Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/846

Rh Ignatius. Polycarp. 822 Son, and the Holy Spirit, ye shall not enter the kingdom of lieaven.” ' If (6') “living” had subsequently been omitted, the development would have been completed in a sixth and last stage. Take another case of the apparent use of the Fourth Gospel by Ignatius. “I desire bread of God, heavenly bread, bread of life, which is the ﬂesh of Jesus Christ, . and I desire drink of God, His blood, which is love iiiiperishable, and ever-abiding life” (E1). to the Romans, ch. vii.). Now here it is true that we have a thought peculiar to the Fourth Gospel. Paul speaks of the “ blood” always as sacrificial, the “ blood of sprinkling ; ” and indeed to a Jewish mind, t-aught to “abstain from blood,” the thought of drinking “ blood” would be at first extremely repulsive, even as a spiritual metaphor. It is very unlike anything in the Apocalypse, where blood is never “drunk,” except by the scarlet woman and the murderers of the saints. But it is an image that must have suggested itself to the church as soon as the Gentiles, unfettered by Jewish associations, began to be imbued with eucharistic thought. Indeed, after the first repugnance had worn away, Jewish thought itself——even Pauline thought, and much more the thought of Jewish Christians trained in the school of Philo—would hasten the adoption of the eucharistic metaphor. For was not the blood “ the life,” according to Moses? And was not a Christian taught to believe, with Paul, that his individual life was merged and “hid” in Christ’s life? Again, it would soon be felt that to speak merely of feeding on Christ’s ﬂesh was to present the New Testament in an unsyiii- metrical and almost maimed aspect. Moses l1'1(l not only fed his people upon bread from the sky (the niaima), but had also given them water to drink from the rock. What had the church to show against this symmetrical display of Mosaic power? It was not enough to say (with Paul) that that same “rock” was really Christ: it was necessary to show that the rock still supplied the faithful with divine drink. And for this purpose, what was more appropriate than the cup of the Lord’s blood? Regarded in this way, the metaphor would commend itself speedily even to the Jewish mind. Nay, to the cultivated Alex- andrian Jew, it would at once commend itself, as we may perceive from the works of Philo, who uses words so strikingly similar to Christian thought that they might almost seem, to a hasty reader, to have (of themselves) originated the eucharistic miracle of Cana. “Who can pour over the happy soul (which proffers its own reason as the most sacred cup) the holy goblet of true joy, except the cup-bearer of God, the Master of the Feast, the Word 2” (On Dreams, ii. 38). When such thought as this was ﬂoating in the atmosphere of Ephesus and Alexandria, it is impossible to draw from the vague resemblance of the Ignatian passage quoted above any inference that Ignatius was quoting, or even referring to, the Fourth Gospel. Nor can we infer any quotation of documents from the fact that Polycarp (Ep. to PIn'lip., ch. vii.) men- tions Antichrist in language somewhat similar to 1 Jo. iv. 2, 3. “Every one that doth not confess that Jesus Christ hath come in the flesh,” writes Polycarp, “is Antichrist; and whose doth not confess the mystery of the cross is of the devil.” The thought indeed is inani- festly similar, and the language so far similar as to show that both Polycarp and the author of the epistle lived amid identical traditions of Christian teaching. But the epistle itself _testifies that the name “Antichrist,” so far from being invented by the author of the epistle, was already current in the church: “Little children, ye have heard that Antichrist shall come.” If, therefore, it was a fact that already in Asia there had arisen a sect denying that Christ had come “ in the flesh,” and that the Ephesian circle of apostles first, and the Ephesian school of elders GOSPELS [rouarii GOSPEL afterwards, had denounced such a belief as being of Satan and of Antichrist, and if this was taught to the Ephesian catechuineiis, and preached in the Ephesian pulpits, in a form sanctioned by authoritative teaching and by repeated use, what more is wanting to explain the similarity between the Epistle of John and that of Polycarp? Again, it is said that Justin (1)z'al., ch. 88) imitates Justi John (i. 23) in putting the words “ The voice of one cry- Ma“ ing,” the, into the mouth of John the Baptist, instead of placing them as an evangelical comment (as the synoptists do) on the appearance of the Baptist (Mat. iii. 3; Mk. i. 3; Lu. iii. 4). But this inference is unsoiuid, as can be shown by analogy; for Mark uses also as an evangelical comment (i. 2), “I send My messenger before thy face ;” but Matthew and Luke place it in the mouth of our Lord (Mat. xi. 10; Lu. vii. 27); and therefore, according to the reasoning above, we must infer that Luke had copied Matthew, or Matthew had copied Luke, in taking the evangelical conmient, and inserting it in a discourse of Jesus ! How fallacious would be such a deduction ! How much more reasonable to suppose that—iii accordance with the inevitable tendency thus to take prophecy, as it were, out of the framework, and insert it in the picture— Matthew and Luke have independently adopted a tradition later than Mark, which transposed Mark’s evangelistic application of prophecy, and inserted it in the words of the Lord ! But if this is the more probable solution in the case of Matthew and Luke, why not also in the case of J ustiii and John, the circumstances being precisely the same? But it has been urged that, although Justin cannot be shown to have quoted the Fourth Gospel, yet his acquaint- ance with the Valentinians (Dial. 35)——“ who freely used the Fourth Gospel” (Ireii., Adv. Ila’)-., I. viii. 5)—“ shows that the Fourth Gospel could not have been unknown to him” (Westcott, I-nlrod. to Gospel of St John). Justin’s words are these: “ There are, and there were, many who, coming forward in the name of J esiis, taught both to speak and act blasplieiiious things, with whom we have nothing in common, since we know them to be atheists. Some are called Marcians, and seine Valentinians, and some Basil- idiaiis, and seine Satnrnilians, and others by other names.” Now this mere mention of the Valentiiiiaiis as one of a number of abhorred sects, with whom the writer has nothing in common, scarcely seems to prove any minute acquaintance on the part of Justin with the opinions or books in use among the Valentiiiians. But even if it be proved, what is the consequence? Surely this, that Justin, knowing the Fourth Gospel to be freely used by a sect which he stiginatizes by name, altogether abstained from using it himself. Irenzeus, who uses the Fourth Gospel, accuses the Valentinians of misusing it; Justin, who does not use the Gospel, brings no such accusation. The natural inference is (if any inference at all is to be drawn from such slight premises) that either he did not know of the existence of the Gospel or of its misuse, or that he knew of its existence and use but did not recognize its authority. Two more instances must conclude the list. It is found that both Justin and John alter the quotations of Zerli. xii. 10 from the LXX. version (E7rL,3)tc'1[/01/Tat 7rp5C at .1:/0’ div Kafoipxrfaavfo) into 51//ov1'aL (is 3v Efcxévrvyaav : “ They shall look on Him whom they pierced;” and the Apoca- lypse (i. 7) also contains the same word in “they also which pierced Him.” But this, as we have seen above, especially as it involves a return to the Ilcbrew text, is perfectly ex- plicable on the same grounds as those which explain pro- phecies similarly quoted by the synoptists—-viz., a common “ecclesiastical use.” Still less can anything but ﬂoating tradition be inferred from such an allusion as is contained in Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philadelphians: “ The Spirit, coming from God, is not to be deceived; for it knoweth