W. Sanday

“ He not only drew from the main body of the evangelical tradition, but also from those particular and individual strains which appear in the first and third Synoptics. He has done this in the spirit of a true desultor, passing backwards and forwards first to one and then to the other, inventing no middle links, but merely piecing together the two accounts as best he could. Indeed the preliminary portions of Justin's Gospel read very much like the sort of rough primâ facie harmony which, without any more profound study, most people make for themselves. ”

“ But the Christian raises himself above the flesh and its lusts, which disturb the faculties of knowledge as well as those of will, to the Spirit and the spiritual service of God, above the ways of darkness to the ways of light; he presses on to faith, and with faith to perfect knowledge, as one born again, who is full of the Spirit of God, in whom God dwells and prophesies, interpreting past and future without being seen or heard ”

“ I should be tempted to say that the almost exclusive and certainly excessive use of arguments derived from the history of dogma was the prime fallacy which lies at the root of the Tübingen criticism. How can it be thought that an Englishman, or a German, trained under and surrounded by the circumstances of the nineteenth century, should be able to thread all the mazes in the mind of a Gnostic or an Ebionite in the second? It is difficult enough for us to lay down a law for the actions of our own immediate neighbours and friends ”

“ It is time that the extreme negative school should justify more completely their canons of criticism. As it is, the laxity of these repels many a thoughtful mind quite as firmly convinced as they can be of the necessity of free enquiry and quite as anxious to reconcile the different sides of knowledge. The question is not one merely of freedom or tradition, but of reason and logic; and until there is more agreement as to what is reasonable and what the laws of logic demand, the arguments are apt to run in parallel lines that never meet [Endnote 348:1] . ”

“ We should hardly endorse the arguments by which Irenaeus proves a priori the necessity of a 'four-fold Gospel,' but there is real weight in the fact that four Gospels and no more were accepted by him and others like him. It is difficult to read without impatience the rough words that are applied to the early Christian writers and to contrast the self-complacency in which our own superior knowledge is surveyed. If there is something in which they are behind us, there is much also in which we are behind them. ”

“ He knows well that the author whom he has set himself to criticise is at least a writer of remarkable vigour and ability, and that he cannot lay claim to these qualities; but he has confidence in the power of truth—whatever that truth may be— to assert itself in the end. An open and fair field and full and free criticism are all that is needed to eliminate the effects of individual strength or weakness. 'The opinions of good men are but knowledge in the making'—especially where they are based upon a survey of the original facts. ”

“ Supposing even that some of these allusions could be definitely referred to an apocryphal source, the possibility would be somewhat, but not so very much, increased that other instances which bear resemblance to our Gospels were also in their origin apocryphal. But on the other hand, if a single instance of the use of a canonical Gospel really holds good, it is proof of the existence of that Gospel, and every new instance renders the conclusion more probable, and makes it more and more difficult to account for the phenomena in any other way. ”

“ We are constantly reminded in reading 'Supernatural Religion,' able and vigorous as it is, how much of its force depends rather upon our ignorance than our knowledge. It supplies us with many opportunities of seeing how easily the whole course and tenour of an argument may be changed by the introduction of a new element. For instance, I imagine that if the author had given a little deeper study to the seemingly minute and secondary subject of text-criticism, it would have aroused in him very considerable misgivings as to the results at which he seemed to have arrived. ”

“ It is all but impossible that two minds without concert or connection should have thought of introducing anything of the kind. Nicodemus makes an objection, and Justin by repeating the same objection, and in a form that savours so strongly of platitude, has shown, I think we must say, conclusively, that he was aware that the objection had been made.
Such are some of the chief literary coincidences between Justin and the fourth Gospel; but there are others more profound. Justin undoubtedly has the one cardinal doctrine of the fourth Gospel— the doctrine of the Logos. ”

“ An inference in which there are two or three steps may be often quite as strong as that in which there is only one, and probabilities may mount up to a high degree of what is called moral or practical certainty. I cannot but think that many of those which have been already obtained are of this character. I cannot but regard it as morally or practically certain that Marcion used our third Gospel; as morally or practically certain that all four Gospels were used in the Clementine Homilies ”

