Constantin von Tischendorf · 10 of 10

Origin of the Four Gospels · Part 8

There will be those, it is not to be doubted, who will accuse us of one-sidedness and want pf thoroughness. And in truth we have passed over some things whose examination would have been in accordance with my purpose to pass in review all the oldest documents which could throw light upon the Gospels or illuminate their primitive recognition. If we have omitted anything, it is only because the inferences to be drawn from them touch too closely, as it has seemed to us,—perhaps wrongly,—upon the domain of hypothesis to give really solid results to our investigation. But in what we have passed over there is nothing which is antagonistic to what has been already advanced. We allude, e. g., to the earliest traces of a canonic indication and collection of apostolic writings, including the earliest appendices to the New Testament, and contained in a portion of the New Testament itself as the church established it in the fourth century. This is certainly the most recent portion, viz., the Second Epistle of Peter; where, (iii. 16), reference is made not only to the collection of the Pauline Epistles, but of other New Testament writings; also the closing verses of John's Gospel, of which verse twenty-fourth is held with the most correctness as the oldest testimony from the hand of a presbyter of Ephesus in favor of John's authorship. The Testaments of the twelve patriarchs, too, contain undeniable traces of an acquaintance with the books of the New Testament, the Gospels as well as the Pauline Epistles and the Apocalypse; they confirm, therefore, the existence of a collection of the books of the New Testament at the time when they were written, and this time can scarcely be set later than the close of the first or the opening of the second century. But so far as definite details are concerned, such as can be drawn into active service by those who are most determined in their opposition to John's Gospel, we can discover nothing but misunderstanding and unjustified conclusions. It is a misunderstanding, for example, to bring the celebration in Asia Minor of the feast of the Passover into antagonism with the Gospel of John; for the festival as it is celebrated there, which builds simply upon the example of John, is erroneously understood as if it related to the Last Supper, while it really commemorates the death of Jesus the true paschal Lamb (1 Cor. v. 7), the historic basis being given for it in John's Gospel. But when men bring the relation of John's to the synoptic Gospels as the ground for suspicion respecting the apostolic origin of the former, and cite the peculiarity of John's diction, as well as that of the Apocalypse, the universal character of his Gospel compared with Gal. ii. 9, and its dogmatic character, especially in relation to the person of Christ, as brought into contrast with the history of the Christian doctrine, they profess to know more than it is granted to man to know, and use what is naturally hypothetical and uncertain to throw doubts over what is clear and fixed. Against tactics which rely upon the appearance of knowledge and cunningly shaped hypotheses, and which are shrewdly devised to entrap the simple, there is need of summoning the aid of definite and ascertained facts.

We can only call it a welcome occurrence that through the radical character of the two most distinguished modern biographers of Jesus, the Tubingen fantasy-builder and the Parisian caricaturist, the contrasts between belief and disbelief in the Gospels and the Lord have been made thoroughly apparent. It is only clear vision which leads to the gift of sure decision. Never before have theologians joined in with the Christian church and the whole world of culture in demanding so appositely as now, How is it down at the foundations, respecting our evangelical belief in the Lord? Nothing is easier than to deceive those who are not in a position which enables them to answer in a scientific manner this greatest question of Christendom; nothing easier than to mislead them under a pretense of learned and honest investigation. Yet the character of this age grants all license to thorough and honorable inquiry in matters where, in former ages less intelligent than ours, faith, and a faith too that often enough was blind, had unquestioned sway. It is just from this that many who have not been able to enter deeply into this class of studies have come to believe that if we look at the matter thoroughly and scientifically there is a great deal of doubt about the facts of Jesus' life. And scarcely anything has had more factitious influence in inducing this incredulity than the often-repeated statement that the ancient history of the Christian church gives the most conclusive testimony against the genuineness of our Gospels, especially that of John, in which the divine-human character of the Saviour of the world stands forth to the offense and confusion of an unchristian age more manifestly than in the synoptic Gospels. In the course of this investigation we have been brought to exactly the opposite view. To awaken doubts respecting the genuineness of our Gospels, and John's especially, in thy minds of the lettered as well as the unlettered, to cause many to deny them even, is the work of, that skeptical spirit which has attained to almost undisputed pre-eminence during the past hundred years. And yet there are few instances in the collective literature of antiquity of so general and commanding assent being given to works of a historical character as to our four Gospels.

Against that kind of unbelief which has taken root in the modern frivolous school of religious literature, in that earth-born emancipation of the human spirit which will allow of no subjugation by the Spirit of God, science has no weapons. It is their unbelief which has incorporated itself into Renan's book: therein lies its power, its secret of success; there is no need of learned inquiry respecting it: the parti-colored rags which it has borrowed of science only partially conceal the naked limbs. It is quite otherwise with the learned arguments which have been brought against the life of Jesus, and the historic attacks which have been made upon the authenticity of the evangelical sources. Here we have to protest with the utmost decisiveness, but on the ground of rigid scientific investigation. The victory of God in behalf of right belongs to truth alone. It is only a petty littleness of belief that can believe that the sacred interests of truth are imperiled by the use of those dishonored weapons which are so much in vogue in the present age. But whoever stands in the interest of that truth which is to enter into victory must display his faith in the result by no timid counting of costs, but by the constant exercise of his best knowledge and most conscientious endeavors.