THE CHRIST OF PAUL;

Let the reader imagine that he is in Jerusalem, in Judea, about the year A.D. 34. There is unusual tumult in the vicinity of the Temple. A large crowd has gathered, and, stirred up by some strong provocation, is swayed like the billows in a storm. As we approach, we see a young man, who is trying to raise his voice above the din. There is something very striking in his looks. He is pale, but firm. His eyes gleam with an unearthly light. As the crowd surges and threatens, he is calm. His thoughts and looks are directed more to Heaven than Earth.

But in this crowd there is a young man of an entirely different stamp. He is excited and angry. His eyes are red with rage, and he is seen moving among the crowd like an incendiary. The crisis came, and poor Stephen stood first on the list of Christian martyrs. This little bleared-eyed, angry man is not yet satisfied. Like the tiger that has tasted blood, he thirsts for more. He goes about Jerusalem like a madman. He fills the prisons with men and women who believed with Stephen. When he had done all the injury he could in Jerusalem, he asked and received permission to go to Damascus on a like mission. On his way, while he is breathing out threatenings and slaughter, he is struck down in his mad career. He saw in it the hand of God. Everything is changed in a moment. The fiery stream of burning lava, which rushed in one direction, now turned and ran with equal violence the other way.

Philosophers may differ as to what befell Paul on his way to Damascus; but as for himself, he never doubted. The Christ that he persecuted had spoken to him. His faith in what he saw in his vision he bore in his bosom, as he did his heart; and in a life of toil, suffering, and sorrow, he clung to it to the end.

We can hardly tell what were the feelings of Paul when he awoke to consciousness, because we cannot judge him as we would other men. He had raised his hand against the Son of God, and now, after a severe reproof, he was appointed by him to be his special minister on earth. Paul did just what we might suppose he would. He withdrew from the world, avoided Jerusalem, and, as he says, went into Arabia. There, alone, he meditated over the wonderful scenes through which he had passed. The more he thought, the more he believed he had talked with Christ, the Son of God, and the more he believed he had been selected to spread his Gospel throughout the earth.

Once convinced that his vision was a reality, it was natural for him to make himself believe that these visions were repeated; and through life, in all his acts and movements, he believed he was under the guidance of the same hand that smote him on the plains of Damascus. He goes from place to place as a Spirit from above directs him, and when he speaks he speaks not for himself, but for Him who sent him, Positive and overbearing by nature, he imagines himself to be the minister of the Son of God, and becomes intolerant, vain and exacting. All his ideas are crystallized, and will not bend or yield.

As he was specially selected to preach, he believed in the doctrine of election. When he believed at all, he believed too much; for it was his nature to overrun. He had witnessed Christ—others had not; but, in the absence of proof, they must substitute faith. Works are nothing—faith everything. What he saw and believed, others must believe without seeing.

His theology, from his natural temperament and the circumstances of his conversion, took an austere cast, which made the relation between man and the Creator that of guardian and ward. God himself, in the mind of Paul, is almost hideous. Some are given over to damnation before they are born; while others are destined to be saved before they have had a chance to sin.

It is difficult to tell whether the religious faith of Paul was fully fixed and determined before he left his retreat in Arabia and returned to Damascus, or whether it was the growth of after experience and reflection. At some period of his life, and early too, he had settled in his mind the true relation which Christ bore to humanity. He had the best of reasons for his belief on that subject. He was in Jerusalem at a time when it was not impossible that Mary herself was living; and if not, he saw Peter and was with him fifteen days, when he had every opportunity to inform himself about the early history of Christ. Will any one say that Paul, with a mind awake to everything that related to Christ, would not inquire and find out all that was known about Him who had spoken to him from the clouds, when he was in Jerusalem, and could question those who had been his companions on this earth? If there was anything remarkable about his birth or death, Peter would have told it, and Paul would have repeated it all along the shores of the Archipelago, or wherever he went.

But Paul, from first to last, preached that Christ was born of woman, and was of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh. Upon this point he yielded nothing, and stood to it to the death. Paul was a man of learning, and wrote with great power. Longinus classed him among the great men of Greece. But in action and in deeds is where he went beyond all other men. Upon his shoulders, as he believed, was left the conversion of the world; and he had a will and energy equal to the task. Believing that the Son of God stood at his side, as he performed the mission which had been assigned him, he neither feared nor trembled, but stood up with a bold front in the presence of Festus and King Agrippa. The unsparing cruelty of Nero had no terrors for him.

After Paul had remained in Arabia long enough to collect his thoughts, and determine the course he should pursue, he went back to Damascus. At last he made up his mind to go to Jerusalem and see Peter. What must have been his feelings as he approached the holy city, and passed along the place where he assisted, three years before, in the death of Stephen! Paul never forgave himself for the part he took in this murder.

Can we imagine with what feelings he approached Peter, or why he approached him at all? If he felt sad and grieved at the part he took in the death of Stephen, he did not feel as if he met Peter as his superior, for he conceded nothing to any of the Apostles. There was no point upon which he was more sensitive. Paul did not visit Peter to be taught and instructed as to his duties, nor to learn from him the great truths of Christianity; for he had learned all this from a higher source, and felt himself more able to give instruction than to receive it from others. Speaking of his doctrines, he says: "For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians i. 12). Doubtless he came to learn from Peter everything he knew of the personal history of Christ. He had many questions to ask about his habits—mode of life—his employments—about Mary, Joseph, and the whole family of Jesus. The smallest incident in his early life would be dear to Paul, and he would lock the remembrance of it in his bosom, as a sacred treasure.

In this way fifteen days passed over, when Paul again left Jerusalem, and afterwards went into Syria and Cilicia, where he was followed by divine visions and revelations. He spent the year A.D. 42 in Antioch, where he taught, assisted by Barnabas. Here he took up a collection for the brethren of Judea, who were suffering from the effects of a famine which took place during the reign of Claudius Caesar, and returned with it to Jerusalem. Having discharged his trust, he went back to Antioch, accompanied by Barnabas and Mark. All we know with certainty about Paul, from this time forward, we must gather, for the most part, from his Epistles to the churches; for all other sources of information are suspicious and doubtful. An act, especially one of importance connected with his labors as an Apostle, attributed to him by others, and not spoken of at all by himself, should be excluded from the pages of authentic history.

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CHAPTER II.

Paul and Barnabas start west to preach the Gospel.—The
prevailing ideas on religion in Asia Minor.—Theology of
Plato and Philo.—The effect produced by the preaching of
Paul.

Paul, in the year A.D. 45, with Barnabas and Mark as his companions, set his face west in the direction of Asia Minor. The people who inhabited the country from Antioch in Syria along the north coast of the Mediterranean and the Ægean, or the Archipelago, to Thessalonica in Macedonia, were for the most part descendants of the early colonists from Greece. A large number of cities were scattered along the shores, which had been enriched by commerce, and were the seats of learning and luxury. The Greek of Asia Minor, in the latter part of the first century, was not the Greek of the time of Pericles and Epaminondas.

His levity and cunning had outlived his courage, his love of country and stern endurance. The college at Alexandria was the source of all light and learning, and the doctrines of that celebrated school, like a subtle fluid, pervaded all classes of men. It was here that Plato took lessons which led him to explore the mysterious nature of the Deity, and expose to the eyes of mortals the nature of the divine persons who regulated the affairs of the universe. In his imagination he populated Heaven, and divided among the different deities the share of each in the government of the world. According to Plato there was one God who was superessential, and in him was blended or united all that was powerful and good. This he called the One, or the first principle of things. Proculus, of the same school, says the One is the God of all gods, the Unity of the unities, the Holy among the holies. Plato compares him with the sun. For as the sun by his light not only confers the power of being seen on visible objects, but is likewise the cause of their generation, nutriment, and increase, so the good of the One, through superessential light, imparts being and power. As a consequence, both Plato and Pythagoras conclude that the immediate issue of this ineffable Cause must be gods, and each must partake of the same nature and have a superessential existence. That "everything in nature which is the result of progression exists in a mysterious unity and similitude with its first cause. They are superessential, and differ in no respect from the highest good. From the supereminent Cause, as from an exalted place of survey, we may contemplate the divine unities, that is, the gods, flowing in admirable and ineffable order, and at the same time abiding in profound union with each other, and with their Cause."

The first procession, from the first One, or intelligible Cause, is the intelligible Triad, consisting of Being, Life, and Intellect, which are the three highest things after the first God. Plato, in his Parmenides, calls the Author of the Universe Intellect and Father, and represents him commanding the junior gods to imitate the power which he employed in their generation. It follows, that that which generated from the Father is offspring, Son or Logos, second in the Triad. The third power or principle in the Triad is Intellect, or Spirit of the Universe. Here we have the Father, the Logos, and the Soul of the Universe in a mysterious union; and as they all proceed from the One, are one in unity. The author of "Decline and Fall" thus defines the theology of Plato: "The vain hope of extricating himself from these difficulties which must forever oppress the feeble powers of the human mind, might induce Plato to consider the divine nature under the threefold modification of the First Cause, the Reason or Logos and the Soul or Spirit of the Universe. His poetical imagination sometimes fixed and animated these metaphysical abstractions; the three archial or original principles were represented in the Platonic system as three gods, united with each other by a mysterious and ineffable generation; and the Logos was particularly considered, under the more accessible character of the Son of an Eternal Father, and the Creator and Governor of the world." (Vol. I., page 438.)

Such is an outline of the theology of Plato, as we learn it from the "Explanatory translation" of Taylor to the Cratylus and other works of the great light of Greece. The ideas of Plato, under the teachings of the Alexandrian school, underwent changes and modifications, but were the source of all subsequent systems of theology, and we can readily detect in each the genius of the Athenian. Through the invitation of the Ptolemies, large numbers of Jews settled in the new capital of Egypt, who carried with them the laws and institutions of Moses. It was not many years before the religious ideas of the descendants of the colonists were tinctured and in some degree moulded after the doctrines taught at the school of Alexandria. Under the lead of Philo a new school arose, which was formed from a union of "Mosaic faith and Grecian philosophy," in which the distinctive features of each are clearly preserved.

