Constantin von Tischendorf · 7 of 10

Origin of the Four Gospels · Part 5

The chief, if not the only, evidence for the age of both of these writings is found in Justin. And first with regard to the Protevangel of James. In Justin's Dialogue with the Jew Tryphon, and in his first Apology, we find in the statements respecting the birth of Jesus and the annunciation traces of a knowledge, and of the influence, of the book of James. Justin relates in the Dialogue (cap. 78) that the birth of Jesus occurred in a cavern near the village, there being no room at the inn. This statement, which confirms the account of Luke instead of contradicting it, is contained in the book of James, and is woven into the substance of the whole history of the event. Still, it is not to be overlooked that Justin appropriates only this single fragment respecting the birth in the cave, and in the rest follows Luke rather than the pseudo-James. The statement respecting the want of room in Bethlehem coheres strictly with the narrative of Luke, but is not in accord with that of the. pseudo-James. Similarly, the annunciation is plainly hinted in the first Apology, although with a free following of Luke, with the mere difference that the words, "For he shall save his people from their sins," are connected with the words directed to Mary, "And thou shalt call his name Jesus." In Luke they are wanting altogether, and in Matthew they belong to the message announced to Joseph. And have we not a recognition of what is apocryphal in Justin, since, at the close of his exposition, he appeals to those who have declared everything respecting our Saviour Jesus Christ? But no, that can not be said; for the whole account of Justin, as already remarked, corresponds strictly to Luke, and not to the Protevangel, only with this difference, that the passage indicated varies from the Protevangel, Matthew giving the words as announced to Joseph, and Justin as addressed to Mary. This feature must, in my opinion, be ascribed to the perusal of the Protevangel; and in the recollection of Justin it connected itself with Luke's account without his own consciousness of the fact. It is unmistakable that the whole quotation was made from memory. In the Dialogue (chap. 100), the annunciation made to Mary is cited, and the words spring from Luke, and not from the Protevangel. At the same time, there is a single extract bearing relation to the mental state of Mary, which seems to have sprung from a recollection of a passage in the Protevangel; only Justin has connected it with the reply of Mary to the address of the angel, while the Protevangel joins it to a priestly blessing which she received just on the point of setting out to visit Elizabeth.

