Constantin von Tischendorf · 8 of 10

Origin of the Four Gospels · Part 6

After this important fact was established, a new question arose, namely, whether important inferences could be drawn unconditionally from this phrase. Could not the formula, "as it is written," be accepted as referring to any book? How little ground there is for this I have already shown in my explanations of the use to be made of this formula; and we have no right to weaken its force in the present instance. But are we also compelled to recognize its relation to the passage from Matthew? What would be more evident, if we are to escape the assaults of unsound and partisan criticism? A writer of this class has brought forward a notion which once brought down the scorn of Credner upon it, namely, that the quotation of Barnabas's Epistle is to be referred to the fourth book of Ezra, quoted elsewhere in the Epistle. There, in the eighth chapter, it is expressly stated according to the Latin and Ethiopian text, "nam multi creati sunt (in the Ethiop., besides, in eo, i. e. mundo) pauci autem salvabuntur,"—for many have been born, but few shall be saved. In spite of the applause which this has received in a certain quarter, it only shows to what wanton fancies the opposition brought against the age of our evangelical canon leads men. The visible absurdity of referring a citation, taken word for word from Matthew, to a passage in a book of Ezra, written twenty years earlier and having quite a different meaning, is carried so far that the expression of the Saviour in Matthew is degraded into a mere "Christian interpretation" of the passage in Ezra. That Matthew is referred to elsewhere in the Epistle is supposed not to have its weight in strengthening the citation from him accompanied by the canonical formula, but to prove, on the contrary, that Barnabas, with all Iis acquaintance with Matthew, did not hold his work to be a sacred book. It is forgotten that quite often we meet in the later Fathers, in connection with direct and express quotations, the same weaving in of a biblical clause that we have in Barnabas; and in these cases the reader is pre-supposed to have that familiarity with Scripture which will enable him to determine what it is which is thus woven in, without its being definitely pointed out with words or signs of quotation. Thus, for example, in chapter five of Barnabas's Epistle, we have the expression, "He chose for his disciples, to go forth and announce his gospel, men full of sin and unrighteousness, in order to show that he had not come to call the righteous, but sinners; and therefore he revealed himself as the Son of God." What reader of these words could fail to see in them the reflection of what our Saviour says in Matt. ix. 13, "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance"? We have, moreover, in the twelfth chapter, "Since it is a thing in the e future that men shall say that Christ is David's son, therefore David himself, comprehending in advance the error which sinners will make, says, 'The Lord says unto my Lord, sit thou here on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.'" Could Barnabas write this without presupposing that his readers would have Matt. xxii. 41, et sq. in mind? And in this presupposition is not the recognition of the authority of the then extant Gospel of Matthew taken for granted? And if in the same twelfth chapter of Matthew it is shown how Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness in typification of the Saviour, "who should suffer (die) and yet himself give life to others," it is directly obvious that Barnabas was making use of the truth hinted at in John iii. 14, even if the phrase, taken word by word, fails to show this. It is possible indeed that the writer of this Epistle wrote independently in this case, as in many others; and yet we are justified in assuming the very great probability that he had the passage of John in mind: still, in assuming this, it by no means follows that his Epistle is written in the same tone as that of John's, and was a reflex of it. The disproportionate number of express quotations from the Old Testament found in Barnabas is in direct relation with the whole character of his Epistle: and no inference can be drawn from it, which invalidates the canonization of the Gospels.

Does, then, the fact indicated by the Epistle of Barnabas, that the Gospel of Matthew was reckoned a part of Holy Writ prior to the year 120, come into hazardous conflict with the results already gained by us in our study of the second century? It is needless to try to answer such a question. There is only downright gain to our side, and that of a new and important link in the chain of proofs supporting the very earliest acceptance of the credibility of the Gospels; a new barrier erected against the idle vagaries of conjecture which have hitherto been allowed to float around and hide the history of the New Testament canon.