Philo Judæus was an Alexandrian Jew, descended from a noble and sacerdotal family, and was distinguished in his day for his wisdom and eloquence. He was born before Christ, and survived him. He was the author of numerous works, and esteemed one of the most learned men of his day. A tumult arose in Alexandria between the Jews and the Greeks, and out of each party three were chosen as embassadors to go to Rome and lay the case before Caligula, who was then emperor. Philo was chosen as one to represent his countrymen, and undertook to act as chief spokesman in the imperial presence. He was treated with insolence—ordered to be silent—and the emperor was so carried away by his passions that personal violence seemed imminent. The equanimity of the philosopher was not disturbed, and having discharged his duty, he quitted the palace filled with the contempt for the tyrant which has loaded his memory in all subsequent ages. (Josephus, Antiq., lib. xviii. ch. 8, sec. I.)

The system taught by Philo dispensed with the third person in the Godhead, which was composed of the Father and the Logos, a divine Duad, which did not exist in unity, like the trinity of Plato: but the Logos with him, like the Mediator of the Hebrews, was possessed of mediatorial powers, and was an intercessor in behalf of the fallen race of Adam. It is difficult to define the relation of the Logos of Philo with the Creator of the Universe, whether he is an attribute which is made manifest in creative power, or whether he has a separate existence. He is the Son of God, and was with the Father before the world was created. His powers embrace the mediatorial, and he stands between God and man, and represents the Father in his providences to our race. He is not an hypostasis, and yet he was begotten.

Such are some of the ideas which prevailed in Asia Minor, and other countries along the shores of the Mediterranean, when Paul and Barnabas entered the country, bringing with them a new religion. It is as difficult to define what Paul's real belief was of the relations which Christ bore to the Creator, as it is to determine the real belief of Philo on the same subject. With Paul, Christ was the Son of God, but what was the exact relation he did not pretend to say. He says he is less than the angels—superior to Moses (Hebrews ii. and iii.); but he nowhere says he is equal to God. Paul seems to have been less concerned about the nature of Christ, and the place occupied by him in the Godhead, than he was about his mediatorial powers. Through the fall of Adam, all men were under condemnation, and it was the office of Christ, through his blood, to make atonement, and once more restore man to the favor of the Creator. With him Christ was not the Creator, like the Logos of Philo, but was the Saviour of the world. He did not exist from the beginning, but, like all flesh, from his natural birth. But still he was, as was the Logos of Philo, the Son of God.

With such ideas, Paul made his way among the Greeks. The Jews were the first to make war upon him. But he stood his ground and gained more. The small churches which he established were like so many fortresses in an enemy's country. Wherever he went he started discussion. The friction between the new and the old ideas produced heat: and with heat came light.

But, after all, Paul's converts, for the most part, were from the less informed and the middle classes. The learned turned away from him, because he had no tangible proof to satisfy them that what he preached was true. The story of his conversion was improbable, and could be ascribed to the effects of natural causes.

The time for miracles had not yet come, and Paul did not claim anything from them.*

* Had it been true that an apron which came in contact with
Paul's person could cure diseases, all Asia would have been
converted while he was making a few hundred believers.

Tacitus speaks of Christians as a race of men detested for their evil practices, and classes their doctrines among the pernicious things which flowed into Rome as into a common sewer. (Annals, lib. xv. sec 54.) Still the churches established by Paul grew slowly, but seemed to require the influence of his presence and personal efforts to keep them alive. As long as the fight went on between Paul and the Jews, and unconverted Gentiles, his lofty courage and iron will were enough to hold him up. But he soon had troubles of a different kind. He found them in the churches themselves. It is not difficult to tell what would be the effect of Paul's ideas when brought face to face with doctrines of the Alexandrian school. It was like the meeting of the acid and the alkali. The first sign of the effervescence appears at Corinth, and two hundred years passed before it ceased, if it ceased at all. From the time the quarrel commenced at Corinth, between the followers of Paul, until the time when the questions disappear altogether, mental phenomena are exhibited unlike any other in the history of man. Even the quarrels and disputes of the Realists and Nominalists of the thirteenth century bear no comparison. The contest between the different sects had all the earnestness of a struggle between gladiators. From being warm disputants, men became dishonest. Books were forged entire, others were mutilated, and some suppressed and put out of sight. It was an age of downright dishonesty on all sides. But from these dark and discordant elements arose the true Church.

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CHAPTER III.

Therapeutæ of Philo—and Essenes of Josephus.—An account of
them.—Their disappearance from history, and what became of
them.

In the beginning of the first century there existed a sect or society which exercised great influence over the fortune and affairs of the world; but, before the second had elapsed, was insensibly lost in the commingling of creeds and sects which sprang up in the mean time. Like a billow on the sea, it rose high and spread far; but at last disappears, or is lost in the great ocean. We refer to the Therapeutæ of Philo and the Essenes of Josephus. Their origin is lost in the distant past; nor is it proven who was the founder of the sect. Although the Therapeutæ were found in every part of the Roman empire, Alexandria was the centre of their operations. Their learning and knowledge were derived from the schools of Alexandria; and to the climate of Egypt, which, by some immutable law of nature, disposed men to embrace a gloomy asceticism, they are indebted for their morose and cruel discipline. From this society were furnished all the monks which populated the deserts of Africa before the Christian era began.

The Essenes were one of the three leading sects among the Jews; the Sadducees and Pharisees forming the other two. Josephus, who fully describes them, in early life was a member, and for three years took up his abode in the desert, and suffered all the pains, and endured all the hardships of monastic life. They were confined to no locality, but were found in every city in Europe and Asia. When travelling from place to place, they were received and provided for by members of their sect without charge, so that when one of them made his appearance in a strange city, he found there one already appointed for the special purpose of taking care of strangers and providing for their wants. They neither bought from nor sold to each other, but each took what his wants required, as if it were his own.

"And as for their piety towards God," says Josephus, "it is very extraordinary; for before sun-rising they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising. After this, every one of them is sent away by their curators, to exercise some of those arts wherein they are skilled, in which they labor with great diligence till the fifth hour, after which they assemble themselves together in one place, and when they have clothed themselves in white veils, they then bathe their bodies in cold water, and, after their purification is over, they every one meet together in an apartment of their own, into which it is not permitted to any of another sect to enter; while they go after a pure manner into the dining-room, as into a certain holy temple, and quietly sit themselves down; upon which the baker lays their loaves in order; the cook also brings a single plate of one sort of food and sets it before every one of them; but a priest says grace before meat; and it is unlawful for any one to taste of the food before grace be said. The same priest, when he has dined, says grace again after meat; and when they begin, and when they end, they praise God, as he that bestows their food upon them; after which they lay aside their [white] garments, and betake themselves to their labors again until the evening; then they return home to supper, after the same manner." (Josephus, Wars, lib. ii. chap. 8, sec. 5.)

The time allowed for probation, before admission to the fraternity, was three years, and in the meantime the temper and disposition of the neophyte were put to the severest test, and not until he had given ample proof of his sincerity or ability to submit to the laws and ordinances of the sect was he deemed fit for admission; but before he is allowed to do so, he is required to swear, "that, in the first place, he will exercise piety towards God; and then that he will observe justice towards men; and that he will do no harm to any one, either of his own accord, or by the command of others; that he will always hate the wicked, and be assistant to the righteous; that he will ever show fidelity to all men, and especially to those in authority, because no one obtains the government without God's assistance; and that if he be in authority, he will at no time whatever abuse his authority, nor endeavor to outshine his subjects, either in his garments, or any other finery; that he will be perpetually a lover of truth, and propose to himself to reprove those that tell lies; and that he will keep his hands clear from theft, and his soul from unlawful gains; and that he will neither conceal anything from those of his own sect, nor discover any of their doctrines to others—no, not though any one should compel him so to do, at the hazard of his life. Moreover, he swears to communicate their doctrines to no one any otherwise than as he received them himself; that he will abstain from robbery, and will equally preserve their books belonging to their sect, and the names of the angels [or messengers]. These are the oaths by which they secure their proselytes to themselves." (Jos., Wars, lib. ii. ch. 8, sec. 6.)

The following is the account given by Philo of this sect, preserved in the pages of Eusebius:—

"'This kind of men is everywhere scattered over the world, for the Greeks and barbarians should share in so permanent a benefit. They abound, however, in Egypt, in each of its districts, and particularly Alexandria. But the principal men among them from every quarter emigrate to a place situated on a moderate elevation of land beyond the Lake Maria, very advantageously located both for safety and temperature of the air, as if it were the native country of the Therapeutæ.'"

"After describing what kind of habitations they have, he says of the churches: 'In every house there is a sacred apartment which they call the Semneion or Monasterium, where, retired from men, they perform the mysteries of a pious life. Hither they bring nothing with them, neither drink nor food, nor anything else requisite to the necessities of the body; they only bring the law and the inspired declarations of the prophets, and hymns, and such things by which knowledge and piety may be augmented and perfected.' After other matters he adds: 'The whole time between the morning and the evening is a constant exercise; for as they are engaged with the sacred Scriptures, they reason and comment upon them, explaining the philosophy of their country in an allegorical manner. For they consider the verbal interpretation as signs indicative of a sacred sense communicated in obscure intimations. They have also commentaries of ancient men, who, as founders of the sect, have left many monuments of their doctrine in allegorical representations which they use as certain models, imitating the manner of the original institution.'"

These facts appear to have been stated by a man who at least has paid attention to those that have expounded the sacred writings. But it is highly probable that the ancient commentaries which he says they have are the very Gospels and writings of the Apostles, and probably some expositions of the ancient prophets, such as are contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and many others of St. Paul's epistles. Afterwards again, concerning the new psalms which they composed, he thus writes: 'Thus they not only pass their time in meditation, but compose songs and hymns unto God, noting them of necessity with measure uncommonly serious through every variety of metres and tunes.' Many other things concerning these persons, he writes in the same book....

