dr. Gebhardt discovered in Rossano, Calabria, a marvelously beautiful codex, known as the Rossanensis. The text was written on fine purple vellum, with gold and silver letters. It contained the Gospel of Matthew and part of Mark. A full description of this manuscript will be given in a future chapter. The Codices Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, the Ephraemi, and the Bezae are wonderful examples of the writer's art. The text is written on parchment and the surface is uniform and smooth. The Codex Sinaiticus was written on an antelope's skin, and an enthusiastic writer has declared it to be "as white as snow."

We must not be unmindful of the noted men who lived and moulded Christian thought in that primitive age. Theirs were lives of inspiring devotion to the teachings of the Master. The old religion had its prophets; the new had its martyrs and its saints. They went to battle clothed in the armour of God, their swords forged by the hands of justice, love, and mercy. Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Ireneus, Clement, Polycarp, St. Ignatius, and a mighty host of others gave their lives, their liberty and their worldly fortunes to the Great Cause. Through many a stormy sea they guided the ship of faith, shielding it from the rocks that treacherously sleep beneath the waves. Into the robe of righteousness they wove the strand of purple and the thread of gold. "When I read of the Saints and Apostles/ ' said Peter the Hermit, "I feel like falling on my knees and pouring out my thanks to God for their faithful and holy lives.' '

Paganism, with its wild and weird philosophies, menaced the early fathers in many ways. During the first century the disciples were gathered from the common walks of life. They were plain, unlettered people; children of sorrow and affliction and acquainted with the burdens of a lowly life. It seemed incredible that a band of these humble dissenters, so far removed from the controlling forces of the government and society, should set up for themselves a system of faith and action so plainly at variance with the prevailing religion of the age. They were the jest of the multitude, the court, and the crown. "They are a deadly superstitution," said Tacitus, "and their claims unworthy of belief." They had nothing to commend them, no wealth, learning, nor gift of tongue, but they were gentle, long suffering, merciful and kind. The destroying angel with dark unfolded wings was ever ready to crush and devour. With many it was held to be an offense against decency and society to become a Christian.

At this time a school of skeptics and scoffers, believing in nothing, jesting at everything sacred and spiritual, corrupted the youth of the country and gave the thought to the impractical dreams of pagan philosophy which might have been given to holier things. Religion also was in a chaotic and unsettled state. The Jewish church was torn asunder with internal dissensions. It had introduced into its worship the most absurd superstitions, hopelessly leading to the grossest corruptions concerning the divine nature, invisible powers, etc., many of them derived from the time of the Babylonian captivity. The principal sects which arose at this time were the Pharisees, the Essenes, and the Sadducees. The most powerful of these divisions were the Pharisees, the most considerable in wealth, influence, and number. The Sadducees taught many strange and fantastic things. They denied the existence of spirits and angels, and with shocking boldness declared their disbelief in the resurrection of the body and of a future state. They were the most violent and cruel persecutors of the Christians, their judgments never tempered with mercy, and their lust for blood never appeased. The Essenes were devoted to silence and contemplation, to privacy and solitude; but, strangely enough, they observed shameful superstitions in their religious rites and ceremonies. In addition to these unwarranted abuses the Roman Empire, drunk with the fruits and love of conquest, was extending its imperial dominions over a vast part of the habitable world. It was too powerful to be successfully opposed by smaller kingdoms and principalities; hence national laws and rights were ruthlessly trampled under foot.

Into this world of conflicting powers, doctrines, and opinions came Christ with His glorious and divinely beautiful Gospel. He came with no waving banners, no trumpet sounds, no gaudy show of princely crown; but softly, gently, as the dawn of a beautiful day brings its rosy light from the sombre bosom of a cheerless night. Lowly of mein, mournful, sad of countenance, He seemed wholly out of place in a world steeped in sin and vice. His mission was fraught with love and peace. He sought the haunts of affliction, He loved and blessed the weary and the broken in heart. The lame came to Him and were made to walk; the blind implored Him for mercy, and their long night was turned into day. He spoke and the dead came to life. The poor raving maniac, with his wild and fevered brain, saw his haunted dreams charmed into sweet repose. The lashing, rolling waves, clothed in the voice of a thousand thunders, heard Him speak; the winds that vexed the troubled sea listened and obeyed.

