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 TESTAMENT

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TESTAMENT

by the very fact, the authenticity of the contested books became of minor importance. We have to come down to the sixteenth century to hear the ques- tion repeated, whether the Epistle to the Hebrews was written by St. Paul, or the Epistles called Catho- lic were in reality composed by the Apostles whose names they bear. Some Humanists, as Erasmus and Cardinal Cajetan, revived the objections mentioned by St. Jerome, and which are based on the style of these writings. To this Luther added the inadmis- sibility of the doctrine, as regards the Epistle of St. James. However, it was practically the Luth'erans alone who sought to diminish the traditional Canon, which the Council of Trent was to define in 1546.

It was reserved to modern times, especially to our own days, to di.spute and deny the truth of the opin- ion received from the ancients concerning the origin of the books of the New Testament. This doubt and the negation regarding the authors had their pri- mary cause in the religious incredulity of the eight- eenth century. These witnesses to the truth of a religion no longer beUeved were inconvenient, if it was true that they had seen and heard what they related. Little time was needed to find, in analyzing them, indications of a later origin. The conclusions of the Tiibingen school, which brought down to the second century the compositions of all the New Testament except four Epistles of St. Paul (Rom.; Gal.; I, II Cor.), was very common thirty or forty years ago, in so-called critical circles (see Diet, apolog. de la foi catholique, I, 771-6). When the crisis of militant incredulity had passed, the problem of the New Testa- ment began to be examined more calmly, and espe- cially more methodically. From the critical studies of the past half century we may draw the following con- clusion, which is now in its general outlines admitted by all: It was a mistake to have attributed the origin of Christian literature to a later date; these texts, on the whole, date back to the second half of the first century; consequently they are the work of a genera- tion that counted a good number of direct witnesses of the life of Jesus Christ. From stage to stage, from Strauss to Renan, from Renan to Reuss, Weizsacker, Holtzmann, Jtilicher, Weiss, and from these to Zahn, Harnack, criticism has just retraced its steps over the distance it had so inconsiderately covered under the guidance of Christian Baur. To-day it is admit- ted that the first Gospels were written about the year 70. The Acts can hardly be said to be later; Harnack even thinks they were composed nearer to the year 60 than to the year 70. The Epistles of St. Paul remain beyond all dispute, except those to the Ephesians and to the Hebrews, and the pastoral Epistles, about which doubts still exist. In like manner there are many who contest the Cathohc Epistles; but even if the Second Epistle of Peter is delayed till towards the year 120 or 1.30, the Epistle of St. James is put by several at the very beginning of Christian literature, between the years 40 and .50, the earliest Epistles of St. Paul about 52 tiU 58.

At present the brunt of the battle rages around the writings called .Johannine (the fourth Gospel, the three Epistles of John, and the Apocal>^5.se). Were these texts wTitlen by the Apostle .John, son of Zebe- dec, or by John the presbyter of I^phesus whom Papias mentions? There is nothing to oblige us to endor.se the conclusions of radical criticisms on this subject. On the contrary, the strong testimony of tradition attributes these writings to the Apostle St. John, nor is it weakened at all by internal criteria, provided we do not lose sight of the character of the fourth Gospel — called by Clement of Alexandria "a spiritual gos- pel", .OS compared with the three others, which he styled "corporal". Theologically, we nuist take into consideration the recent ecclesiastical dociunents (Decree "Lamentabili", prop. 17, 18, and the answer of the Roman Commission for Biblical Questions, 29

May, 1907). These decisions uphold the Johannine and ApostoUc origin of the fourth Gospel. Whatever may be the issue of these controversies, a Cathohc will be, and that in virtue of his principles, in exception- ally favourable circumstances for accepting the just exigencies of criticism. If it be ever established that II Peter belongs to a kind of literature then common, namely the pseudepigraph, its canonicity wiU not on that account be compromised. Inspiration and authenticity are distinct and even separable, when no dogmatic question is involved in their union.

The question of the origin of the New Testament includes yet another literary problem, concerning the Go.spels especially. Are these WTitings indepen- dent of one another? If one of the Evangelists did utilize the work of his predecessors how are we to suppose it happened? Was it Matthew who used Mark or vice versa? After thirty years of constant study, the question has been answered only by con- jectures. Amongst these must be included the docu- mentary theory itself, even in the form in which it is now commonly admitted, that of the "two sources". The starting-point <>( this theor\', namely the priority of Mark and the use made of him by Rlatthew and Luke, although it has become a dogma in criticism for many, cannot be said to be more than a hypothesis. However disconcerting this may be, it is none the less true. None of the proposed solutions has been ap- proved of by all scholars who are really competent in the matter, because all these solutions, while answering some of the difficulties, leave ahuost as many unan- swered. If then we must be content with hypothesis, we ought at least to prefer the most satisfactory. The analysis of the text seems to agree fairly well with the hypothesis of two sources — Mark and Q. (i. e. Quelle, the non-Marcan document); but a con- servative critic will adopt it only in so far as it is not incompatible with such data of tradition concerning the origin of the Gospels as are certain or worthy of respect.

These data may be resumed as follows, (a) The Gospels are really the work of those to whom they have been always attributed, although this ultribu- tion may perhaps be explained by a more or less me- diate authorship. Thus, the Apostle St. iMatthew, having wTitten in Aramaic, did not himself put into Greek the canonical Gospel which has come down to us under his name. However, the fact of his being considered the author of this Gospel necessarily sup- poses that between the original Aramaic and the Greek text there is, at least, a substantial conformity. The original text of St. Matthew is certainly prior to the ruin of Jerusalem ^ there are even reasons for dating it earlier than the Epistles of St. Paul and con- sequently about the year .SO. We know nothing defi- nite of the date of its being rendered into Greek, (b) Everything seems to indicate the date of the compo- sition of St. Mark as about the time of St. Peter's death, consequently between 60 and 70. (c) St. Luke tells us exijressly that before him "many took in hand to set forth in order" the Gospel. What then was the date of his own work? About the year 70. It is to be remembered that we must not expect from the an- cients the precision of our modern chronology, (d) The .Johannine writings belong to the end of the first century, from the year 90 to 100 (approximately); except perhaps the Apocal>i).se, which some modern critics date from about the end of the reign of Nero, A. D. 68 (.see Gospel and Gospels).

IV. Transmission of the Text. — Xo book of ancient times has come down to us exactly as it left the hands of its author — all liave been in some way altered. The material conditions imdcr which a book wa.s spread before the invention of ])rinliMg (1440), the little care of the copyists, correctors, and glossa- tors for the text, so different from the desire of accu- racy exhibited to-day, explain sufficiently the diver-