far as appears, the same or very similar matter. In other words, instead of four Gospels he would give us five or six or seven. I do not know that, merely as a matter of policy, and for apologetic purposes only, the best way to refute his conclusion would not be to admit his premisses and to insist upon the multiplication of the evidence for the facts of the Gospel history which his argument would seem to involve. I mention this however, not with any such object, but rather to show that the truth of Christianity is not intimately affected, and that there are no such great reasons for partiality on one side or on the other.

I confess that it was a relief to me when I found that this must be the case. I do not think the time has come when the central question can be approached with any safety. Rough and ready methods (such as I am afraid I must call the first part of 'Supernatural Religion') may indeed cut the Gordian knot, but they do not untie it. A number of preliminary questions will have to be determined with a greater degree of accuracy and with more general consent than has been done hitherto. 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. No work is so good as that which is done without sight of the object to which it is tending and where the workman has only his measure and rule to trust to. I am glad to think that the investigation which is to follow may be almost, if not quite, classed in this category; and I hope I may be able to conduct it with sufficient impartiality. Unconscious bias no man can escape, but from conscious bias I trust I shall be free.

CHAPTER II.

ON QUOTATIONS GENERALLY IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS.

The subject then proposed for our investigation is the extent to which the canonical Gospels are attested by the early Christian writers, or, in other words, the history of the process by which they became canonical. This will involve an enquiry into two things; first, the proof of the existence of the Gospels, and, secondly, the degree of authority attributed to them. Practically this second enquiry must be very subordinate to the first, because the data are much fewer; but it too shall be dealt with, cursorily, as the occasion arises, and we shall be in a position to speak upon it definitely before we conclude.

It will be convenient to follow the example that is set us in
'Supernatural Religion,' and to take the first three, or Synoptic,
Gospels separately from the fourth.

* * * * *

At the outset the question will occur to us, On what principle is the enquiry to be conducted? What sort of rule or standard are we to assume? In order to prove either the existence or the authority of the Gospels, it is necessary that we should examine the quotations from them, or what are alleged to be quotations from them, in the early writers. Now these quotations are notoriously lax. It will be necessary then to have some means of judging, what degree and kind of laxity is admissible; what does, and what does not, prevent the reference of a quotation to a given source.

The author of 'Supernatural Religion,' indeed, has not felt the necessity for this preliminary step. He has taken up, as it were, at haphazard, the first standard that came to his hand; and, not unnaturally, this is found to be very much the standard of the present literary age, when both the mechanical and psychological conditions are quite different from those that prevailed at the beginning of the Christian era. He has thus been led to make a number of assertions which will require a great deal of qualification. The only sound and scientific method is to make an induction (if only a rough one) respecting the habit of early quotation generally, and then to apply it to the particular cases.

Here there will be three classes of quotation more or less directly in point: (1) the quotations from the Old Testament in the New; (2) the quotations from the Old Testament in the same early writers whose quotations from the New Testament are the point in question; (3) quotations from the New Testament, and more particularly from the Gospels, in the writers subsequent to these, at a time when the Canon of the Gospels was fixed and we can be quite sure that our present Gospels are being quoted.

This method of procedure however is not by any means so plain and straightforward as it might seem. The whole subject of Old Testament quotations is highly perplexing. Most of the quotations that we meet with are taken from the LXX version; and the text of that version was at this particular time especially uncertain and fluctuating. There is evidence to show that it must have existed in several forms which differed more or less from that of the extant MSS. It would be rash therefore to conclude at once, because we find a quotation differing from the present text of the LXX, that it differed from that which was used by the writer making the quotation. In some cases this can be proved from the same writer making the same quotation more than once and differently each time, or from another writer making it in agreement with our present text. But in other cases it seems probable that the writer had really a different text before him, because he quotes it more than once, or another writer quotes it, with the same variation. This however is again an uncertain criterion; for the second writer may be copying the first, or he may be influenced by an unconscious reminiscence of what the first had written. The early Christian writers copied each other to an extent that we should hardly be prepared for. Thus, for instance, there is a string of quotations in the first Epistle of Clement of Rome (cc. xiv, xv)—Ps. xxxvii. 36-38; Is. xxix. 13; Ps. lxii. 4, lxxviii. 36, 37, xxxi, 19, xii. 3-6; and these very quotations in the same order reappear in the Alexandrine Clement (Strom. iv. 6). Clement of Alexandria is indeed fond of copying his Roman namesake, and does so without acknowledgment. Tertullian and Epiphanius in like manner drew largely from the works of Irenaeus. But this confuses evidence that would otherwise be clear. For instance, in Eph. iv. 8 St. Paul quotes Ps. lxviii. 19, but with a marked variation from all the extant texts of the LXX. Thus:—

Ps. lxviii. 18 (19).

[Greek: Anabas eis hupsos aechmaloteusas aichmalosian, elabes domata en anthropon.]

[Greek: Aechmaloteusen … en anthropon] [Hebrew: alef], perhaps from assimilation to N.T.

Eph. iv. 8.

[Greek: Anabas eis hupsos aechmaltoteusen aichmalosian, kai edoke domata tois anthropois.]

[Greek: kai] om. [Hebrew: alef]'1, A C'2 D'1, &c. It. Vulg. Memph. &c.; ins. B C'3 D'3 [Hebrew: alef]'4, &c.

Now we should naturally think that this was a very free quotation—so free that it substitutes 'giving' for 'receiving.' A free quotation perhaps it may be, but at any rate the very same variation is found in Justin (Dial. 39). And, strange to say, in five other passages which are quoted variantly by St. Paul, Justin also agrees with him, [Endnote 18:1] though cases on the other hand occur where Justin differs from St. Paul or holds a position midway between him and the