Of Him and all His gentle train we now propose to write, lifting the veil that obscures the written word for him whose feet have never walked the ways of sacred or classic lore. Difficult may,be the task, but to follow where holy men have sanctified the ground renders the labour pleasing and doubly sweet.

CHAPTER II. Conditions, Political, Spiritual and Educational

k O intelligently understand the great dif-

A Acuities under which the fathers so faithfully laboured in assembling and arranging the various and vital parts of the New Testament it is necessary to know something of the conditions political, social and educational that prevailed at the time when Christ came to challenge the attention of the religious world. It will not be out of place to notice, also, the great work and foundation which our Saviour laid for the guidance of His disciples in the New Dispensation. He was the central figure around whom all the beauties of the New Testament found their birth, the star that drew men to its marvelous brightness and glory. Hence, to understand His dual nature and the wonderful things He did is to understand more clearly the resistless growth of His sublime teachings.

Four and forty years before the Christian dispensation Julius Caesar was assassinated in the city of Rome. His countrymen, becoming tired of kings and the consequent abuse of their rights and liberties, had decided to throw off the yoke of oppression and live as free men. Their long slavery to the crown, covering many centuries of cruel but silent suffering, had in nowise prepared them to become rulers of the state. The assassination was consequently followed by a stormy and restless period. Conditions were serious and unsettled. With difficulty men were restrained in their actions, wanting no one and no power to arrest their liberties. In this perplexing state they lost sight of religion and of all things spiritual. The present hour was of greater moment than the kingdoms of eternity. To Julia, youngest sister of Julius Caesar, was born a son of brilliant parts. He was born in 63 before Christ. He came of a noble and wealthy family in the country of the Volsci, and in his youth was adopted by his uncle and fell heir to his estate. Cicero was his friend and counselor and aided him in his conflicts with Marcus Antonius. At length, after a stormy career, he was given the name of Augustus by the Roman senate in the year 27 B. C, and soon found himself absolute ruler of Rome. He devoted all of his time to healing the wounds and the misfortunes of his country. He cultivated a love for the arts and sciences; was himself an author, but his literary efforts have not survived. It was said that "he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble.' ' His was the most glorious reign that Rome had ever seen.

He was respected and loved by his people, and they felt secure in their possessions. Patterning after schools of Grecian philosophy, he caused to be erected in his imperial dominions various institutions of learning, in which the ambitious youths of wealth and patrician blood might prepare themselves to better serve the state and the crown. Accordingly, it is claimed by every patriotic Roman, looking back to this period of time with pardonable pride, that the Augustan reign was the golden age of Roman literature. Virgil had just composed his immortal Eneid. Its classic, flowing verse has inspired a patriotic measure in every melodious, tuneful soul. It was the crowning jewel of the Latin tongue. Horace, too, was in his zenith, the clear white light of his classic * glory. His satires burned with caustic fire, but mirth softened the sting of his lance and time has not dimmed the immortality of his fame. Ovid, born in the year in which the noble Cicero died, lived in the shadows of the snowy Apennines, and wrote sweetly of the falling waters and rugged hills that sheltered, among the cavernous rocks, the inspiring muse of his dreams. Tibulus and Propertius also enriched the realm of verse and song, their harps attuned to the beauties of pagan thought and love for the reigning crown. Livy merits undying fame in the brilliant composition of his incomparable history. He wrote without bias, without favor, without fear. His wide research, his great learning, his devotion to truth, his flowing narrative style enthrone him among the great writers of the world.

The literature of Hellenism may be dated from the Greci-Roman period; that is, from the subjugation of Greece. Hitherto Athens had been, by common consent, the intellectual center of the world, but Rome gradually and irresistibly came to be the place in which the greatest students and philosophers were found. The power of writing and correctly speaking the Greek language was an accomplishment coveted by every Roman gentleman of wealth and station. The great library, once planned by Julius Caesar, was founded at last by his heir and kinsman, Augustus. He very wisely divided it into two parts, one for Latin writers and one for Greek. Tiberius, Vespasian, Domitian and

Trajan contributed to enlarge the collection of art and of manuscript books, so that it soon came to be the greatest library known to the ancient world.