But is there no objection urged against our endeavor to substantiate an acquaintance of Justin with the Protevangel? Certainly there are lost writings which are brought into requisition. Out of one of these it is supposed that Justin can just as well have drawn as that the Protevangel be derived from it. The Gnostic γέννα Μαριας (de generatione Mariæ), and still more the Gospel of Peter, have been thought to be that ancient work freshly brought to light. And this brings us into renewed contact with an old acquaintance, with that same faculty of making new discoveries of which I have already had occasion to speak. In order to escape the force of a work lying plainly before our eyes, the inferences from which are unmistakable, it is held in the light of a copy of a perished work, of which we have received from the past little but the title and a few meager extracts, which render it impossible to set solid facts over against the play of fancy. Yet let us look into this matter as closely as we can. Epiphanius has given the first impulse toward bringing the Gnostic production already mentioned into relation with the Protevangel, in citing something of what he calls the "shocking" statements of the work; namely, that there appeared to Zacharias in the temple the vision of a man wearing the form of an ass. Upon which Zacharias went up to him and tried to say, Woe to you! whom are you worshiping? but could not utter the words, the man seen in the vision having struck him dumb. But when his mouth was opened, and he had communicated to others what he had seen, ho was instantly put to death. This fragment from the lost book is enough, I should think, to identify its source. And is there that in it which enables us to determine that it was the basis of the Protevangel? The last has nothing in common with the first, excepting the slaughter of Zacharias, but wholly on another ground, and under altogether different conditions. But there is help at hand against accumulating difficulties respecting the connection of both writings. The way is to conjure up and thrust into prominence a work which claims to have given rise to that of James. From the Gnostic book relating to Mary sprang this Gnostic-tinged—now unfortunately lost—primitive foundation of the pseudo-James; and from this again the work of our catholicizing James. This ingenious solution may not have quite satisfied even him who hit upon it, and hence he thought out and gave preference to another combination. In the passage where Origen alludes to the work of James, he mentions the Gospel of Peter; for he says the brothers of Jesus were regarded by some, who followed the tradition of the Gospel of Peter, or that of James's work, as if they had been the sons of Joseph by a previous marriage. Now, according to this new combination, the question is asked, Can not the Gospel of Peter, or the early history given in it, be the basis of the Protevangel? The primitive history in the Gospel of Peter rests exclusively upon the passage of Origen relating to the brothers of Jesus as the sons of Joseph by an earlier marriage. With reference to this, we read without going further. That there was such a primitive history, can, according to the statement of Origen, be regarded as beyond doubt. From the same passage of Origen, the conclusion is drawn that "in the Protevangel of James the primitive history of the Gospel of Peter is contained." But do the words of Origen, "while they followed the tradition of the Gospel of Peter, or that of the work of James," warrant the inference in the least that the latter coincides and gives support to the primitive history of the Gospel of Peter? But who is able to impose a check upon the unbridled fanaticism of theorists? That we are now in possession of nearly fifty Greek manuscripts, comprising, among other things, a Syrian copy of the work under discussion, dating from the sixth century, and that no one of the evidences of its antiquity, from Origen down, is contradictory to the text of these manuscripts, gives us assuredly a good right to hold fast to the conviction that this was the writing so familiar to the ancients, and so much used by them. Is not that the most untenable of hypotheses, that our work was derived from one which was used by the ancients where it coincides with our own, but of which not a trace remains? And what other end does this hypothesis subserve than this, to set aside the inferences which are drawn from the book of James, and applied not only to the Christian literature of the second century, but more especially to the history of the Gospel cause? I trust it will not impel those who do riot share these views, to regard hypotheses which have such a basis to rest upon as something else than they really are. In opposition to them, I am still justified in insisting that the undeniable connection between Justin and several passages of the so-called Proto-Gospel presupposes his acquaintance with this very production. The book of James stands, in its whole tendency, in such a relation to our canonical Gospels, that the latter must have been diffused a long time, and must have been accepted a long time before the former was discovered. The allusions of Matthew and Luke to the virgin mother of the Lord were unable to prevent the belief in a real son of Joseph and Mary,—an idea consonant with the taste of the Judaized Christian heresiarchs: the mention of the brothers of Jesus in the synoptic Gospels appeared to bear evidence against Matthew and Luke; learned Jews brought against the Christians the charge of arbitrarily changing the meaning of Isaiah, and making him support the notion of a virgin mother: Jewish hostility even went so far as to assert that Jesus was the illegitimate son of one Panthera, and heathen skeptics quoted Greek fables about sons being born from virgins, in order to discredit the evangelical account. In such a time as was the first half of the second century, nothing could promise a better support to the Gospel narrative than a production like the one named after James, furnished with irrefragable historic testimony as to the lofty destiny of Mary from her birth, as to her motherhood while a virgin, and as to a relationship of Mary to Joseph exalted far above the usual relations of marriage. Now, if this work of James falls within the first three decades of the second century, the composition of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, to which the reference of James's work limits itself, can not be set later than the last decades of the previous century.

It is the same with the second apocryphal work brought under review above, the so-called Acts of Pilate, only with the difference that they refer as much to John as to the synoptical Gospels. Justin, in like manner as before, is the most ancient voucher for this work, which is said to have been written under Pilate's jurisdiction, and, by reason of its specification of wonderful occurrences before, during, and after the crucifixion, to have borne strong evidence to the divinity of Christ. Justin saw as little reason as Tertullian and others for believing that it was a work of pious deception from a Christian hand. On the contrary, Justin appeals twice to it in his first Apology in order to confirm the accounts of the occurrences which took place at the crucifixion in accordance with prophecy, and of the miraculous healings effected by Christ, also the subject of prophetic announcement. He cites specifically (chap. 35) from Isaiah lxv. 2, and lviii. 2: "I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good." . . . "They ask of me the ordinances of justice: they take delight in approaching to God. Further, from the twenty-second Psalm: "They pierced my hands and my feet. . . . They parted my garments upon them, and cast lots upon my vesture." With reference to this, he remarks that Christ fulfilled this; that he did stretch forth his hands when the Jews crucified him,—the men who contended against him, and denied that he was the Christ. "Then," he says further, "as the prophet foretold, they dragged him to the judgment-seat, set him upon it, and said, 'Judge us.' The expression, however, 'they pierced,' etc., refers to the nails with which they fastened his hands and his feet to the cross. And after they had crucified him they threw lots for his clothing, and they who had taken part in the act of crucifixion divided it among themselves." To this he adds: "And you can learn from the Acts, composed during the governorship of Pontius Pilate, that these things really happened." Still more explicit is the testimony of Tertullian. It may be found in the Apologeticus (chap. 2), where he says that out of envy Jesus was surrendered to Pilate by the Jewish ceremonial lawyers, and by him, after he had yielded to the cries of the people, given over for crucifixion; that while hanging on the cross he gave up the ghost with a loud cry, and so anticipated the executioner's duty; that at that same hour the day was interrupted by a sudden darkness; that a guard of soldiers was set at the grave for the purpose of preventing his disciples stealing his body, since he ad predicted his resurrection, but that on the third day the ground was suddenly shaken, and the stone rolled away from before the sepulcher; that in the grave nothing was found but the articles used in his burial; that the report was spread abroad by those who stood outside, that the disciples had taken the body away; that Jesus spent forty days with them in Galilee, teaching them what their mission should be, and that, after giving them their instructions as to what they should preach, he was raised in a cloud to heaven. Tertullian closes this account with the words, All this was reported to the emperor at that time, Tiberius, by Pilate, his conscience having compelled even him to become a Christian."