“ All the reasons that go to form a judge's decision do not appear in his charge. Yet there we have a select and highly-trained mind working upon matter that presents no very great degree of complexity. When we come to a question so wide, so subtle and complex as Christianity, the individual mind ceases to be competent to sit in judgment upon it. It becomes necessary to appeal to a much more extended tribunal, and the verdict of that tribunal will be given rather by acts than in words. ”

“ The Gospel stands to our Synoptic entirely in the relation of defect. We may say entirely, for the additions are so insignificant—some thirty words in all, and those for the most part supported by other authority—that for practical purposes they need not be reckoned. With the exception of these thirty words inserted, and some, also slight, alterations of phrase, Marcion's Gospel presents simply an abridgment of our St. Luke. ”

“ Existing before the foundation of the world, the Lord of the world, the sender of the prophets, the object of their prophecies, beheld even by Abraham, in the person of Moses himself typified as the only centre of Israel's hopes, and in so far already revealed and glorified in type before his incarnation, he was at last to appear, to dwell among us, to be seen, not as son of David but as Son of God, in the garment of the flesh, by those who could not even endure the light of this world's sun. ”

“ Matthew Arnold has lately been traversing with much of his usual insight but in a light and popular manner, be seriously mapped out and explored. Pioneers have been at work, such as Dr. Kuenen, but not perhaps quite without a bias: let the same enquiry be taken up so widely as that the effects of bias may be eliminated; and instead of at once accepting the first crude results, let us wait until they are matured by time. ”

“ But such an estimate would be in fact much too high, as there can be no doubt that the earlier researches of Hahn and Ritschl ought to be corrected by those of Hilgenfeld and Volkmar; and the difference between these two critics is quite insignificant. Taking the severest view that it is possible to take, no one will maintain that the differences between the critics are such as to affect the main issue, so that upon one hypothesis one theory would hold good, and upon another hypothesis another. ”

“ But, on the other hand, the question of true belief itself is immensely wide. It is impossible to approach what is merely a branch of a vast subject without some general conclusions already formed as to the whole. The mind cannot, if it would, become a sheet of blank paper on which the writing is inscribed by an external process alone. It must needs have its praejudicia— i.e. judgments formed on grounds extrinsic to the special matter of enquiry—of one sort or another. Accordingly we find that an absolutely and strictly impartial temper never has existed and never will. ”

“ The question of the reality of miracles clearly is not affected. Justin's documents, whatever they were, not only contained repeated notices of the miracles in general, the healing of the lame and the paralytic, of the maimed and the dumb, and the raising of the dead—not only did they include several discourses, such as the reply to the messengers of John and the saying to the Centurion whose servant was healed, which have direct reference to miracles, but they also give marked prominence to the chief and cardinal miracles of the Gospel history, the Incarnation and the Resurrection. ”

“ It is in history that the laws of human nature assume a concrete shape and expression. The fact that Christianity has held its ground in the face of such long-continued and hostile criticism is a proof that it must have some deeply-seated fitness and appropriateness for man. And this goes a long way towards saying that it is true. It is a theory of things that is being constantly tested by experience. ”

“ When we turn from even the best of these, in its best and highest embodiment, to the picture that is put before us in the Gospels, how small does it seem! We feel that they all fall short of their ideal, and that there is a greater promise and potentiality of perfection in the root than has ever yet appeared in branch or flower. ”

“ The triple synopsis, which has to do more with narrative, presents less difficulty, but the problem raised by these fragmentary parallelisms in discourse is dark and complex in the extreme; yet if it were only solved it would in all probability give us the key to a wide class of phenomena. The differences in these extra-canonical quotations do not exceed the differences between the Synoptic Gospels themselves; yet by far the larger proportion of critics regard the resemblances in the Synoptics as due to a common written source used either by all three or by two of them. ”