Religion was in a chaotic and deplorable condition. The learned rabbis, careless and self-indulgent, had allowed, with unpardonable apathy, the old church to drift away into stormy, perilous seas. The Stoics had invaded its sanctuaries and frowned upon its most cherished tenets. Many new sects were springing up in nearly all congregations, advocating heresies beyond belief. Weary of the old religious systems, made odious by abuses of which every God-fearing man should feel a pang of shame, men were looking for some new religion in which the soul might find a haven unbridled by ecclesiastical laws and customs which heaven had never ordained. Hence they wandered in the unguarded realms of pagan philosophy, restless, unsettled, hopeless, and believing nothing. The fathers of the Jewish church, like the Roman lords of war, were drunk with the wine of conquest, not only on the fields of contending armies, but in the arts and sciences in which every Roman felt a pride. They gloried more in the beautiful architecture of their temples and their synagogues than they did in the spiritual blessings of their people for whom they were supposed to have a vital and spiritual interest. Who then can doubt that the world was ready and waiting for the Great Change of which the old prophets had written and the divine poets had sung?

Into this world of learning, of wealth, of lust, of conflicting interests, of hopes and opinions, the child Jesus was born. He was, by Herod's law, only a poor carpenter's son. No gleam of light was there to dispel the loathsome shadows that hung with deepening gloom about the home of Joseph and Mary. To the casual observer He was only a child of broken fortunes, wandering about the rocky shores of Galilee, subject to the poverty, the joys and the sorrows of his lowly, unfortunate tribe. He spoke the Aramaic tongue, the language most familiar to His native people. Of His early intellectual training we possess no accurate knowledge. The son of Gamaliel is supposed to have taught a school in the immediate section where Christ lived, but we have no evidence to warrant the belief that He was, at any time, a pupil of the young teacher. An impenetrable veil covers much of the history of His younger life. Heaven has hung a shadow, a great silent cloud, over eighteen years which must have been a momentous period in the life of the Saviour of men. We have no warrant to break the seal of this holy silence here, yet we know that behind this sombre curtain, in the keeping of the Master and the recording angels, many things were done holy in the sight of the Lord.

The bible that Christ read and so often quoted was the Old Testament, the ancient Covenant of the Jews. If at any time He had a thought or intention of writing a new covenant for His followers He gave no intimation, written or oral, of having such a design. We will now notice briefly a few facts and traditions relative to the Old Testament.

The translation from Hebrew into Greek, which was used during the early advent of Christianity, was known as the Septuagint, being an abbreviation of the Latin phrase, secundum septuaginta interpretes, according to the seventy. This is also the subscription of Genesis as given in the Codex Vaticanus, now in the Vatican library in Rome. It is also known as the "Alexandrian Version,' ' and was used by Christ in His daily teachings. Of its pre-Christian history nothing is very definitely known, but we will give here the information we possess, historical, legendary and otherwise, which has come to light from various sources. We quote now from a letter of Aristeas to Philocrates:

Demetrius of Phalerum, keeper of the Alexandrian Library, proposed to King Ptolemy II, about 285 years before Christ, to have a Greek translation of the Jewish law made for use in the Library. The King readily consented, and after releasing a vast number of captives, which was the custom before entering upon any noble enterprise, sent an embassy with rich presents to the high priest Eleazer at Jerusalem, asking him to send six ancient, worthy and learned men from each of the twelve tribes to translate the law at Alexandria. Eleazar readily sent the seventy-two men with a precious roll of the law. They were honorably received at the court of Alexandria and afterwards conducted to the island of Pharos that they might have the blessings of peace and quietude, and work wholly undisturbed. They were diligent and devoted to their task. When, after much labour, they had come to an agreement upon any section Demetrius wrote down their version. When it was completed and given to the high priest and the people its position, for a few years, was considered secure. But after a lapse of time mutterings of discontent came from the side of the Jews, claiming that the translation did not wholly agree with the Hebrew text established by rabbi Aquiba and his school of learned men. Hence there arose in the second century the three new translations of Aquiba, Symmachus, and Theodosian. No manuscript of Aquiba's translation has survived. However, fragments of two Codices were discovered in 1897 in the Genizah at Cairo, Egypt, and which clearly illustrate some of the peculiar features of the translation. A few Hellenistic writers made use of it, as Demetrius, Eupolemus, Aristeas, Ezekiel, and Aristobulus, but the preserved fragments are very few and in a bad state of preservation.