But are we compelled to limit to Matthew the authenticity thus granted to his canonical value? By no means. All our studies respecting the history of the canon lead to this result, that the attempt was not made in the infancy of the church to raise any one of the Gospels, taken exclusively, to the rank of canonical writings. For we saw, in the first half of the second century, now Matthew, now John, now Luke, or one taken in connection with another, come into the foreground; and this shows conclusively that at that epoch no one was credited while another was discredited. The small compass, too, of the literature which has come down to us from that time, and the character of the Gospels, taken separately,—Matthew, for example, being incomparably better adapted for quotation than Mark,—lead to the inference that the one bears witness to the equal worth of the other. And we learned, too, from Justin's use of the Acts of Pilate about the year 140, that the Gospel of John, so much used, not only in those Acts which were written some few decades before Justin's Apology, but also in connection with the synoptic Gospels, must be assigned to the opening of the second century, Justin himself having often made use of John, and still more frequently of Matthew. Is not this alone satisfactory proof that if, at the time when the Epistle of Barnabas was written, Matthew had attained to canonical authority, John too must have had the same? Basilides used John and Luke at the time of Hadrian; Valentin, about 140, John, Matthew, and Luke; and are there not safe inferences to be drawn thence that these writers are in close alliance?

To this must be added the fact that we so early and so repeatedly find, as, for example, in Justin and Agrippa Castor, the separate Gospels united in one whole, and that, in view of the collective and grand character thus given to this whole, the name and individuality of each writer are thrown into the background, but that, on the other hand, Justin refers occasionally to the discrimination made, at a later day, by Tertullian, in the character of the four Evangelists, according to which some were the real disciples of the Lord, and the others apostolical companions. And how are we to understand otherwise that soon after the middle of the second century Harmonies of the Four Gospels were prepared, and that in Irenæus——not to lose sight of him—the four are unitedly subjected to comment, without the least hint of there being superior or inferior value on the part of the separate Gospels? Is there the faintest indication that, in the course of the second century, the church, while discussing many issues which are reported to us, took up and passed its judgment upon the Gospel canon,—a fundamental matter; while, before the close of that century, the same canon meets us everywhere as having been long accepted?

But when, then, are we to consider that the canon passed into general acceptance? Everything compels us to assign it to the close of the first century, or to the opening years of the second. That was the time when, with the death of the aged John, all the revered men who had stood in personal relations with Jesus, and Paul too, the great apostle to the Gentiles, had passed away, and could no longer give their direct authority in all ecclesiastical matters to the young church; the time when the church was outgrowing its old home, and stretching wider and wider out, convulsed within by various movements, and pressed upon without by hostile assaults,—then it was that men began to consecrate and regard with hallowing veneration the writings which the founders of the church had left behind them, gather them up as imperishable bequests, as well-authenticated evidences of the life and teachings of the Saviour, the most precious types of what men's faith and practice should be. The fit time had evidently come to put these writings on the same basis as that of the old covenant. The complete separation of the church from the synagogue had taken place: subsequently to the destruction of Jerusalem and of its temple (about the year 70), the church had been thrown more decidedly upon itself, and lad become more independent; and it was a significant sign of this independence to ascribe to the writings which recorded the life of the Saviour and the deeds of his followers the same sanctity which had long invested the sacred documents of the synagogue, on which Christianity was based.

Do we ask in what way this has taken place? It certainly is not a question which needs much time to enable us to answer it. If men like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John left on record statements respecting the life of our Lord, who would not have recognized them at once as a precious bequest to the church, and gratefully accepted them? Did it require more than their honored names to insure for their writings the greatest veneration by the whole church? And had not these men all stood in close enough personal relations with the church to insure the latter against receiving any works which should be unauthentic, and palmed off by trickery? And of no Gospel is this more true than of John's. Suppose that it did proceed from the midst of his Asia Minor congregations, and pass into the possession of wider circles; could the least suspicion of a want of genuineness fasten to it? But in case it did not proceed from his own congregations, would the latter not have detected the imposition at once? It was impossible to bring them to accept an unauthentic word of their own bishop; certainly not by deception. But we have the bishop who followed John at Ephesus as one of the witnesses to the authenticity of his Gospel. For if Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus in the last quarter of the second century, in a letter addressed to Victor of Rome (Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 24), alludes to the apostle buried in Ephesus, and characterized him with the same expression which is used in John xiii. 23 and 25, "who leaned on the Lord's bosom,"—there is beyond all doubt a confirmation of the Gospel. As to the rest, that John was the last who wrote is evidenced not only by the very ancient tradition that he was the one whose name was always mentioned after the others, as we have seen to be the case in the hints drawn from Muratori, in Irenæus, and in the oldest Greek manuscripts, but Clemens Alexandrinus and Eusebius give distinct expression to it in what they have communicated to us respecting the circumstances which gave rise to that Gospel. In the first of these latter writers (see Eus. vi. 14), the wish of friends is represented as prompting the more spiritual-minded disciple to add a fourth Gospel to the other three, for the purpose of recording more distinctly the workings of Jesus' spirit. According to the latter (iii. 24), while confessing the truth and authentic value of the first three Gospels, he is represented as omitting what relates more exclusively to the public activity of Jesus, and giving a needful compliment to the evangelical narrative.