Why need we add to these an account of their meetings, and the separate abodes of the men and the women in these meetings, and the exercises performed by them, which are still in vogue among us at the present day, and which, especially at the festival of our Saviour's passion, we are accustomed to use in our fastings and watchings, and in the study of the divine word. All these the above-mentioned author has accurately described and stated in his writings, and they are the same customs that are observed by us alone at the present day, particularly the vigils of the great festival, and the exercises in them, and the hymns that are commonly recited among us. He states that whilst one sings gracefully with a certain measure, the others, listening in silence, join in singing the final clauses of the hymns; also, that on the above-mentioned days they lie on straw spread on the ground, and to use his own words, 'They abstain altogether from wine, and taste no flesh. Water is their only drink, and the relish of their bread, salt and hyssop.' Besides this, he describes the grades of dignity among those who administer the ecclesiastical services committed to them, those of the Deacons and the Presidencies of the Episcopate as the highest. But, whosoever desires to have a more accurate knowledge of these things, may learn them from the history already cited; but that Philo, when he wrote these statements, had in view the first heralds of the gospel, and the original practices handed down from the Apostles, must be obvious to all. (Euseb. Ecc. Hist., lib. ii. ch. 17.)

They had their churches, their Bishops (called Presidencies of the Episcopate), Deacons and monasteries. They used sacred writings, which they read in their churches with comments, and which they believed were divinely inspired. Commentaries were written on these writings, as they are on the present Gospels. Their mode of worship was much the same as in our own day; and they had missionaries all over Asia, and in many parts of Europe. The day observed by Christians afterwards as the festival of our Saviour's passion was observed by them as sacred, and which they passed in fasting, watching, and the study of the sacred writings. All this we are assured is true, by the authority of Josephus, Philo, and Eusebius. So strong is the resemblance in doctrines, and form of church government, between these ancient Therapeutæ, that Eusebius, because he could not deny the similitude, undertook the task of proving that the Essenes were Christians, and that their sacred writings were the four Gospels. He says: "But it is highly probable that the ancient writings which he (Philo) says they have, are the very Gospels and writings of the Apostles, and probably some expositions of the ancient prophets, such as are contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and many others of St. Paul's epistles." (Eus., Ecc. Hist., lib. ii. ch. 17.)

Eusebius has not deceived himself—he only hoped to deceive others. If the Essenes were not Christians, then it is evident that much which is claimed as original in Christianity was copied from them. "Basnage has examined with the most critical accuracy the curious treatise of Philo, which describes the Therapeutæ. By proving that it was composed as early as the time of Augustus, he has demonstrated, in spite of Eusebius and a crowd of modern Catholics, that the Therapeutæ were neither Christians nor monks." (Decline and Fall, Vol. I. page 283, chapter xv., note 162.)

"Much dispute has arisen among the learned concerning this sect. Some have imagined them to be Judaizing Gentiles; but Philo supposes them to be Jews, by speaking of them as a branch of the sect of the Essenes, and especially classes them among the followers of Moses. Others have maintained that the Therapeutæ were an Alexandrian sect of Jewish converts to the Christian faith, who devoted themselves to monastic 'life. But this is impossible, for Philo, who wrote before Christianity appeared in Egypt, speaks of this as an established fact" (Buck's Theological Dictionary.')

And now, what has become of the Therapeutæ?—of their sacred writings? Where are their Elders, their Deacons and the Presidency of the Episcopate, or Bishops? All writers agree that they soon disappeared after the introduction of Christianity. "How long," continues Buck, "this sect continued, is uncertain, but it is not improbable that after the appearance of Christianity in Egypt, it soon became extinct." Gibbon, in speaking of the disappearance of this sect from history, says: "It still remains probable that they changed their names, preserved their manners, and adopted some new article of faith." (Vol. I. page 283, n. 162.)

This sect did not mingle and lose itself in the huge mass of Pagans, for between the two there was no neutral ground on which they might meet and agree. The antagonism between them had continued too long, and there was traditional hatred on both sides. Paul threw the doors of the church wide open, and, as we shall see, the Therapeutæ soon entered, and by their numbers took possession, and barred them against the founder and all his followers. What did the Therapeutæ do with their sacred writings, which, Eusebius claims, were nothing more than our present Gospels? To suppose that they abandoned and destroyed them altogether is not possible, considering their antiquity, and the veneration in which they were held for generations.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH.

It is a question of great interest in history, if nothing more, when and where it was that the Christian Church, in the form in which it has come down to us, had its origin.

To be sure, there are many who are satisfied with an orthodox belief on the subject, because they have never questioned their sources of information. But the world has grown to that age when traditional dogmas, or whatever they may be called, must be subject to the test which advancing knowledge imposes. Tried by this test, what is true will appear brighter; what is false will be thrown off; and man, relieved of a burden which only weighed him down, will move on to an improved and better life. Man is not doomed by the condition of his nature to be eternally tugging at the stone of Sisyphus—nor is it consistent with the laws of a wise and beneficent Creator that mankind, in order to be prosperous and happy, should be compelled to live under a perpetual delusion. Like the source of some river, often traced to a mountain rill or the oozing waters of a morass, so the beginning of the church or churches of our own day is to be looked for in some obscure corner of history, covered by the debris of ages.

Located on a narrow isthmus between the Ægean and Ionian seas stood Corinth, one of the principal cities of Greece. Situated where the commerce from the East and the West meet in transitu, it grew in opulence and wealth, and was distinguished for the arts, and for the luxury and licentiousness of its inhabitants. Here Venus had a temple, presided over by a thousand priestesses, whose attractions increased the numbers who came from all parts of Greece to assist in celebrating the Isthmian games. It was at this place Paul planted a church, between the years A.D. 51 and A.D. 53, and where he remained eighteen months, working as no one but himself could work to build up and strengthen it.

Paul left Corinth for a time for other fields of labor, because he belonged to no one place, but his mission embraced the world. The commerce of Corinth attracted to the place people from every part of the empire, east and west, and with others a large number of Alexandrian Jews. Among them were many of the Thera-peutæ, who brought with them into Greece the doctrines of Philo.

During Paul's absence there came to Corinth Apollos of Alexandria. He was an eloquent man and learned in the Scriptures. It is a subject of regret that we do not know more of his history than we find in the Acts, and in the Epistles of Paul. What were the doctrines he taught when he first appeared in Ephesus, where he spent some time before he went to Corinth, we cannot tell, but he was fervent in spirit, "and taught diligently the things of the Lord." He had heard of John the Baptist, for he was a historic character, and Josephus tells how he baptized multitudes in the waters of the Jordan; but he seems to have known nothing about Christ or the doctrines he taught. He spoke in the synagogue, which proves that what he taught did not give offence, to the Jews. In Ephesus he attracted the notice of Aquila and Priscilla, Jewish Christians, who had been expelled from Rome by the Emperor Claudius on account of some disturbance growing out of quarrels between Jews and Christians.* Under their instructions Apollos was made a convert to Christianity.

* See Appendix A.

The Jews, as has been shown, were divided into three sects—Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes. Every Jew belonged to or connected himself with the one or the other. Those who went to Alexandria, in time took the name of Therapeutæ, which, it is claimed, was the same as the Essenes. However this may be, Philo describes them as a Jewish sect. That Apollos was one of them may be claimed with great reason. A Jew, born in Alexandria, he could scarcely escape being one. Raised under the shadow of the college of Alexandria, of a fervent spirit and a man of thought, he could not fail to be impressed by the doctrines taught by that celebrated school. They were the prevailing and fashionable doctrines of the day. That he brought with him to Ephesus the Logos idea of Philo is clearly proven by what took place after his arrival. It seems his conversion to the Christian faith under the instruction of Aquila and Priscilla was easy, which proves that the difference which separated them in the first place was not great. Like all Jews, he was looking for some kind of Saviour or Deliverer, and they convinced him that Christ was the one. He now undertook to convince others. "For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ." (Acts xviii. 28.) But the Alexandrian notions of the Logos or Son of God soon began to show out in his discourses and make trouble. Some began to cry, I am for Paul; and others, I am for Apollos (1 Cor. iii. 4).

Paul's ideas on some points did not suit the Alexandrian school. The birth of Christ from human parents, in the speculative minds of this people, stripped him of all mystery; and with them, on subjects like this, where there is no mystery there is nothing real. There could be no other difference between the followers of Paul and Apollos, except as to the origin and nature of Christ, and his relations to the Creator; and there was none. The strife grew to such dimensions that Paul is constrained to write an epistle to the church, in which we can see what was at the bottom of the trouble. In his First Epistle, to the Corinthians, Paul names four parties whose quarrels disturbed the peace of the Church: the Paul party, who maintained the doctrines of Paul as to the human origin of Christ; the party of Apollos, who, without doubt, taught the doctrines of Philo; the party of Cephas, which held to the doctrines of circumcision; and the Christ party. We infer that the last was composed of negative men, or those who occupied neutral ground—the fence men of our day. It could not have been of much importance, for we never hear of it again.

It was neither the first, third, or fourth of these parties that called out the letter to the Corinthians. It was the wisdom of the Greek school and Apollos' "excellency of speech" that disturbed Paul, and continued to do so to the end of his life. But see with what force he opposes to the wisdom of the Greeks the revelations which came to him from God This letter displays all the characteristics of Paul. "And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit, and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. ch. ii.) Here it is not Paul that denounces the wisdom of the Greek school, but it is God himself. Such is Paul.