“ There remains however the fact that it rests only upon the attestation of a writer of the seventh century, who may possibly be wrong, but, if so, has been led into his error not wilfully but by accident. No reason can be alleged for the forging or purposely false ascription of a fragment like this, and it bears the stamp of good faith in that it asks indulgence for opponents instead of censure. We may perhaps safely accept the fragment with some, not large, deduction from its weight. ”

“ Error and imperfection seem to be permanently, if we may hope diminishingly, a condition of human thought and action. It does not appear to be the will of God that Truth should ever be so presented as to crush out all variety of opinion. The conflict of opinions is like that of Hercules with the Hydra. As fast as one is cut down another arises in its place ”

“ It needed a more powerful mind than Justin's to reduce all this to its simple Christian expression, to take the poetry of Judaea and the philosophy of Alexandria and to interpret and realise both in the light of the historical events of the birth and life of Christ. 'The Word became flesh' is the key by which Justin is made intelligible, and that key is supplied by the fourth Gospel. No other Christian writer had combined these two ideas before—the divine Logos, with the historical personality of Jesus. ”

“ Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.' 'Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' The plummet of science—physical or metaphysical, moral or critical—has never sounded so deep as sayings such as these. ”

“ The Jewish and Christian literature of the century before and of the two centuries after the birth of Christ must undergo a more searching examination, by minds of different nationality and training, both as to the date, text, and character of the several books. The whole balance of an argument may frequently be changed by some apparently minute and unimportant discovery; while, at present, from the mere want of consent as to the data, the state of many a question is necessarily chaotic. It is far better that all these points should be discussed as disinterestedly as possible. ”

“ The spiritual movements of recent times have opened men's eyes more and more to its supreme spiritual excellence. It is no longer possible to resolve it into a mere 'code of morals.' The Christian ethics grow organically out of the relations which Christianity assumes between God and man, and in their fulness are inseparable from those relations. The author of 'Supernatural Religion' speaks as if they were separable, as if a man could assume all the Christian graces merely by wishing to assume them. ”

“ There will probably be some points in every science which will never be cleared up to the end of time. The affirmation of the antiquity of Marcion's Gospel rests upon the simple axiom that every event must have a cause, and that in order to produce complicated phenomena the interaction of complicated causes is necessary. ”

“ He is appealing to the Catholic tradition in opposition to heretical teaching such as that of Valentinus and Marcion, and he says, 'There is an Epistle written by Polycarp to the Philippians of great excellence [Greek: hikanotatae] , from which those who wish to do so and who care for their own salvation may learn both the character of his faith and the preaching of the truth' [Endnote 82:2] . He would hardly have used such language if he had not had reason to think that the Epistle was at least fairly accessible to the Christians for whom he is writing. ”

“ Yet, in a mind that should present at all adequately the internal evidence of the Gospels, both should co-exist in equal balance and proportion. We cannot say that there will never be such a mind, but the asceticism of a life would be a necessary discipline for it to go through, and that such a life as the world has seldom seen. ”

“ The two principal forms in which these have come down to us are the so-called Homilies and Recognitions. The Recognitions however are only extant in a Latin translation by Rufinus, in which the quotations from the Gospels have evidently been assimilated to the Canonical text which Rufinus himself used. They are not, therefore, in any case available for our purpose. Whether the Recognitions or the Homilies came first in order of time is a question much debated among critics, and the even way in which the best opinions seem to be divided is a proof of the uncertainty of the data. ”

“ In fact I doubt whether any subsequent century saw changes so great, though we should naturally suppose that corruption would proceed at an advancing rate for every fresh copy that was made. The phenomena that have to be accounted for are not, be it remembered, such as might be caused by the carelessness of a single scribe. ”

“ When we attempt to reconstruct the 'collection of discourses' the task is very far from being an easy one. We do indeed find certain groups of discourse in the first Gospel—such as the Sermon on the Mount ch. v-vii, the commission of the Apostles ch. x, a series of parables ch. xiii, of instructions in ch. xviii, invectives against the Pharisees in ch. xxvi, and long eschatological discourses in ch. xxiv and xxv, which seem at once to give a handle to the theory that the Evangelist has incorporated a work consisting specially of discourses into the main body of the Synoptic narrative. ”