Since, then, the writings left behind by the apostles stand at the very outset in the personal authority of the writers, this authority of course only grew in magnitude after the decease of the persons who have personally been the representatives of the spirit of the Gospel. Out of the vital development of the church grew the primitive canon of the New Testament, and took its place side by side with the Old. It would be easy to admit that such a canon, in accordance with its evangelical character (not to speak here of its other features), would naturally fall within the time which has been assigned, viz., the close of the first century: this, however, we should not be able to settle definitely unless the history and literature of the whole second proved such a cogent argument in its favor.

There is yet one thing more to add to what has already been said respecting the oldest Christian literature. It is the evidence which Papias gives, and which, more than any other, has beet misused by the opponents of our Gospels. The want of positive knowledge which rests upon this man, as well as upon his testimony, makes him not a fit subject to be taken either independently or in antagonism with other witnesses.

From Eusebius (iii. 39) we learn, confirmed as it is by Irenæus (v. 33: 4), that Papias composed a work in five books, which he called an Exposition of the sayings of our Lord. While he was collecting the materials for this work he believed that his task was not so much to cull what was to be found in written records as in unwritten tradition; and, according to his own assurance, he drew especially from those oral accounts which could be traced back to the apostles. These are his own words regarding his book: "I shall arrange with assiduity whatever I may gather from the presbyters (elders), and retain in memory, while aiming to ascertain the truth of the same by means of personal investigation. For I did not find my pleasure, as most do, in those who have much to tell, but in those who teach the truth; not in those who bring forward what is strange, and out of the usual course (τὰ, ἀλλοτρίας ἐντολάς), but in those who surrender themselves absolutely to the truth, and claim lineage with what is true. Whenever, therefore, I fell in with those who used to be on intimate terms with the presbyters, I made special inquiries as to what Andrew, or Peter, or Philip, or Thomas, or James, or John, or Matthew, or any other disciple of the Lord, or as to what Aristion and John the presbyter, disciples also, have to say. For I believed that the books (τὰ ἐκ τῶν βιβλίων) would not be of so much service to me in giving exhaustive information as the living word of men (quantum ex hominum adhuc superstitum voce)."

This passage of Papias is obscure in various ways, and on this account I have endeavored to translate it literally. The first and most important point to settle is, who the elders or "presbyters" were. Papias alludes to them as his vouchers, whom he used in part directly, in part indirectly. Are the apostles themselves to be regarded as covered by the expression? It is supposed by many that they are; but this notion is absolutely denied and rendered untenable by Eusebius. For, after stating that Irenæus designates Papias as a "hearer of John and companion of Polycarp," he qualifies his words by saying, "But Papias has by no means represented him in the preface of his book as one who himself heard and saw the holy apostles: he teaches, on the contrary, that he had received the matters of faith (τὰ τῆς πίστεως) from those who had had personal acquaintance with them (παρὰ τῶν ἐκείνοις γνωρίμων). In like manner, he says, a little farther on in the same chapter (iii. 39: 4), Papias insists that he received the words of the apostles from their own followers, and says that he himself drew from the lips of Aristion and the presbyter John; adding this, that Papias often mentions these by name when giving in his book the communications which they made. It is not only incredible that Eusebius erred in this, it was, indeed, scarcely possible for him to do so. For, as he had the whole work of Papias before him, and was making selections for his own purposes, it could scarcely escape him, if Papias, in one case or another, appealed to the direct communication of an apostle, clear as it was to him that he had known Aristion and the presbyter John. And how wholly differently would he have brought forward in his preface his vouchers, had they been the apostles! he surely would not have written, as he has, words which are capable of a double interpretation, if he had been referring directly to them. In the whole passage, however, the presbyters are set in contrast with the apostles; and yet the clause, ''the disciples of the Lord," subjoined to the names Aristion and John the presbyter, makes the meaning of this expression obscure; at least rendering a double interpretation of it possible. And is it credible that Papias should say that he would confirm with his own declarations the statement of the apostles? Respecting the words of the presbyters, he could say this with the more justice, because, as his own words and the declaration of Eusebius show, he was able to use of these only Aristion and John; but in the case of the others, he had to rely on what was communicated indirectly. Irenæus brings evidence confirmatory of this way of interpreting the term "presbyters;" for he derives the tradition of the "wanton luxury of the kingdom of a thousand years" expressly from the mouth of "the presbyters who had seen John, the disciple of the Lord," and confirms this by appealing directly to the writings of Papias. Granting in this way that he was a hearer of John and a friend of Polycarp, it is perfectly clear that the presbyters in Irenæus have the same signification as in Papias, and that they are not for an instant to be confounded with the apostles. This inference respecting Papias which is found in Irenæus rests in the greatest probability on no other ground than the statement of Papias himself, carefully drawn up by Eusebius, but carelessly used by Irenæus; but that he confounded the apostle John, as his manner of speaking would indicate, is consistent with the fact that, as can be shown, the personality of the presbyter John, who likewise lived and died at Ephesus, was forgotten at a very early day. We ought not to overlook the chronological difficulty connected with the supposition that Papias, who, according to the oldest testimony, suffered martyrdom about the same time as Polycarp, i. e. 165, was not able to collect the materials for his work among surviving apostles (παρὰ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων). How little the contents, so far as we know them, correspond to what we should expect from a work written by a disciple of the apostles, who is recording what he learned from their own lips, may be judged from what we will proceed to give.