The document now in our possession corresponds with this evidence of Justin and Tertullian. Even in the title it agrees with the account of Justin, although, instead of the word acta, which he used, and which is manifestly much more Latin than Greek, a Greek expression is employed, which can be shown to have been used to indicate genuine Acts. The details recounted by Justin and Tertullian are all found in our text of the Acts of Pilate, with this variation, that nothing corresponds to what is joined to the declaration of the prophet, "They dragged him to the seat of judgment, and set him upon it, and said," etc.: besides this, the casting lots for the vesture is expressed simply by the allusion to the division of the clothes. We must give even closer scrutiny to one point. Justin alludes to the miracles which were performed in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, on the lame, the dumb, the blind, the dead, and on lepers. In fact, in our Acts of Pilate there are made to appear before the Roman governor a palsied man who had suffered for thirty-eight years, and was brought ill a bed by young men, and healed on the Sabbath day; a blind man cured by the laying on of hands; a cripple who had been restored; a leper who had been cleansed; the woman whose issue of blood had been stanched; and a witness of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Of that which Tertullian cites, we will adduce merely the passage found in no one of our Gospels, that Jesus passed forty days after his resurrection in company with his disciples in Galilee. This is indicated in our Acts of Pilate, at the end of the fifteenth chapter, where the risen man is represented as saying to Joseph, "For forty days go not out of thy house; for behold, I go to my brethren in Galilee."

Every one will perceive how strongly the argument that our Acts of Pilate are the same which Justin and Tertullian read is buttressed by these unexpected coincidences. The assertion recently made requires consequently no labored contradiction that the allusions to both men have grown out of their mere suspicion that there was such a record as the Acts of Pilate, or out of the circulation of a mere story about such a record, while the real work was written as the consequence of these allusions at the close of the third century. What an uncommon fancy it requires in the two men to coincide so perfectly in a single production as is the case in the Acts to which I am now referring! And are we to imagine that they referred with such emphasis as they employed to the mere creations of their fancy?