It is not difficult to tell to which of the four parties at Corinth this epistle was addressed. That the difference between Paul and Apollos grew out of opposing opinions as to the nature of Christ admits of little doubt, and is rendered certain by the first, second, and third chapters of his First Epistle to the Corinthians. He says: "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." That is, I have taught to you Christ as he is, and it is not for any other man to teach anything different. He declares that "according to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation.".... "let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon." Here is a plain intimation that the Christ of Paul rested upon a different foundation from that of Apollos—the one divine, the other human. "I have planted, Apollos watered." That is, I have planted the seed that will produce the true fruit, and it is for others only to cultivate and nourish what I have planted.

He tells the Corinthians that they were born unto a knowledge of Christ through his gospel—that is, through his preaching; and that if they had ten thousand instructors, of these there would not be many who, as spiritual fathers, could reveal to them the truth as he had. "Wherefore, I beseech you, be ye followers of me. For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church." (1 Cor. iv. 16, 17.) What more conclusive evidence could be asked that Apollos was preaching doctrines different from those of Paul as to the nature of Christ, than that the latter sent Timothy to counteract them? and what other doctrines was the former teaching than those of the Alexandrian school? When Paul says all Asia had turned against him, it could only be on the questions which had sprung up between himself and Apollos. It could not be on account of circumcision, because on this point the Greeks would agree with Paul. It was not on account of different views on the subject of the resurrection, because that was retained and became the foundation of the Christian faith. There was but a single point upon which those who professed Christianity at that day could turn upon Paul, and that is his "ways which be in Christ" as he taught them in all the churches. The quarrels of Paul with the Jews on the subject of circumcision died away in the church not long after his death, drowned out by the Greek and Therapeutæ element; but the cause of the strife between the followers of Paul and Apollos has continued down, in some form, even to our own times.

It could not be long after his letter to the Corinthians that the doctrines preached by Apollos spread through all the churches of Asia Minor and became the established orthodox faith. Paul, in the Second Epistle to Timothy, says: "All Asia has turned against me." A mere change of name—Therapeutæ to Christian—and the revolution was complete. It was made so rapidly that the world scarcely noticed it. The Therapeutæ, who were spread over Europe, Asia, and portions of Africa, disappeared so suddenly that it has always been a problem in history what became of them. But we can find here and there, in the history of the times, evidences that the few friends of Paul did not give up the contest with their powerful foe without a struggle. These struggles come to the surface of history like the bubbles from the mouth of a drowning man.

But little change in doctrines was required to justify the Therapeutæ in taking upon themselves the name of Christians. Christ, with Paul, was a Mediator, and so was the Logos of Philo. "What intelligent person," says the latter, "who views mankind engaged in unworthy and wicked pursuits, but must be grieved to the heart, and call upon that Saviour God, that these crimes may be exterminated, and that by a ransom and price of redemption being given for his soul, it may again obtain its freedom. It pleased God, therefore, to appoint his Logos to be a Mediator. To his Word, the chief and most ancient of all in heaven, the great Author of the world gave this especial gift: that he should stand as a medium (or intercessor) between the Creator and the created; and he is accordingly the Advocate of all mortals." (Jacob Bryant, quoted in Clarke's Commentaries on St. John's Gospel.) As the Therapeutæ of Philo were the descendants of a Jewish colony who had settled in Egypt, and still retained in some degree their Mosaic ideas and belief in the Old Testament, under the light of the school of Alexandria, where the doctrines of Philo were taught, they readily adopted the Alexandrian ideas of the Logos. The belief in some intermediate or mediatorial power between God and man was common to the Jews as well as most other people. Adam, by his disobedience, had broken the law, and if he or his descendants are ever to be restored to the favor of the Creator, it is to be done through the office of a Mediator. The notions of Philo on the nature of the Logos suited the Therapeutæ much better than did those of Paul, and after a short struggle we will discover the Alexandrian dogmas to be the creed of the orthodox. Christ's appearance on earth, his death and resurrection, are what Paul preached, and what the Therapeutæ, who were converted by him, believed. These features were retained in the church after the Philo ideas of the Logos had displaced the Christ of Paul. It was only Paul's doctrine of the descent of Jesus from Mary and Joseph after the flesh that was thrown aside by them. The intervention of the Virgin, at a later period in the history of the church, was the means by which the Christ of Paul was made the Son of God in the sense of the Alexandrian school.

The transition of the Therapeutæ to Christianity was easy. Little or no change was made in the form of the services in the church. According to Eusebius, they sang hymns. They read sacred books and made comments on them as well after as before the change. Like the first Christian community, they held all their property in common. They said grace at table both before and after meals, according to Josephus, which they continued to do after they took the name of Christians. They made no change in their fasts and festivals, and retained the monasteries. The transfer of the form of the Therapeutæ church government to the new church was the work of time, and was not fully effected until the second century. The influence of Paul's name, with other causes, was too strong during the first to permit the change.

A Bishop in a Christian church is the work of the second century. Like every other new feature in its history, we find the first Bishop at Alexandria. Gibbon says: "The extensive commerce of Alexandria, and its proximity to Palestine, gave an easy entrance to the new religion. It was at first embraced by great numbers of the Therapeutæ, or Essenians of the lake Mareotis, a Jewish sect which had abated much of its reverence for the Mosaic ceremonies. The austere life of the Essenians, their fasts and excommunications, the community of goods, the love of celibacy, their zeal for martyrdom, and the warmth though not the purity of their faith, already offered a very lively image of the primitive discipline. It was in the school of Alexandria that the Christian theology appears to have assumed a regular and scientific form; and when Hadrian visited Egypt he found a church, composed of Jews and of Greeks, sufficiently important to attract the notice of that inquisitive prince." (Ch. xv. (162) (163), vol. I. p. 283.)*

* After the author had written out his views as above, he
met with the following passages from the writings of
Michaelis, the great German critic, quoted in Taylor's
Diegesis. Of the Therapeutæ, he says they are a "Jewish
sect, which began to spread itself at Ephesus, and to
threaten great mischief to Christianity in the time (or
indeed previous to the time) of St. Paul, on which account,
in his epistles to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, and to
Timothy, he declares himself openly against them."
(Diegesisy 58.)
Again: "It is evident from the above-mentioned epistles of
Paul, that, to the great mortification of the apostle, they
insinuated themselves very early into the church." (60.) The
writer does not wish to be understood that the disturbances
created in the church were confined to Corinth, and that
Apollos was the only one who taught during the life of Paul
the doctrines of the Alexandrian school. Wherever Paul had
founded a church, there the Therapeutæ element was at work.
Apollos, by his superior eloquence and learning, was
distinguished from a host of agitators, and called forth the
special notice of Paul. element was at work. Apollos, by his
superior eloquence and learning, was distinguished from a
host of agitators, and called forth the special notice of
Paul.

It is safe to say that it was the Therapeutæ who caused the troubles in the churches in Paul's time and afterwards, because no other sect or society was so extended, and had the power to make the disturbance so universal. Paul could complain of no other, and it was this sect that turned all Asia against him. There is no way to account for the sudden and wonderful increase of Christians in a few years before Paul's death, unless we can refer the cause to the sudden conversion of the Therapeutæ to the new religion. When they are suddenly lost to sight, the small churches of Paul have grown great in numbers, and spread over Europe and Asia in an incredibly short space of time.

Before going to press, the writer came into the possession of the works of Michaelis, where we find the following passage: "But even before Apollos had received the instructions of Aquila and Priscilla, he taught publicly in the synagogue at Ephesus concerning the Messiah. Hence it is not improbable that the Essenes introduced themselves into the church at Ephesus by means of Apollos, who came from Alexandria, in the neighborhood of which city, according to Philo, the Essenes were not only numerous but were held in high estimation." (Vol. iv. p. 85.) It would seem from this that Apollos only continued to do at Corinth what he first began at Ephesus.

No man of any age suffered so much abuse, nor was there ever one whose memory labored under such a weight of obloquy as that of Paul—first from the followers of Apollos; and afterwards from the Catholics of the second century, when the mother of God rose like a new star in the heavens. The first half of the Acts was written, as will be shown, expressly to exalt Peter over him and degrade him from the rank of an Apostle. The Revelation ascribed to St. John is nothing but a bitter tirade of denunciation against Paul and his followers. He is called a liar, "the false prophet," who with the beast was cast alive into a lake of burning fire. He is the great red dragon who stood before the woman ready to devour the child Jesus as soon as he was born, and who warred with Michael and the angels. Paul is not only denounced, but Christ himself is made to declare his status in the Godhead. "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches." (xxii. 16.) What the things were to which the angel was to bear testimony, sufficiently appears in every portion of the book of Revelation. Why was Paul the subject of so much abuse? There can be but one answer. It was because of the way in which he taught Christ in all the churches, which he had learned from the Apostles in his interviews with them at Jerusalem, and probably from Joseph and Mary themselves, for they occurred about the year A.D. 40.

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CHAPTER V.

Review of the past.—What follows in the future.

Let us assume a stand at the beginning of Adrian's reign, A.D. 117, and make a survey of the Christian world as it presents itself at that day. A half-century has passed since the death of Paul. Since then, Rome has been without a Christian population. Driven from the city through the cruel butcheries of the tyrant, they took refuge in the provinces, especially Asia Minor, where they remained until the reign of Adrian and his successor, the tolerant Antoninus Pius. In the mean time, the Therapeutan element of Christianity had been steadily on the increase, while that of Paul had correspondingly declined. The proclamation of Adrian, or rather his letter to Fundanus, a governor of one of the provinces, prohibiting the punishment of Christians on account of their religion, was the first intimation from the capital of the empire that they could return in safety. From this time Christians began to return to Rome in a steady stream, so that within the next twenty years they had so increased in numbers that they once more take a place in history, and are found mixed up in the history of the imperial city.