Eusebius cites explicitly from the contents of that work of Papias, that the daughters of Philip informed him at Hierapolis of the resurrection of a dead man immediately subsequently to their father's time, and that Justus Barsabbas had drunken a goblet of poison without experiencing any injury. (Both of these accounts might be brought into relation with expressions of our Lord, as in fulfillment of them.) In addition, Papias asserted (we give the accounts in Eusebius iii. 39: 5 literally) that he had learned many things through oral tradition, as well as some unknown (ξένας, strange) parables and teachings of the Lord, and other things, which were all too fabulous" (μυθικώτερα). To this class Eusebius assigns the doctrine of a kingdom of a thousand years' duration, which was to appear sensible on the earth after the resurrection of the dead. The representation of this kingdom was not given by Eusebius, but by Irenæus. It runs as follows: "Then shall come the days in which vinestocks shall appear, each one putting forth ten thousand branches, each branch ten thousand shoots, each shoot ten thousand clusters of grapes, and each cluster twenty-five measures of wine; and if one of the saints should try to take hold of one of the clusters, another of the latter will cry, I am better; lay hold of me, and praise the Lord by me. In like manner, an ear of corn will bring forth ten thousand ears, and each ear ten thousand grains," etc. This representation is made by Papias, as Irenæus testifies, to refer to the "elders," and, through them, even to John. Eusebius remarks, in reference to it, that Papias, a man of very inconsiderable mental parts, as his whole book shows, gathered his notions from misapprehended expressions of the apostles. He then goes on to say that there are other sayings of the Lord, dating from Aristion and John the presbyter, recorded in the book of Papias; but he refers those who may be interested in them to the work itself. To this he adds that he will subjoin to what has been already cited what he has learned respecting Mark. This runs, "And this says the presbyter: "Mark, the interpreter of Peter, wrote carefully down all that he recollected, but not according to (τάξει) the order of Christ's speaking or working; for he neither heard Christ, nor was a direct follower of him, but of Peter, as already intimated, who always held his discourses as circumstances made it expedient, but do not seek to arrange the sayings of the Lord in any regular order. Mark accomplished all that he purposed in writing what he had to record just as he remembered it. There was one thing, however, which he did keep in mind; that was, not to omit anything that he had heard, or to falsify anything which he undertook to set down." To this statement of Papias, which, judging by its tone, possibly only refers in its first part to the presbyter, Eusebius subjoins a second statement respecting Matthew, as follows: "This is what Papias records respecting Mark; but of Matthew he says, 'Matthew recorded in the Hebrew language the sayings of the Lord, but he translated every one of them as best he could." In these words much is obscure: especially doubtful is it whether we have rightfully translated "sayings of the Lord;" at least the casual words of Mark, "what Christ spoke and did," would seem to make it probable that both acts and words were comprehended under the single word "sayings." But do these expressions of the presbyter and of Papias—and this is the main question—relate to the two Gospels in our possession bearing the names of Matthew and Mark? And if the expression, "sayings of the Lord," is to remain unmolested, it does not follow that a historical clothing of these sayings is to be excluded, since neither Eusebius nor any other theologian of Christian antiquity supposed that the words of Papias stood in antagonism with the two Gospels. If in our time the inference has been drawn from the words of Papias, that our Gospel according to Mark is to be regarded only in a secondary sense as the work of Mark, and is to be regarded as a subsequent revision of a work once written by Mark, but which was lost sight of at a very early date, the idea would show itself to be a manifest freak of fancy. It would have no other mission than to open to the freest play of conjecture all our investigations respecting the origin and the mutual relations of our three synoptical Gospels.