The question has been raised with more justice, whether the production in our possession may not have been a copy or free revision of the old and primitive one. The modern change in the title has given support to this conjecture, for it has occasioned the work to be commonly spoken of as the Gospel of Nicodemus. But this title is borne neither by any Greek manuscript, the Coptic-Sahidian papyrus, nor the Latin manuscripts, with the exception of a few of the most recent. It may be traced only subsequently to the twelfth century, although at a very early period, in one of the two prefaces attached to the work, Nicodemus is mentioned in one place as a Hebrew author, and in another as a Greek translator. But aside from the title, the handwriting displays great variation, and the two prefaces alluded to above show clearly the work of two hands. Notwithstanding this, however, there are decisive grounds for holding that our Acts of Pilate contain in its main substance the document drawn from Justin. and Tertullian. The first of this to be noticed is, that the Greek text, as given in the version most widely circulated in the manuscripts, is surprisingly corroborated by two documents of the rarest character, and first used by myself,—a Coptic-Sahidian papyrus manuscript, and a Latin palimpsest,—both probably dating from the fifth century. Such a documentary confirmation of their text is possessed by scarcely ten works of the collective Greek classic literature. Both of these ancient writings make it in the highest degree probable that the Egyptian and Latin translations which they contain were executed still earlier. But could a work which was held in great consideration in Justin's and Tertullian's time, and down to the commencement of the fourth century, and which strenuously insists that the Emperor Maximin caused other blasphemous Acts of Pilate to be published and zealously circulated, manifestly for the purpose of displacing and discrediting the older Christian Acts,—could such a work suddenly change its whole form, and from the fifth century, to which in so extraordinary a manner translators wholly different in character point back with such wonderful concurrence, continue in the new form? Contrary as this is to all historical criticism, there is in the contents of the work, in the singular manner in which isolated and independent details are shown to be related to the canonical books, no less than in the accordance with the earliest quotations found in Justin and Tertullian, a guaranty of the greatest antiquity. There are in the contents, also, matters of such a nature that we must confess that they are to be traced back to the primitive edition; as, for example, the narrative in the first chapter of the bringing forward of the accused. But the whole character of the work in our possession. does not deny in toto that which we must infer from the statements of Justin and Tertullian. It is incorrect, moreover, to draw a conclusion from Justin's designation of the Acta which is not warranted by the whole character of the work. The Acta, the ὑπομνήματα, are specified in Justin's account, not less than in the manuscripts which we possess, as being written under Pontius Pilate; and that can signify nothing else than that they were an official production, composed under the direct sanction of the Roman Governor. Their transmission to the Emperor must be imagined as accompanied by a letter of the same character with that which has been brought down to us in the Greek and Latin edition, and yet not at all similar in purport to the notable Acts of Pilate. It is by no means necessary for us to assert that the production in our hands has (with the exception of the preface already alluded to) remained free from interpolations; for the distinguishing characteristic which it bears is the weaving in of much from the synoptic Gospels, and still more from John, relative to the last sufferings of Jesus. Is it not stated in Justin that the Acts of Pilate reveal the fulfillment of the prophecy respecting the resurrection from the dead, as it is given in chapter eight of the work in our hands, in the testimony concerning the raising of Lazarus? Is it probable that, in order to set John aside, we are to believe that in Justin's edition there was recorded one of the two other resurrections, of which we have traces preserved for us?

It would lead us to the denial of an unquestionable fact should we not admit the claims of our Acts of Pilate, in their connection with the work of the same name known to Justin, to serve as testimony to the authority of the Johannean as well as the synoptic Gospels, dating from a period prior to Justin, in spite of their frequent use of those Gospels. What importance this fact has in enabling us to determine the age of our Gospels, and especially that of John, is at once apparent; it weighs far more than any verbal extracts made from John in the epoch of Justin. If the apocryphal Acts of Pilate must, for the reason that Justin cites them in his first Apology to the Roman Emperor, be ascribed to the first decades of the second century, they show, by their use of and dependence upon the Gospel of John, that the latter dates from a period even earlier. This theory throws no light into the impenetrable darkness, but, among the many beams which come down from the period directly after the age of the apostles, and which illumine the most important question of Christianity, this is one of the most luminous.

We might also cite Thomas's Gospel of the Infancy for our purpose. Irenæus and Hippolytus both show that it was used by the Marcosians and the Naasenians; it was therefore unquestionably one of the first results of the productive heresy of that age, and must be ascribed to the middle of the second century. Its text we possess only in fragments, which are at issue often among themselves, and which consequently makes it difficult to ascertain the connection of scattered passages with those of the Gospels. The work seems, however, to bear witness in one respect to the results of my researches, and not in the not unimportant fact that at the time when this book appeared, in the middle of the second century, the Gospel canon ordinarily accepted was already formed, and the story of the years of Jesus' childhood filled up a break in the account of his life. This left a district open to historical research, and one which heresy knew well how to prize. Besides this there confronts us one fact more, which admits of application to the three more or less perfectly personal evidences of the Christian Apocraphy. The wide divergence found in these, in respect to form as well as substance, to language as well as spirit, to delineation as well as conception, bears witness to a sacred origin of our canonical Gospels, to which the apocryphal writings are related as the last subjoined appendices.

I might allude here in a single word to the pseudo-Clementine literature, whose main work, the Homilies, is certainly to be ascribed to the middle of the second century. The establishment of this date does not lead to the necessity of drawing any such inferences respecting the history of the canon as we drew in the case of the book of James and the Acts of Pilate. Still it is very instructive that the transition of the Gospel of John into this Judaic-Christian tendency record, which was not at all disputed till the year 1853, has been shown to be utterly untenable by the discovery by Dressel, at Rome, of the concluding portions of it where (xix. 22) John's narrative of the man who was born blind is made use of beyond all doubt.