But at this time Christians, in their contest with the Pagans, found the evidence of Christianity, as it then stood, not sufficient to contend with the infidelity of the age. The old religion of Rome was hallowed by time, supported by the learned men of that day, and upheld by the power of the State. The Gospels had not yet appeared; the world was without a miracle; Mary, the bride of Heaven, afterwards the central figure in the Hierarchy of the orthodox, had no place in history. Peter had not been in Rome, or John in Asia. The personal influence of Paul and his immediate followers had kept alive the spirit of Christianity in Asia; but now Paul is no more, and the influence of his name has nearly passed away. The proof that there ever were such persons as Christ and his disciples had become faint. The dim light of tradition, and what Paul, and his companion Barnabas, said of him in their epistles, comprised about all the evidence at that day to sustain the claims of Christianity. But Paul himself had not seen Christ, except under such circumstances as might excite suspicion of either delusion or fraud. He had seen Peter, and remained with him, in the first place fifteen days; and afterwards went to Jerusalem, where he saw all of the disciples who were then living. What Paul learned from the disciples, with his vision near Damascus, was sufficient to convince him of the reality of Christ and the truth of the religion he taught. But the proof all lay within himself. The genuine epistles of Peter, as we will show, were so corrupted by the men of the second century, that we have no means of knowing how much of the original remains or how much has been added. The epistle of James, which is the only writing by an Apostle, or any one else, that has come down to us from the Apostolic age without some evidence of fraud and corruption, only speaks of Christ as a just man, and makes no mention of the prodigies and wonders claimed to have taken place at the time of his birth and death; nor does he take notice of the miracles and wonderful things spoken of in the Gospels. The proof, whatever it may have been, that Christ ever existed, was too weak to overcome or even contend against the skepticism of the age.

So far we have said nothing of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, because it was cast to one side, for the reason that it was a standing argument against the Alexandrian ideas of the Logos—and was regarded as of no authority in the church until it had been improved by important additions made afterwards, and passed into the present Greek version. With such proof as existed at the time we write of, Christianity could not hold its ground against the great pressure brought to bear it down—much less make headway against such powerful opposition. The time to supply new proof of the reality of Christ was favorable. All the scenes in his life lay within the boundaries of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea—the greater part in and about Jerusalem. Since his death the Legions of Rome had been there, and left nothing standing except a few towers, reserved for military defence. The silence of death, for almost a half century, had reigned in the streets of Jerusalem. The greater part of the Jewish people had been put to death by the sword, or carried away into captivity. All who lived during the time of Christ, by age and the calamities of war had gone to their graves. We shall soon see the Synoptics appear in intervals such as circumstances demanded, each bearing the name of an Apostle, or the name of some one who wrote at their dictation. A little further down in the century we will find men engaged in laying the foundation of a church, whose claims to infallibility and supremacy are based on "apostolic succession." When we come to this period we will find all ecclesiastical history to consist of traditions, and a time in the world's life which is populated by Bishops and high-church dignitaries, who pass before us without speech or action, like shadows on a wall. We shall find Peter has been in Rome; John at Ephesus; Paul in Gaul, Spain, and Britain. We will find parties engaged in exalting Peter above all the other Apostles—and the same influence at work to put down Paul. Again we will see Paul restored to favor, but his writings defaced by forgeries, to conform to the doctrines of the day. We shall also see Christians enter into quarrels among themselves, which continue through centuries.

Books are forged, traditions manufactured, and the works of the Fathers shamefully altered and corrupted. Later in the century, brought out by a pressure which made it necessary, the fourth Gospel will appear, and Christianity pass from the Alexandrian Logos to the Incarnate God. By casting our eyes still further down the centuries, we will see Christianity and the philosophy of Plato strangely allied, which brings us to the era of the Trinity. Let us first inquire into the origin of the first three Gospels.

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CHAPTER VI.

How the Four Gospels Originated

The origin of the Gospels has proved a Serbonian bog, in which many writers who have attempted an explanation have floundered without finding solid ground. Scarcely two writers agree. Why should there be any doubt in a matter of so much importance, where the evidence could so readily be obtained at the time they were written, and so safely guarded and preserved? Truth, in a historic period like that in which it is claimed the Gospels were written, need not be left in the dark. The true difficulty has grown out of the fact, that writers who have undertaken to give the origin of the Gospels have looked, as men do in most other cases, to outside sources for information; whereas the explanation of the origin is to be found within the Gospels themselves, and nowhere else. By looking for light where none is to be found, writers on this subject have had their attention withdrawn from the direction where the truth is to be discovered. If we bear in mind that men eighteen hundred years ago were much like men of to-day, that the emotion or effect a given event or occurrence produces in the minds of men of our own time would be the same as upon those who lived in the first part of the second century, we have a compass, such as it is, to guide us through this Cimmerian darkness. What would excite ridicule, or appear false and improbable to intelligent minds of our own times, would appear equally so to such minds as Pliny and Tacitus at their ages of the world.

In imagination let us take a stand at the beginning of the second century, and make ourselves citizens of the Roman empire under the reign of Adrian. We can well imagine how the minds of thinking and intelligent people were affected on the first appearance of the present Greek version of Matthew's Gospel. It set forth some of the most astounding events in the history of the world, and which the world heard of for the first time. When Christ was put to death, all the land, from the sixth to the ninth hour, was covered with darkness; the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; the earth did quake, and the rocks were rent asunder; the graves were opened, and many bodies of saints which slept arose and came out of their graves, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many. Suppose that some morning we should pick up our daily paper, and find under the telegraph head an announcement of like events as having occurred in London or Paris. At first we might be fearfully startled, but would soon feel satisfied that it was all a hoax, after the style of Professor Locke's story of the Moon. If the authors of the story expected to accomplish anything by such startling announcements, they failed by attempting too much. Whether the earth was covered with darkness, or was shaken by an earthquake, or the dead got out of their graves and went down into the city, were facts easily inquired into, in that age of the world.

Matthew further states that a star went before the wise men of the East, till it came and stood over where the young child was. How could a star a million of miles off lead any one on this earth, and how could it at that distance be in a position to indicate a spot on the earth where the child was? He also states, that when Herod found he was mocked he was wroth, and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and all the coast thereof, from two years old and under. We can readily imagine the Pagans, who composed the learned and intelligent men of their day, at work in exposing the story of Herod's cruelty, by showing that, considering the extent of territory embraced in the order, and the population within it, the assumed destruction of life stamped the story false and ridiculous. A Governor of a Roman province who dared make such an order would be so speedily overtaken by the vengeance of the Roman people, that his head would fall from his body before the blood of his victims had time to dry. Archelaus, his son, was deposed for offences not to be spoken of when compared with this massacre of the infants.

But that part of the first Gospel which related to the dream of Joseph and the conception of Mary was what most excited the criticism and ridicule of the people of that day. The whole and sole foundation of the new religion was a dream. The simplicity of Joseph, too, provoked a smile, if nothing more. The story at the sepulchre was overdrawn, and threw discredit over all. "And behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow." (Matthew xxviii. 2, 3.) Such aerial bodies are not given to the employments assigned to the angel in this case. Rolling stones, say the wise men, by spiritual essences is ridiculous and absurd. Besides, who knows anything of the great earthquake? We find no account of it, nor is it even mentioned anywhere else.

So men reasoned eighteen hundred years ago—and so they would to-day. It is evident that the author of the first Gospel had overdone his part, and injured the cause he meant to advance. The blunders and mistakes of the first Gospel made it necessary that there should be a second. This gave rise to a second Gospel, not by the same hand, but by some other, who felt the pressure that had been brought to bear on Matthew.

As this second Gospel was written with a special purpose, we must expect a great resemblance in it to the first, except where the former makes statements which were the occasion of so much criticism on the part of the philosophers; and in such cases, the best course to pursue would be to say nothing. Naked contradiction would not answer. Mark has not a word to say about the story of Joseph and the angel. He omits the earthquake at the crucifixion, and the resurrection of the dead, for these things were susceptible of disproof; but tells of the darkness, and the rent in the temple, because the former was comparative, and may have been a dark cloud in the heavens; and as to the case of the temple, no one could disprove the story, for it was destroyed. The story of the angel and stone is entirely omitted, but the stone is removed from the mouth of the sepulchre when the women appear, and a young man is found in the inside, who is presumed to have done it. Matthew says that Joseph of Arimathea deposited the body of Christ in the sepulchre, and then rolled a great stone to the door. Afterwards the priest and Pharisees caused the entrance to be made secure, for fear that the body would be stolen, and the disciples then claim that he had risen from the dead. If so, say the philosophers, the work was not so poorly done that one young man could roll the stone from the door, as stated by Mark. It would be beyond his strength.

Luke removes the objection; when the women come to the sepulchre in the morning they found the stone removed, and the body of Christ was missing. There was no young man inside, but two men were found standing on the outside, who, no doubt, were competent to do the work. The story of the star which led the wise men, and the murder of the infants at Bethlehem, is also omitted. We are justified in saying that those who were engaged in getting up the first Gospel, or those who succeeded them, were driven to abandon some false and impossible and improbable things stated in that Gospel, by proof, in some cases, of their falsehood, and in others by the force of argument and ridicule.

Matthew had related the story of Joseph and the angel, and that admitted of no change or modification. Mark says nothing about it, but silence will not answer; for the philosophers still claim that all depends upon a dream, and the dreams of Joseph are no better than the dreams of any other man. If the story could not be modified, it might be corroborated. So, when it came to Luke's turn to speak he adds the story of Zacharias, and the interview between Mary and the angel Gabriel. All now occurs in daylight, and dreams which had been the subject of so much ridicule are dispensed with.

When Zacharias went to the temple to burn incense, he found on the outside a great multitude of people. The crowd has no connection with the story, except as these people are wanted for witness as to what happened in the sanctuary. While Zacharias was offering incense within, there appeared to him an angel standing on the right side of the altar. The position of the angel is defined with precision, that it might not be claimed that what appeared to him was a phantom. Zacharias saw him and was afraid.