True as this is of Mark, it is no less true of Matthew. The statement of Papias has its point in this, that it ascribes only a Hebrew text to Matthew even. If this statement have a satisfactory basis, even if we accept the other, viz., that every one translated it as well as he could, it leaves a broad margin between the primitive Hebrew and our Greek Matthew. That Hebrew text, like the primitive Mark, must have been lost at a very early date, as not a single one of the church Fathers saw or used it. This gives rise to one of the most intricate of questions, the discussion of which, however, would not be in place here. We, on our side, are fully satisfied in the matter, being convinced that the acceptance by Papias of a primitive Hebrew text of Matthew (a view which may not have been limited to him, and may have been repeated by others) rested entirely upon a misunderstanding. I will briefly indicate of what character it was, and whence it arose. The Judo-Christian struggles which sprung into being during the lifetime of the apostle Paul come more and more markedly into the foreground. There were two parties specially prominent: that of the Nazaræans was more moderate than the one more closely allied to philosophical speculation, the Ebionites. Both made use of a Gospel which bore the name of Matthew, the former in the Hebrew language, the latter in the Greek, the same document to which reference was made on a preceding page as the Gospel of the Hebrews. That they did not hesitate to make modifications according to their own taste, in the text as they originally received it, is clear from the standpoint which they occupied, that of being the only sect characterized by strong self-will. And what we have really learned of this Gospel shows, as already stated, not only the great similarity to our Matthew, but also arbitrary deviations which have been made from him in some instances. When it was said later—I mean in the course of the second century—that the Nazaræans, a race dating from the very emergence of Christianity, possessed Matthew in the Hebrew, what was more natural than for one and another to assume, wholly in accordance with the claims of the Judo-Christian heretics, that Matthew himself wrote in Hebrew, and that the Greek text, the one which was circulated not only in the church, but among other Judo-Christians, was a translation? No one knew, no one made inquiries how divergent the two versions were; and not only were such investigations foreign to the character of the times, but the exclusiveness of the Nazaræans especially drew them away from such researches, making their home, as they did, apart, in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea.

Jerome gives us the benefit of his support in this explanation of the statement of Papias. Jerome, who was especially skilled in Hebrew, gained the temporary use of a Hebrew Gospel of the Nazaræans, and at once proclaimed that that was the primitive text of Matthew. Going deeper into the matter, however, he simply said that many held this Hebrew text to be the original from Matthew's own hand; he translated it, moreover, into Greek and Latin, and made some comments upon it. From these, as well as from some fragments preserved by the Fathers of the church, it may be shown that the view represented by many scholars of late, and in a certain sense shared with Papias, that the so-called Hebrew Gospel is older than Matthew, must be received in its very opposite form; that that Hebrew book is a perversion of our Greek Matthew, whose record bears the marks in the whole of its diction, and especially in the form of its Old Testament quotations, of being no translation, but an original. That same independence of our Matthew is to be marked in the Greek version of the Hebrew Gospel current among the Ebionites, only with this distinction, that here the heretical character may, in consequence of the various hands which executed it, have assumed a more decided character. Being in Greek, it was better known in the church than the Hebrew version; and in the very earliest epoch it was held to be another text of Matthew. This agrees with what Papias wrote respecting the various versions of Matthew, among which he reckoned the Greek Matthew then held by the church.

There is still more to be said of Papias and his work. In relation to his efforts to obtain materials he wrote that he believed that less was needed in consequence of what was already written in books. To what books did he refer? May it not have been our own Gospels? The expression used would make this not impossible, but the whole character of the book would render it in the highest degree improbable; for he made no secret of his object of preparing, on the ground of what was then, about A. D. 130 or 140, related regarding the Saviour, a kind of supplement to the Gospels, and he may or may not have directed special reference to the prophetical allusions to the Lord. The Gospels, therefore, he could not have used as sources, and as affording materials for his collections. The books referred to by him must be understood as rather relating to unauthentic and more or less apocryphal records of the Lord's career, of which there were so many from the earliest date. These he set over against the oral communications which he had received, whose authenticity, as it could be traced through the elders back to the apostles themselves, like the evangelical writings, seemed to be unquestionable.