Companion to the Bible. E. P. Barrows

the gospels, that of John, of the number of the disciples," to which it appends a traditional account of the circumstances of its composition. With the truth or falsehood of this account we have at present no concern; the important fact is that this very ancient canon recognizes the existence of our four canonical gospels.

      12. The heretical sects of the second century furnish testimony to the genuineness of our canonical gospels which is of the most weighty and decisive character. Though some of them rejected certain books of the New Testament and mutilated others, it was on doctrinal, not on critical grounds. Had they attempted to disprove on historic grounds the genuineness of the rejected portions of Scripture, it is certain that the church fathers, who wrote against them at such length, would have noticed their arguments. The fact that they did not, is conclusive proof that no such attempt was made; but from the position which the leaders of these heretical sects occupied, it is certain that, could the genuineness of the canonical gospels, or any one of them, have been denied on historic grounds, the denial would have been made.

      

      Marcion, one of the most distinguished leaders of those who separated themselves from the orthodox church, came to Rome in the second quarter of the second century. He separated Christianity from all connection with Judaism, making the Jehovah of the Old Testament a different being from the God of the New Testament. His gospel, called by the ancients the gospel of Marcion, is admitted to have been a mutilated copy of Luke's gospel. Of course it became necessary that he should reject the first two chapters of this gospel, (which alone he received,) since they contain our Lord's genealogy in the line of Abraham and David, and should otherwise alter it to suit his views. On the same grounds, he altered the epistles of Paul also. That Marcion was not ignorant of the other three gospels, but rejected them, is plain from the words of Tertullian, who accuses him, Against Marcion, 4. 3, of attempting "to destroy the credit of those gospels which are properly such, and are published under the name of apostles, or also of apostolic men; that he may invest his own gospel with the confidence which he withdraws from them." His real ground for rejecting some books of the New Testament and mutilating others was that he could judge better of the truth than the writers themselves, whom he represented to have been misled by the influences of Jewish prejudices. Accordingly Irenæus well says of the liberties taken by Marcion, Against Heresies, 1. 27: "He persuaded his disciples that he was himself more trustworthy than the apostles who have delivered to us the gospel; while he gave to them not the gospel, but a fragment of the gospel."

      A distinguished leader of the Gnostics was Valentinus, who came to Rome about A.D. 140, and continued there till the time of Anicetus. His testimony and that of his followers is, if possible, more weighty than even that of Marcion. His method, according to the testimony of Tertullian, was not to reject and mutilate the Scriptures, but to pervert their meaning by false interpretations. Tertullian says, Against Heretics, ch. 38: "For though Valentinus seems to use the entire instrument, he has done violence to the truth with a more artful mind than Marcion." "The entire instrument"—Latin, integro instrumento—includes our four canonical gospels. Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus have preserved quotations from Valentinus in which he refers to the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John. See Westcott, Canon of the New Testament, 4. 5. Respecting the gospel of John in particular, Irenæus says, Against Heresies, 3. 11, that "the Valentinians make the most abundant use of it." Heracleon, whom Origen represents as having been a familiar friend of Valentinus, wrote a commentary on John, from which Origen frequently quotes; but if Valentinus and his followers, in the second quarter of the second century, used "the entire instrument," they must have found its apostolic authority established upon a firm foundation before their day. This carries us back to the age immediately succeeding that of the apostles, when Polycarp and others who had known them personally were yet living. The testimony of the Valentinians, then, is of the most decisive character.

      Another prominent man among the heretical writers was Tatian, a contemporary and pupil of Justin Martyr, who, according to the testimony of Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, composed a Diatessaron, that is, a four-fold gospel; which can be understood only as a harmony of the four gospels which, as has been shown, were used by Justin; or of such parts of these gospels as suited his purpose; for Tatian, like Marcion, omitted all that relates to our Lord's human descent. With this Diatessaron, Theodoret was well acquainted; for he found among his churches more than two hundred copies, which he caused to be removed, and their places supplied by the four canonical gospels.

      As to other gospels of the second century, which are occasionally mentioned by later writers, as "The Gospel of Truth," "The Gospel of Basilides," etc., there is no evidence that they professed to be connected histories of our Lord's life and teachings. They were rather, as Norton has shown, Genuineness of the Gospels, vol. 3, chap. 4, doctrinal works embodying the views of the sectaries that used them.

      13. We have seen how full and satisfactory is the external evidence for our four canonical gospels. Considering how scanty are the remains of Christian writings that have come down to us from the first half of the same century, we have all the external evidence for that period also that could be reasonably demanded, and it is met by no rebutting testimony that rests on historic grounds. The authorship of no ancient classical work is sustained by a mass of evidence so great and varied, and the candid mind can rest in it with entire satisfaction.

      III. Internal Evidences. 14. Here we may begin with considering the relation of the first three gospels to the last, in respect to both time of composition and character.

      And first, with respect to time. The first three gospels—frequently called the synoptical gospels, or the synoptics, because from the general similarity of their plan and materials their contents are capable of being summed up in a synopsis—record our Lord's prophecy of the overthrow of Jerusalem. The three records of this prediction wear throughout the costume of a true prophecy, not of a prophecy written after the event. They are occupied, almost exclusively, with the various signs by which the approach of that great catastrophe might be known, and with admonitions to the disciples to hold themselves in readiness for it. Matthew, for example, devotes fifty verses to the account of the prophecy and the admonitions connected with it. Of these, only four, chap. 24:19–22, describe the calamities of the scene, and that in the most general terms. Now, upon the supposition that the evangelist wrote before the event, all this is natural. Our Lord's design in uttering the prophecy was not to gratify the idle curiosity of the disciples, but to warn them beforehand in such a way that they might escape the horrors of the impending catastrophe. He dwelt, therefore, mainly on the signs of its approach; and with these, as having a chief interest for the readers, the record of the prediction is mostly occupied. It is impossible, on the other hand, to conceive that one who wrote years after the destruction of the city and temple should not have dwelt in more detail on the bloody scenes connected with their overthrow, and have given in other ways also a historic coloring to his account. We may safely say that to write a prophecy after the event in such a form as that which we have in either of the first three gospels, transcends the power of any uninspired man; and as to inspired narratives, the objectors with whom we are now dealing deny them altogether.

      But there are, in the record of this prophecy, some special indications of the time when the evangelists wrote. According to Matthew, the disciples asked, ver. 3: "When shall these things"—the destruction of the buildings of the temple—"be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?" These questions our Lord proceeded to answer in such a way that the impression on the minds of the hearers (to be rectified only by the course of future events) must have been that the overthrow of the temple and city would be connected with his second coming and the end of the world. "Immediately after the tribulation of those days," says Matthew, "shall the sun be darkened," etc. The probable explanation of this peculiar form of the prophecy is that it does actually include all three events; the fulfilment which it had in the destruction of the city and temple by the Romans being only an earnest of a higher fulfilment hereafter. But however this may be, it is important to notice that the evangelists, in their record of the prophecy, are evidently unconscious of any discrepancy, real or apparent, that needs explanation; which could not have been the case had they written years after the event predicted. "It may be safely held," says Professor Fisher, Supernatural Origin of Christianity, p. 172, "that