As further evidence that the angel was not some optical illusion, Gabriel spoke, and gave Zacharias such information about the future birth of a son to him that he was disposed to doubt the truth of it. As a punishment for his reasonable doubts, he is struck dumb. The interview continued so long that the crowd on the outside began to be uneasy, and when Zacharias did come out he had lost the power of speech. This convinced the multitude (but how, is not stated) that he had seen a vision in the temple. After this, Gabriel made a visit to Mary in open day, and held a conversation, in which he announced to her the birth of a son through the overshadowing influence of the Holy Ghost, who would reign over the house of Jacob forever. Then follows the scene between Mary and her cousin Elisabeth.

In Luke's account of the announcement of the birth of Christ by divine agency, the story of Joseph is entirely omitted, and new witnesses are introduced. His story was well studied; every precaution was taken to silence cavil and make such a case as would remove doubts. The blunders of Matthew were not to be repeated. The birth of Christ and John, who was afterwards called the Baptist, are ingeniously associated in the announcement of the angel, to give color to what is said of them in the Gospels afterwards.

What objections were made by the philosophers to the story of Luke at the time, we have no means of knowing; but if any were made, there is no subsequent effort to improve it, and so it remains to this day.

The question interests us to know when and from whom did Luke get his information. If he had it from any one who had the means of knowing what he tells us, it must have been from Paul, for we have no knowledge that he had any acquaintance, or relations of any kind, with either of the disciples. He was Paul's companion: we find him with Paul at Troas, A.D. 50; thence he attended him to Jerusalem, continued with him during his troubles in Judea, and sailed in the same ship with him when he was sent a prisoner to Rome, where he stayed with him during his two years' confinement. He was with him during his second imprisonment, and, as we will show in the proper place, he died with Paul in Rome, and was one of the victims of Nero's reign. If Paul knew what Luke states as to the divine emanation of Christ, why does he not make some allusion to it in his numerous epistles?—and how can we understand that he could, with such knowledge, deny this divine creation, and preach to the last that Christ was born according to natural law?

Luke, too, made mistakes, which John afterwards corrected in the fourth Gospel.

We can best illustrate the claim that the three last Gospels were written in the order they appeared, as a necessity to meet the objections and cavils of the philosophers, by taking some leading subject which is mentioned by all. Take the case of the resurrection. Matthew says: "And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted." (Matt, xxviii. 17.) To leave the question where Matthew leaves it would be fatal. In such a case there must be no doubt. Mark makes Christ appear three times under such circumstances as to render a mistake next to impossible, and to silence the most obstinate skepticism. He first appears to Mary Magdalene, who was convinced that it was Christ, because she went and told the disciples that he had risen, and that she had seen him. They disbelieved, nor could they be convinced until he appeared to them. They in turn told it to the other disciples, who were also skeptical; and, that they might be convinced, Christ also appeared to them as they sat at meat, when he upbraided them for their unbelief.

This story is much improved in the hands of Mark, but, in the anxiety to make a clear case, it is overdone, as often happens when the object is to remedy or correct an oversight or mistake previously made. There was a large amount of skepticism to be overcome, but the proof offered was sufficient to do it, and remove all doubts from the minds of the disciples. Considering Christ had told the disciples he would rise, why did they doubt at all? Owing to some strange oversight, neither Matthew nor Mark says in what way Christ made his appearance—whether it was in the body or only in the spirit. If in the latter, it would be fatal to the whole theory of the resurrection. We conclude from what followed, that the philosophers of that day, who would concede nothing to the claims of Christianity, took advantage of this oversight, and denied the resurrection of Christ in the body. It was the business of Luke to put this disputed question in its true light, and silence the objection. He says that when Christ appeared and spoke to the disciples they were afraid. "But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit." (Luke xxiv. 37.) Christ then showed the wounds in his hands and feet. "And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of a honeycomb: And he took it, and did eat before them." (Luke xxiv. 42, 43.) Now who dare doubt? Why some doubted, as Matthew says they did, is hard to explain. The account of Luke should have satisfied the philosophers that it was a body and not a spirit that appeared to the disciples. But we can believe they were not, from what is afterwards said on this subject. The story of the fish and honeycomb was incredible and absurd. It was a fish-story. If true, why did Matthew and Mark fail to mention it?

Luke had overdone the matter, and instead of convincing the Pagans, he only excited their ridicule.

Now comes John's turn. He does not omit entirely the story of Christ eating fish, for that would not do, after there had been so much said about it. He might leave it to be inferred that Luke made a mistake, so he modifies the story and omits the ridiculous part of it. The scene is laid on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias. Under the direction of Christ, Peter drew his net to land full of fish. "Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish like wise." (John xxi. 12, 13.) It does not appear from this account that Christ ate of the fish at all. He took the fish and gave to the disciples; the inference is, that they were the ones that ate. In Luke the statement is reversed:—the disciples gave the fish to Christ, and he ate. John has taken out of the story that which was absurd, but he leaves us to infer that Luke was nearsighted or careless in his account of what took place. If you leave out of Luke's account the part that relates to the fish and honeycomb, he fails to prove what it really was which appeared to the disciples.

Christ, he says, said, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself." (Ch. xxiv. 39.) "And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?" (Ch. xxiv. 41.) It seems from this that the disciples could not be convinced until Christ had actually eaten something. Now if you strike out the eating part, which John does, and which no doubt the ridicule cast upon it drove him to do, Luke leaves the question open just where he found it. It was the business of John to leave it clean, and put an end to all cavil.

Jesus appeared to the disciples when they assembled at Jerusalem. "And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side." (John xx. 20.) They were satisfied, and no doubts were expressed. But Thomas was not present, and when he was told that Jesus had appeared to the disciples, he refused to believe, nor would he, "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." (John xx. 25.) Now if Thomas can be convinced with all his doubts, it would be foolish after that to deny that Christ was not in the body when he appeared to his disciples.

After eight days Christ again appears, without any object that we can discover but to convince Thomas. Then said he to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing." (John xx. 27.) It is not stated whether he did as he was directed; but he was convinced, and exclaimed, "My Lord and my God."

What fault the Pagans found with this account we have not the means of knowing; but if they still disbelieved, they were more skeptical than Thomas himself. We should be at a loss to understand why the writers of the first three Gospels entirely omitted the story of Thomas, if we were not aware that when John wrote the state of the public mind was such, that proof of the most unquestionable character was demanded that Christ had risen in the body. John selected a person who claimed he was hard to convince, and if the evidence was such as to satisfy him, it ought to satisfy the balance of the world.

John's services are again required to repair the blunders and oversights of the writers of the first three Gospels in relation to the body of Christ after the crucifixion. Matthew states that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went on the first day of the week to see the sepulchre. No other purpose is expressed. Mark says that early in the morning of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought spices to anoint the body. According to Luke, after the women who had followed Christ from Galilee had seen the body deposited in the tomb, they returned and prepared spices and ointments, and rested the Sabbath day. The body was deposited in the tomb some time on Friday, and remained until Sunday morning, on the first day of the Jewish week. Doubtless, in the climate of Syria, the body in the mean time must have undergone such a change as to make it difficult to either embalm or even anoint it. The Pagans at that day could hardly fail to take advantage of this mistake or blunder. But John again comes to the rescue and sets the matter right. According to him, Joseph of Arimathea had permission to take the body, which he did, and carried it away. "And there came also Nicodemus (which at the first came to Jesus by night) and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury." (John xix. 39, 40.)

John now fully silenced the cavils of the enemy and taken the proper steps to preserve the body until the morning of the third day.

The subject might be further pursued, but enough has been said to furnish a key to the origin of the Gospels. Christians in their contests with the Pagans resemble the course of a retreating army, which falls back to take a stronger position. Each time the position is improved, until one at last is found which is impregnable. We can readily see how it is that the first three Gospels so closely resemble each other, the exact language for whole passages being alike in all. Mark copies Matthew, and Luke uses the words of both. It is only when the last undertakes to improve or modify something written by those who wrote previously, that the difference becomes obvious. That the Christians in the beginning of the second century had books of some kind before the three first Gospels appeared in the present shape is beyond all dispute. The sacred writings of the Therapeutæ, as we have shown, were full of the most sound morality, and contained all the essential principles of Christianity. These writings were ancient—had been regarded as sacred for generations among them, and were so much like the present Gospels that Eusebius claimed them to be the same, and that the Therapeutæ were Christians. No doubt the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew was extant, and if it was rejected by the Christians of that day, because it did not contain the two first chapters of the Greek version, there was no reason why they should reject the Sermon on the Mount, and all the sublime and pure religion taught by Christ. The sacred writings of the Therapeutæ—the Hebrew version of Matthew, the Epistle of James and the first of Peter—furnished the principles and doctrines which now form the life of Christianity; and the great want of the day—that is, some proof of the actual existence of the person of Christ, by those who had seen him and were familiar with him before his death—was supplied in the first three Gospels, by the testimony of those who claimed to be his disciples, or by those who, it is said, wrote at their dictation.

In what quarter of the globe were the Synoptics written, and by whom? All that can be said on this subject with certainty is, that the Greek version of Matthew, the source of all, was not written in Judea, or by one who knew anything of the geography of the country, or the history of the Jews. He was ignorant of both. What excuse was there but ignorance for making the order for the massacre of the infants to include Bethlehem, and all the coast thereof, which would take in at least the one-half of all Judea, and involve in one common slaughter, according to the calculations of learned men, several thousand innocent children? The Greek writer of Matthew evidently believed that Bethlehem was an insignificant hamlet, situated on the coast of the Mediterranean, whereas it is as far in the interior as Jerusalem; and not far from the centre of Judea. The writer's ignorance of Jewish history will appear still more conspicuous, when we speak of the application which he makes of prophecy to the person of Jesus. Whoever the writer may have been, it is evident that he received his education at the college at Alexandria, where Medicine and Divinity were taught, and regarded as inseparable. From the union of the two, recovery from diseases was ascribed to supernatural powers. A fever was a demon, which was not to be expelled by virtue of any material remedy, but by incantations, spells, and magic. It was by such power Christ cleansed the leper—healed the centurion's servant—touched the hand of Peter's wife's mother and drove away the fever—expelled the devils from two men into swine, and performed many other cures. The whole of the first Gospel has an Alexandrian look not easily to be mistaken—if we except the miracle of the loaves and fishes, walk of Christ on the water, and other wonders of a like nature, which is the work of some one later in the century. The deserts in the neighborhood of Alexandria abounded with monasteries from the earliest accounts of the Therapeutæ to the conquest of Egypt by the Mahometan power, which were filled with monks who were celebrated for their piety, their miracles, their power to expel devils and heal diseases. The pages of Sozomen and Socrates abound with the names of monks who cured the palsy, expelled demons, and cured the sick. (Sozomen, Ecc. Hist., lib. vi., ch. 28.)

