Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/841

Rh EXTERNAL EviDi:Ncr:.] this ; but St John's Gospel is not once quoted in the whole of his works, and it is iiiconce.ivable that, in this latent fashion, he should have referred once to a writing as apostolic, which elsewhere he never quotes. It seems more likely that Justin considered that the ¢3uro,uyi7p.ovei3p.a-i-a Ilérpou were written by Peter, so that the ﬁrst two Gospels at all events were written by apostles ; or else that he con- sidered the First Gospel not to have been written by one apostle, but to have been a joint apostolic production. Elsewhere, in de- scribing the agony of the Lord (Lu. xxii. 44), a passage peculiar to Luke, he seems to have been struck with the inapplicability of his favourite title to a work written by one who was only a. follower of the apostles; and instead of his usual formula, he here substi- tiites “The memoirs which I assert to have been written by the apostles, and by those who attached themselves to them ;” but even this more precise description would only hold good of the three Gospels used by Justin, on the supposition that the “Memoirs of Peter ” were written not by Mark but by Peter. The subject is important, as showing by what easy stages a work written by a pupil might be supposed (even in the face of direct evidence to the contrary) to be written by the teacher. For a full discussion of J ustin’s quotations from the Gospels the reader is rcferred to 'estcott. On the Ctmo-n of the New Testament, pp. 95-175, and Sanday, flu: Gospels in the Second Century, pp. 68-137. Here it must suﬁice to state a few general conclusions deduced from an examination of his use of the Old and New Testament. Vc iiuist bear in mind then (1) that Justin is writing polemi- cally, and that (especially in his dialogue with the Jew Trypho) a inaiu object with him is to show that “ the prophets are fulfilled in Jesus ;” to the proof from prophecy he attaches more importance than to any other. ('2) He is a most inexact quoter; and though he quotes long passages from the Old Testament accurately, shorter passages are quoted from memory inexactly, while Messianic pas- sages, even when long, are modiﬁed (sometimes with a closer rcturn to the Hebrew original) by Christian use and adaptation to Christ. (3) He often inserts words and notions of his own in the passages quoted from the Old Testament: for example, he says that Moses, in order to heal the children ot' Israel from the plague of serpents, “ took brass and made an image of a cross, and set this in the holy tabernacle, and said to the people, Should you look on this image and believe on it, ye shall be saved " (Ca7z0n., p. 124). (4) He ascribes texts to wrong authors, and quotes the same text in various shapes, not only in different books, but even in the same book and at short intervals (Ib. 127). This beino the case, we shall naturally be prepared, in approaching the hfew Testament quotations of J ustiu, to ﬁnd many inaccuracies, and some alterations of fact; especially where a slight alteration can render some Old Testament prophecy more applicable to the New Testament nar- rative. Reviewing the quotations from the apostolic fathers given above, we shall expect to ﬁnd in Justin also a great number of the words of the Lord and incidents in the life of Jesus quoted from tradition, which are not found in our Gospels. Cleincnt, we ﬁnd, has two passages roughly quoted from our Gospels; and one traditional saying quoted in Acts xx. 35. Ignatius (Vossian) uses phrases or sentences from Matthew four times allusively, but quotes a “ word of the Lord” found in no Gospel. The author of the Epistle of ’»arnabas quotes Matthew once, and a non-canonical word of the Lord once. Polycarp is the first apostolic father who, while four or ﬁve times quoting or alluding to sayings in our Gospels, quotes in non-canouical passages. Papias “published” a narrative con- tained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. If thcn, in the small modicum of quotation hitherto given, so large a proportion (say a fourth) is non-canonical, how much more non-canonical in-attcr might we naturally expect to ﬁnd in Justin, who in two works quotcs our Gospels 67 times (Sunday, p. 116), and occasioii- ally in long continuous passages? Ve shall also expect to ﬁnd in Justin many misquotations of our Gospels, arising from interpola- tions and corruptious of the text, for "the worst corruptious to which the Xew Testament has ever been subjected originated within a hundred years after it was composed ” (Scrivener, quoted by Sanday, p. 135). A generation after Justin, Irenaeus will be found quoting the interpolated appendix of Mark, which the general consent of scholars now recognizes to be spurious; and it has been pointed out that the differences of Justin from the ordinary text are little more than the differences of Codex D from the same text. Bearing these considerations in mind, we ought to be surprised, not at the large, but at the small amount of extraneous matter which Justin has introduced into the Gospel narrative, and at the comparative accuracy with which he has quoted the Gospels. Treating of the variations of quotation, Dr Vestcott has shown that, even where J ustin’.s misquotations are found in other authors, the resemblances are of such a kind as to be easily derivable from .some common tradition, or from some early but now obsolete text (Canon, pp. 148-156). The extraneous matter may readily be explained as arising either from sense of an omission or from the GOSPELS 817 morbid desire to ﬁnd in each incident of the life of Christ the ful- ﬁlment of some prophecy in the Old Testament. lf, for example, (1) he speaks of the voice from heaven at the baptism as being, “Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee ;” this is ex- plained (apart from the various reading in D, which no doubt arose from the same motive) by a desire to see in the voice a repeti- tion of PS. ii. 7. ('2) Ifa ﬁre is said to have been kindled in the Jordan at the Lord's baptism, was it not natural that He who came to baptize others with the higher baptism of ﬁre, as well as that of water, should Himself receive the highest; baptism ; or that the act which was already technically known as ¢>w-rurp.