The elucidation already given respecting the Acts of Pilate and the book of James had already brought us to the opening first decades of the second century, and compelled us to confess that there was 1inquestionably use made, at that period, of our Gospels. No one of the remaining results of our investigations into the ecclesiastical and heretical literature of the second century stood in antagonism with this fact. Not only the apocryphal writings already named bring us back to that epoch, but a work of great repute in the Christian literature, one which from even the close of the second century to the opening of the fourth was assigned by such men as Clemens Alexandrinus to Holy Writ. It forms a part of the so-called apostolical Fathers, regarding which we have already spoken in our discussion of the epistles of Ignatius and that of Polycarp. If it really bore rightly the name of Barnabas, the companion of Paul, it would, in spite of certain unsatisfactory details, be correctly entitled to a place among the sacred books of the New Testament. Slight as is the ecclesiastical or scientific recognition granted to this claim of authorship, yet the assertion is made with confidence, that the epistle beating the name of Barnabas is one of the earliest written records which have come down to us from the epoch directly subsequent to the life of the apostles. If the expressions (in the sixteenth chapter) conjoined with the word of prophecy regarding the rebuilding of the City and the Temple are in accordance with historical fact, we are brought back from the conflicting statements respecting the closing decades of the first century and the opening decades of the second, to the first year of Hadrian's reign. In its aim and general character the epistle bears the closest resemblance, among the books of the New Testament, to the Epistle to the Hebrews; it is directed against such Christian converts from Judaism, who, while accepting the new covenant, sought to cling to the old, and hence felt that they must share with the former fellow-believers in the grief over the fall of the Jewish Temple. In opposition to them, the epistle, basing itself largely upon Old Testament prophecy and authority, arrays the proof that the new covenant brought in by Christ had completely done away with the older one, and that the latter had merely been, with its temple and whole service, an incomplete and temporary type of the new covenant.

Within the last two centuries scholars have busied themselves much with this document, but unfortunately there are lacking in all the Greek manuscripts of it, the first five chapters; only an old Latin translation, greatly incomplete, supplies the deficiency. And exactly in those chapters which are found only in the Latin copy is there a passage which has excited great curiosity. "Let us be on our guard," thus it reads in the fourth chapter, " that we be not be found to be, as it is written, many called but few chosen." "Adtendamus ergo ne forte, sicut scriptum est, multi vocati, pauci electi inveniamur." The expression, "as it is written," will be readily recognized by the reader as a familiar one in the New Testament. It is the phrase which always designates the difference between all passages of Holy Writ and all others, and was invariably used by the apostles, as well as by the Saviour, in citing the Old Testament. If it were ever applied to a passage outside of the canon, it only followed that the passage in question had been drawn by frequent use into the circle of canonical writings, just as, for example, Jude cites from the prophet Enoch. It could be publicly transferred to the writings of the apostles, when the latter were placed on the same basis with the Old Testament. As soon as passages of the Gospels were cited in connection with the phrase, "as it is written," it was assumed that they had become canonical. We had occasion on a former page to allude to this matter, while referring to Justin's arranging the Gospels and the Prophecies side by side, and to the epistles of Ignatius; the same formula was also encountered in the New Testament quotations of the Naasenians. The words which have been cited in the Epistle of Barnabas in connection with the same formula are in the Gospel of Matthew, xxii. 14, and xx. 16. If our inference is correct, at the time when the Epistle of Barnabas was written, this Gospel was regarded as canonical.

But the Epistle of Barnabas extends back to the highest Christian antiquity. And is it possible, some ask, that at so remote a period the passage from Matthew should be marked by the characteristics of canonization? The doubt conveyed in this question has been materially strengthened by the circumstance that the passage has hitherto existed only in a Latin form. It was possible to say, therefore, that this significant phrase was added by a translator living long subsequently. Dr. Credner, in 1832, wrote these literal words: "The form of citation, sicut Scriptum est, applied to a book of the New Testament, was wholly without usage in that time, and not an instance of it can be found." The portion of the Epistle of Barnabas which, contains the passage under discussion does not exist at present in the original Greek, but only in a Latin translation. It was an easy matter, therefore, for the translator to subjoin the current formula of quotation; and from internal evidence we must accordingly lay claim to the correctness of the text in the passage under consideration, till some one shall show satisfactory proof to the contrary. In order to decide the question respecting the antiquity of the formula, it was necessary to consult the original Greek text. It was destined not to be withheld from the Christian world. After lying many hundreds of years among the old parchments at the Convent of St. Catherine in the wilderness of Sinai, it came to light in a happy hour; for with the Sinaitic Bible, the whole of the Epistle of Barnabas was discovered in the original Greek. And what is the decision which it gives respecting the subject under discussion? It decides that the writer of the epistle himself placed the important Christian-classic expression, "as it is written," before the quotation from Matthew, and that it was not the work of the translator.