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CHAPTER VII.

John the son of Zebedee never in Asia Minor.—John the
Presbyter substituted.—The work of Irenæus and Eusebius.—
John the disciple has served to create an enigma in
history.—John of Ephesus a myth.

Was John the son of Zebedee ever in Asia? To ask a question which implies a doubt on a subject that has been agreed on for almost twenty centuries, will probably startle many even in this age of inquiry and progress. It may be a question whether he who makes a discovery in science or the arts which facilitates the advance of mankind, or he who contributes by his labors to remove a delusion which has stood in the way of progress, is most entitled to the gratitude of his fellow-men. A falsehood, as long as it stands unquestioned, may and does receive the respect which is due to the truth; but there is a time when, no matter how hoary with age, it must pass away and give place to the latter.

John the son of Zebedee the fisherman, upon careful inquiry, can never be successfully confounded with him of Ephesus. His character, as developed in the Synoptics, is composed of negative qualities. We find him in Jerusalem when he had got to be fifty years old, without any evidence, up to that time, that he had been out of sight of the walls of the city, and no proof that he said or did anything worthy of notice. His name is mentioned in connection with some of the great scenes in the life of Christ, but he takes no part, and, like the supernumeraries on the stage, his presence is only needed to fill up a required number. To be sure, Paul speaks of him in connection with James and Peter as pillars of the church—which has no significance, as the nine other disciples were all moderate men, and the church at the time few in number and easily managed. John of the Synoptics is not only lymphatic and of negative qualities, but, from his condition in life and pursuits, must have had but little learning of any kind. John of the Greeks is a man of learning, and a scholar. He was master of the Greek, and was familiar with the abstruse and subtle philosophy of that speculative people. He was at home in all the different and various doctrines of the Gnostics, and proved himself the most able man of the age in his contests with those numerous sects which embraced the most learned men of the second century. In fine, this John of Galilee, whose name is seldom mentioned, or if so, not for anything he said or did, who lives to be more than fifty without the least notice being taken of him, or allusion made—this phlegmatic John, after he has passed the meridian of life, and his powers are on the decline, has all at once become a teacher, and the great light of Grecian theology, and wields a pen with the fire and spirit of Demosthenes! A change and complete transformation like this is nowhere else to be found in the history of the world. The truth is, the John of Galilee is not the John of Ephesus. The latter is a phantom of some Greek's brain, which has served to mislead men for ages.

If John the disciple had ever passed out of Syria into Asia Minor, so important a fact would find a place in some authentic history; and from the time he put his foot in the country, his meanderings, like those of Paul, would be well known and preserved. We leave him in Jerusalem in A.D. 50, and the next time we hear of him he is in Ephesus. When he left Judea, and when he arrived in Asia Minor, no one pretends to know. From the year forty-eight, and perhaps much sooner, to the spring of sixty-five, Paul spent nine-tenths of his time travelling up and down the Archipelago, establishing and visiting the churches. He made the circuit three times, and it was his uniform practice, in closing his epistles to the different churches, to mention those of the brethren who were with him, even if they were not of much importance; and yet in none of them does he mention the name of John. Considering that John was an Apostle, this silence of Paul can be accounted for only by the fact that he did not hear of or see him in Asia Minor, and was in Ephesus as late as the year sixty-four, and still later, sixty-five, and up to that time John had not been there, for Paul makes no mention of him.

What historical proof is there that is worthy of credit, that John was ever in Asia Minor? The whole story rests on the shoulders of Irenæus.

Here is what he says: "Then, again, the church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, and having John remaining among them permanently until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the traditions." (Book III. sec. 3.) Irenæus cites no authority, and we have a right, in a matter of so much importance, to demand of him some evidence that what he states is true. In this absence of any reference to written testimony we have a right to infer that there was none, and that there was no ground for the assertion but tradition. This Irenæus is forced to admit. The book on heresies was written, as we shall show, about A.D. 181. According to authentic history, Paul was in Ephesus in sixty-five, the last time. If the statement of Irenæus is founded on tradition, and there is no other, then the tradition that Paul left John in Ephesus is one hundred and sixteen years old. We will see what a tradition so old, handed down to future ages, is worth, coming from Irenæus. A tradition over one hundred years old, when first inserted into the pages of history by one of the most dishonest historians of any age, is the authority we have in our day for believing a most important fact in the history of the Christian church. The caption to the section from which the above passage was taken will explain the reason why Irenæus undertook to misrepresent the truth of history: "A refutation of the heretics, from the fact that, in the various churches, a perpetual succession of Bishops was kept up." He was engaged in furnishing an apostle to the churches in Asia Minor and some parts of Greece, for an "apostolic succession." We will find him engaged in doing a great deal of this kind of business before we are done with him. The proof that John was not in Ephesus is conclusive. The language of Irenæus implies that Paul placed John in charge of the church when he left for Rome for he says John remained. This is not so. When Paul left Ephesus, in the year A. D. 64 or 65, he left Timothy there in charge of the church, and he remained until Paul got into trouble in Rome, in the fall of A. D. 65, when the latter sent for him. Would Paul leave the church in the charge of Timothy when one of the Apostles was there, especially as he was so young that some objected to him on account of his age? In writing to Timothy to meet him in Rome, would Paul fail to make some mention of the Apostle, if he had been in Ephesus when he left?—Not one word to an Apostle who would naturally take charge of the church, in the absence of himself and Timothy?

It is clear, then, that John had not been in Ephesus up to the fall or summer of A. D. 65, when Timothy left to go to Rome; and the question is, was he there after this? and if so, when? Polycarp presided over the church at Smyrna, which was not far from Ephesus, and between the two points there was constant intercourse by land and water; and if John had succeeded Timothy at the latter place, would not he, Polycarp, take some notice of so important a fact? He speaks of Paul in his letter to the Philippians, and why not mention John, who was one of the twelve Apostles? Polycarp lived to the end of the century, and it is claimed John also lived to about that time, and as they both lived so long in such close proximity, how natural it would be that the intercourse between them should be most intimate, and that the former should mention those relations with an Apostle in writing to the churches he addressed, Irenæus felt the force of this, and undertakes to show that Polycarp was the hearer and disciple of John. He says: "These things are attested by Papias, who was John's hearer and the associate of Polycarp, an ancient writer, who mentions them in the fourth book of his works." (Quoted in Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii., chap. 39.) It is meant that it should be understood from this passage that both Papias and Polycarp had seen and heard John the Apostle. Now Papias never conversed with John, the son of Zebedee the fisherman, and he says so, in a fragment preserved in the writings of Eusebius. After quoting the passage just cited from Irenaeus, Eusebius says: "But Papias himself, in the preface to his discourses, by no means asserts that he was a hearer and an eye-witness of the holy Apostles, but informs us that he received the doctrines of faith from their intimate friends, which he states in the following words: 'But I shall not regret to subjoin to my interpretations, also for your benefit, whatsoever I have at any time accurately ascertained and treasured up in my memory, as I have received it from the elders, and have recorded it in order to give additional confirmation to the truth by my testimony. For I never, like many, delighted to hear those that tell many things, but those that teach the truth; neither those that record foreign precepts, but those that are given from the Lord to our faith, and that came from the truth itself. But if I met with any one who had been a follower of the elders anywhere, I made it a point to inquire what were the declarations of the elders,—what was said by Andrew, Peter, or Philip; what by Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any other of the disciples of our Lord; what was said by Aristion, and the Presbyter John, disciples of the Lord; for I do not think that I derived so much benefit from books as from the living voice of those that are still surviving.' And the same Papias of whom we now speak professes to have received the declarations of the Apostles from those that were in company with them, and says also that he was a hearer of Aristion and the Presbyter John. For, as he has often mentioned them by name, he also gives their statements in his own works." (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii. chap. 39.)

He says he never conversed with John, but with the elders, and that he was a hearer of Presbyter John, and so was Polycarp. When Irenæus says that Papias conversed with John, without telling which John, he knew that no one would be thought of but the disciple; and such would have been the case, had not Eusebius preserved this fragment from the writings of Papias. Polycarp and Papias both conversed with the same John, who was John the Presbyter. In another place Irenæus says: "But Polycarp also was only instructed by this Apostle, and had conversed with many who had seen Christ." (Book iii. chap. 3, sec. 3.) This is a palpable falsehood, and so appears from the passage just cited. He cites no authority, but lets facts of so much importance in history depend on his simple word. If what is stated be true, why does not Polycarp himself say something about the sources from which he derived his doctrines? Nothing would give so great weight to his preaching as that he derived what he taught from those who had listened to Christ and his Apostles. Why speak of Paul, and what he taught, and not of Jesus and his disciples, and what they taught?

The world is indebted to Irenæus for the story of what took place between John and Cerinthus at the bath-house in Ephesus. Speaking of Polycarp, and how in all respects he was superior to Valentinianus and Marcion, he says: "There are also those who heard from him (Polycarp) that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, 'Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus is within. '" (Book iii. chap. 3.)

