Part 126 (2/2)

”It is impossible to pa.s.s from the Synoptic[457:2] Gospels,” says Canon Westcott, ”to the fourth, without feeling that the transition involves the pa.s.sage from one world of thought to another. No familiarity with the general teachings of the Gospels, no wide conception of the character of the Saviour, is sufficient to destroy the contrast which exists in form and spirit between the earlier and later narratives.”

The discrepancies between the fourth and the Synoptic Gospels are numerous. If Jesus was the _man_ of Matthew's Gospel, he was not the _mysterious being_ of the fourth. If his ministry was only _one_ year long, it was not _three_. If he made but _one_ journey to Jerusalem, he did not make _many_. If his method of teaching was that of the Synoptics, it was not that of the fourth Gospel. If he was the _Jew_ of Matthew, he was not the _Anti-Jew_ of John.[457:3]

Everywhere in John we come upon a more developed stage of Christianity than in the Synoptics. The scene, the atmosphere, is different. In the Synoptics Judaism, the Temple, the Law and the Messianic Kingdom are omnipresent. In John they are remote and vague. In Matthew Jesus is always yearning for _his own_ nation. In John he has no other sentiment for it than _hate and scorn_. In Matthew the sanction of the Prophets is his great credential. In John his dignity can tolerate no previous approximation.

”Do we ask,” says Francis Tiffany, ”who wrote this wondrous Gospel?

Mysterious its origin, as that wind of which its author speaks, which bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof and canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. As with the Great Unknown of the book of Job, the Great Unknown of the later Isaiah, the ages keep his secret. _The first absolutely indisputable evidence of the existence of the book dates from the latter half of the second century._”

The first that we know of the _fourth_ Gospel, for certainty, is at the time of Irenaeus (A. D. 179).[458:1] We look in vain for an express recognition of the _four_ canonical Gospels, or for a _distinct mention_ of any one of them, in the writings of St. Clement (A. D. 96), St.

Ignatius (A. D. 107), St. Justin (A. D. 140), or St. Polycarp (A. D.

108). All we can find is incidents from the life of Jesus, sayings, etc.

That Irenaeus is the author of it is very evident. This learned and pious forger says:

”John, the disciple of the Lord, wrote his Gospel to confute the doctrine _lately_ taught by Cerinthus, and a great while before by those called Nicolaitans, a branch of the Gnostics; and to show that there is one G.o.d who made all things by his WORD: and not, as they say, that there is one the Creator, and another the Father of our Lord: and one the Son of the Creator, and another, even the Christ, who descended from above upon the Son of the Creator, and continued impa.s.sible, and at length returned to his pleroma or fulness.”[458:2]

The idea of G.o.d having inspired _four_ different men to write a history of the _same transactions_,--or rather, of many different men having undertaken to write such a history, of whom G.o.d inspired _four only_ to write correctly, leaving the others to their own unaided resources, and giving us no test by which to distinguish the inspired from the uninspired--certainly appears self-confuting, and anything but natural.

The reasons a.s.signed by Irenaeus for there being _four_ Gospels are as follows:

”It is impossible that there could be more or less than _four_. For there are _four_ climates, and _four_ cardinal winds; but the Gospel is the pillar and foundation of the church, and its breath of life. _The church therefore was to have four pillars, blowing immortality from every quarter, and giving life to man._”[459:1]

It was by this Irenaeus, with the a.s.sistance of Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, one of the Latin Fathers, that the four Gospels were introduced into _general_ use among the Christians.

In these four spurious Gospels, and in some which are considered _Apocryphal_--because the bishops at the Council of Laodicea (A. D. 365) rejected them--we have the only history of Jesus of Nazareth. Now, if all accounts or narratives of Christ Jesus and his Apostles were forgeries, as it is admitted that all the _Apocryphal_ ones were, what can the superior character of the received Gospels prove for them, but that they are merely superiorly executed forgeries? The existence of Jesus is implied in the New Testament outside of the Gospels, _but hardly an incident of his life is mentioned, hardly a sentence that he spoke has been preserved_. Paul, writing from twenty to thirty years after his death, has but a single reference to anything he ever said or did.

Beside these four Gospels there were, as we said above, many others, for, in the words of Mosheim, the ecclesiastical historian:

”Not long after Christ's ascension into heaven, several histories of his life and doctrines, full of _pious frauds_ and _fabulous wonders_, were composed by persons whose intentions, perhaps, were not bad, but whose writings discovered the greatest superst.i.tion and ignorance. Nor was this all; _productions appeared, which were imposed upon the world by fraudulent men, as the writings of the holy apostles_.”[459:2]

Dr. Conyers Middleton, speaking on this subject, says:

”There never was any period of time in all ecclesiastical history, in which so many rank heresies were publicly professed, _nor in which so many spurious books were forged_ and published by the Christians, under the names of Christ, and the Apostles, and the Apostolic writers, as in those primitive ages. _Several of these forged books are frequently cited and applied to the defense of Christianity, by the most eminent fathers of the same ages, as true and genuine pieces._”[459:3]

Archbishop Wake also admits that:

”It would be useless to insist on all the spurious pieces which were attributed to St. Paul alone, in the primitive ages of Christianity.”[460:1]

Some of the ”spurious pieces which were attributed to St. Paul,” may be found to-day in our canonical New Testament, and are believed by many to be the word of G.o.d.[460:2]

The learned Bishop Faustus, in speaking of the authenticity of the _New Testament_, says:

”It is certain that the New Testament was not written by Christ himself, nor by his apostles, but a long while after them, _by some unknown persons_, who, lest they should not be credited when they wrote of affairs they were little acquainted with, affixed to their works the names of the apostles, or of such as were supposed to have been their companions, a.s.serting that what they had written themselves, was written according to these persons to whom they ascribed it.”[460:3]

Again he says:

”Many things have been inserted by our ancestors in the speeches of our Lord, which, though put forth under his name, agree not with his faith; especially since--_as already it has been often proved_--these things were not written by Christ, nor his apostles, but a long while after their a.s.sumption, by I know not what sort of half Jews, not even agreeing with themselves, who made up their tale out of reports and opinions merely, and yet, fathering the whole upon the names of the apostles of the Lord, or on those who were supposed to follow the apostles, they mendaciously pretended that they had written their lies and conceits according to them.”[460:4]

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