¢5s, “enlighten- mcnt," should be accompanied (in the case of the Lord of Light) by that symbol which was specially characteristic of the divine pre- scnce? (3) If Mark reeorded that Jesus was a " carpenter" (a fact not then suppressed by the various reading in Mk. vi. 3, owing to such sneers as those of Celsus, Oiigen, Cont. Ccls., v. 34), was it not ﬁtting that the Carpenter, who bade men lay hand on the plough, and take His yoke on them, should have “wrought, when among men, ploughs and yokes” ? (4) It' he speaks of the Magi as having come “from Arabia," had it not been prophesied, Ps. lxxi. (lxxii.) 10, that “ the kings of the Arabians shall bring gifts" ? (5) If the foal ot' the ass on which our Lord entered Jerusalem was said by Justin to have been “bound to a vine,” must it not needs have been so, seeing that it was said of Judah (Gen. xlix. 11) that “ he bound his foal unto the vine"? (6) Lastly, since Isaiah predicted (xxxiii. 16 in LXX.) that “he shall dwell in a high cave of’ a strong rock," was it not necessary that the Messiah should not only be born in llcthlchem, but also “ in a cave" ? In all these additions there is absolutely nothing to make pro- bable, or even suggest (even though the “ ﬁre ” at the baptism of Jesus is mentioned in an apocryphal Gospel) that Justin used any other written Gospel than those known to us. These thoughts and others like them were ﬂoating in the atmosphere of every Christian church in those days. They were the results naturally developed from that habit of appeal to prophecy which has produced, even in our own canonical Gospels, not incoiisiderable effects ; and there is nothing in J ustin’s additions that is not capable of being explained from the same method (developed a little further) as that by w hich we may explain Mattl1ew’s addition about the potter’s ﬁeld, and possibly some of the other passages peculiar to the First and Third Gospels. Nor does the oniissiou of the names Matthew, Mark, and Luke, by J ustin, throw any doubt upon the supposition that he used the Gospels called by those names. It is quite possible that the names were given to these Gospels long after their composition. The very title, '°‘ The Gospel according to Matthew,” &c. (not of, or by, Matthew), indicates that, even at the time when the titles were assigned, the compilers were regarded rather as editors of an old and received tradition than as authors of a new book. It is therefore quite possible that Justin (who mentions John by name as the author of the Apocalypse) may have used the ﬁrst three Gospels, and yet have been ignorant of the names under which they are now curient. Three most iinpoitaiit facts remain to be mentioned. (a) Justin tells us that in his days the memoirs of the apostles were read with the books of the piopliets in the service of the church. This public reading of the memoirs iiuist have given, if not a complete security, at least a considerable guarantee, against material alterations. The fact that the new traditions wcre now placed on a level with the ancient and venerable writings or scriptures of the Old Testament was a still inoi'e effectual barrier against change. (b) Although Justin mentions sayings of our Lord and events in His life not found in our Gospels, yet “ he never does so when he proposes to guote the apostolic memoirs” (Westcott, Canon, p. 157). (c) In escribing the ﬁre kindled in the Jordan and the voice from heaven, he not only does not quote the memoirs, but, by implication, dis- tinguishes these statements from other statements immediately fol- lowing, which are quoted from the memoirs (Canon, pp. 158-159).‘ To conclude, we ﬁnd that, although Justin knew and used tradi- tions, yet (1) he set a special value on certain writings, which were publicly read in the churches; (2) he believed these to have been written by apostles, or the immediate disciples of apostles, and he repeatedly quotes them under this title; (3) though he does not lay stress on miracles (for miracles would be assumed by the J cw Trypho, accustomed to the miracles of Moses and Elisha, and they would be rather harmful than helpful to his cause in the eyes of educated Greeks and Romans), nor on the longer lessons involved in Christ's parables, yet he covers the greater part of our Gospel history, and much of our Lord’s teaching through maxims; this he does to such an extent that it is possible (Saiiday, pp. 91-98) to reconstruct from his quotations a fairly connected narrative of the incarnation, birth, teaching, cruciﬁxion, resurrection, and ascen- sion of the Lord ; (4) the whole of this narrative (with the exception of the few iminiportant incidents mentioned above, and one or two 1 Pei haps we may also lay some stress on the fact that, in the seven passages in which Justin uses the phrase, " it is written," as applied to the memoirs, he almost always agrees rcrbatim with Matthew or with Luke (Canon, p. 130). 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