Now it has been shown that John the disciple of the Lord never saw Polycarp, and if anything of the kind ever did take place, it was between Polycarp and John the Presbyter. The latter is a historic character, spoken of by Polycarp, who lived about this time, and was a Presbyter in the church; and it is evident that Irenæus seeks to confound the Apostle with him. It is for this reason he describes him in the above passage as "the disciple of the Lord," for which there was no reason, unless he meant to deceive. We have proved that he tried it once, and when the first falsehood is uttered it is easy to fabricate a second. This is the first blow that was directed by Irenæus against Cerinthus, a leader among the Gnostics; but it is only initiatory to still heavier ones which are to follow.

Marcion was a distinguished character among the Gnostics, and he too must receive some damaging blows at the hands of Polycarp, the disciple of John. And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, "Dost thou know me?"—"I do know thee—the first-born of Satan."—"Such," continues the writer, "was the horror which the Apostles and the disciples had against holding even a verbal communication with any of the corrupters of the truth." (Book iii. chap. 3.)

The Apostle in this case was John the Presbyter, if any one, and the disciple Polycarp the martyr, who had, in fact, never seen any of the Apostles. It is to be noted that no authority is given by Irenæus for these stories, though they are introduced as some things which somebody had said. Such is history.

The value of tradition from the authority of Irenæus may be judged of by the following statement he makes, evidently intended to strengthen the assertion he made about the presence of St. John in Asia Minor. In all cases where he wants it to appear that the Apostle was there, he connects the principal subject with other statements in a way as if the main fact was incidentally mentioned. "Now Jesus was, as it were, beginning to be thirty years old when he came to receive baptism, and according to those men he preached only one year, reckoning from his baptism. On completing his thirtieth year he suffered, being still a young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years, and that extends onwards to the fortieth year, every one will admit; but from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which our Lord possessed, while he still fulfilled the office of teacher, even as the gospel and all the elders testify." "Those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord (affirming) that John gave to them that information. And he remained among them up to the time of Trajan. Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other Apostles, and heard the same account from them, and bear testimony as to the validity of the statement. Which, then, should we rather believe?—whether such as these, or Ptolemæus, who never saw the Apostles, and who never in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an Apostle?" (Book ii. chap. 22, sec. 5.)

It seems that Irenæus had got into a dispute with Ptolemæus, and attempts to silence him, as he does all opponents, by the authority of the disciples, and especially of John, who is the only one he names. John, too, was in Asia at the time. It is not said where the other Apostles were. Ptolemæus claimed, as appears in the first part of the same section, "that Christ preached for one year only, and then suffered in the twelfth month." The argument with Ptolemæus was, that Christ was too young, and preached too short a time, to be regarded as a teacher of much authority; and in this way, as Irenæus says, "destroying his whole work, and robbing him of that age which is both necessary and more honorable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during which also, as a teacher, he excelled all others." The objection is put down in a summary way, claiming that the time of Christ's preaching extended over a period of ten years. This is what the Apostles stated, and what John said while he was in Asia, and who remained there to the time of the death of Trajan.

Ecclesiastical history claims three years only as the period of Christ's ministry, but it can be proven that the truth lies on the side of Ptolemæus. Did John, while he was in Asia, and the other Apostles, no matter where, give rise to such absurd and false traditions? If John was in Ephesus at the time Paul went to Rome, in the year A. D. 65, and remained to the time of Trajan, as stated by Irenæus, he was in Asia thirty-five years. During this time his history must have been so interwoven with the affairs of the church, holding the rank of an Apostle, that nothing could be more easy than to prove his presence in the country. There is no difficulty in following the footsteps of Paul for each year after he set out to preach the gospel, whether in Europe or Asia; and so with any real character who has been conspicuous for his talents, or from the position he held in his day. But neither Irenæus nor Eusebius have been able to furnish the world with the least evidence of a substantial character of the presence of John in Asia, although they have undertaken it, and exhausted their ingenuity in trying to do so. If no better proof can be given of the presence of John in Asia, after a residence of thirty-five years, than a grave, which may as well be claimed to be that of Hannibal as that of John, the world will be satisfied he never was there. Eusebius has displayed his characteristic ingenuity, and shown his usual disregard for truth in an effort to prove that the grave of John was in Ephesus, and that it was identified as late as the latter part of the second or beginning of the third century. He travels out of his way to do it—manifests from the way he does it that he is engaged in a fraud, and, between the fear of detection and anxiety for success, he makes poor work of it. He causes Polycrates, who was Bishop of Ephesus, to write a letter to Victor, Bishop of Rome, with the apparent purpose of informing him that some mighty luminaries had fallen asleep in Asia, but, in fact, to give an opportunity to make mention of the grave of John as being there in Ephesus. Who these luminaries were who had fallen asleep, he does not name; but dismisses this part of the subject and proceeds to say: "Moreover, John, that rested on the bosom of our Lord, he also rests at Ephesus." Some other matters are introduced into the letter, which related to the burial of Philip and his two daughters at Hierapolis; but this was only intended to conceal the real purpose and design of the writer.

Victor was Bishop of Rome in the beginning of the third century, after John, if we admit he was in Asia, had been dead one hundred years. In writing to Victor about persons who had lately died, and without saying who they were, why should Polycrates make mention of the grave of John as located in Ephesus, which, if true, would have been as well known to all Asia as the tomb of Washington is known to the enlightened world to be at Mount Vernon?

That intelligent men of the second and third centuries denied and disproved the presence of John in Asia, is rendered certain by the struggles and desperate efforts of their adversaries to establish the affirmative. The indications are, that the philosophers proved that the person whom the Christians claimed to be the Apostle John was some other John; in all probability, John the Presbyter. Upon this point the proof seems to have been so conclusive that the Christians were driven to the necessity of proving that there were two Johns—one besides the presbyter. Eusebius takes this task upon himself. We quote from the above letter of Polycrates to Victor: "For in Asia also mighty luminaries have fallen asleep, which will rise again at the last day at the appearance of the Lord, when he shall come with glory from heaven, and shall gather again all the saints. Philip, one of the twelve Apostles, sleeps in Hierapolis, and his two aged virgin daughters. Another of his daughters, who lived in the Holy Spirit, rests at Ephesus. Moreover, John, that rested on the bosom of the Lord, who was a priest that bore the sacerdotal plate, and martyr, and teacher, he also rests at Ephesus." (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii. ch. 31.) Owing either to a bad translation, or design on the part of the writer, two distinct characters are so run together in the same sentence, that we would suppose them to be one person if we did not know that the person who leaned on the bosom of the Lord could not be the one who bore the sacerdotal plate, and was a martyr.

It would seem from this effort to make it appear that there were two Johns buried at Ephesus, that the philosophers proved that the John who bore the sacerdotal plate was the one the Christians were attempting to impose on the world as the real John, and that the proof was such that they had to yield the point, and claim that there were two graves—one the martyr's, and the other the Apostle's. Eusebius felt conscious that it was not safe to rest his case here, and we find him reaching out in every direction for further proof, satisfied with anything that will give color to the fact he labors to establish.

In another place he states: "Where it is also proper to observe the name of John is twice mentioned. The former of which he (Papias) mentions with Peter and James and Matthew, and the other apostles; evidently meaning the evangelist. But in a separate point of his discourse he ranks the other John with the rest not included in the number of apostles, placing Aristion before him. He distinguishes him plainly by the name of Presbyter. So that it is here proved that the statement of those is true who assert there were two of the same name in Asia, that there were also two tombs in Ephesus, and that both are called John's even to this day; which it is particularly necessary to observe" (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii. chap, xxxix.) As much as to say to the objecting philosophers, If you have proved that one John in Asia was the Presbyter John, we prove by Papias that there were two, and that one of them was the Apostle. If this is so, it is only by inference. But it spoils the argument when it is shown that when Papias speaks of the two Johns, he does not say they were in Asia, or where they were. He speaks at the same time of all the Apostles, or nearly so, by name, but does not mention them, or any of them, in connection with any place. To subserve a particular purpose, Irenæus had asserted that John had been in Ephesus, where he remained a long time, without the least authority to sustain him. It was a bare, naked assertion without proof.

In the third and fourth centuries, during the time of Eusebius, this assertion had grown to great importance, by reason that, on the fact that it was so, was founded the Apostolic succession of nearly all the churches in Europe, and most of Asia. To maintain the presence of John in Asia was as important as it was to prove that Peter had been in Rome. Understanding the importance of this fact, the philosophers directed their attacks upon it, showing that the man the Christians called the Apostle was somebody else. It devolved upon Eusebius, the most learned man of his day, to defend the position. The task exceeded his ability, but not his inclination to deceive. If we except Irenæus, no writer has so studiously put himself to work to impose falsehoods on the world as Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea. His genius was employed in various ways, and especially in perverting chronology. Speaking of a class of men who gave themselves up to such employments, the author of the "Intellectual Development of Europe," page 147, says: "Among those who have been guilty of this literary offence, the name of the celebrated Eusebius, the Bishop of Cæsarea in the time of Constantine, should be designated, since in his chronography and Synchronal tables he purposely 'perverted chronology for the sake of making synchronisms.' (Bunsen.) It is true, as Niebuhr asserts, 'He is a very dishonest writer.' To a great extent, the superseding of the Egyptian annals was brought about by his influence. It was forgotten, however, that of all things chronology is the least suited to be an object of inspiration, and that, though men may be wholly indifferent to truth for its own sake, and consider it not improper to wrest it unscrupulously to what they may suppose a just purpose, yet that it will vindicate itself at last" His character for truth stood no better among writers of the fifth century, for Socrates fairly charges that in his life of Constantine he had more regard for his own advancement than he had for the truth of history. (Book i. ch. 1.) A whole volume is devoted to display the virtues and exalt the character of a man who had murdered his son Crispus—his nephew Licinius—suffocated his wife Fausta in a steam bath, and who, to revenge a pasquinade, was with difficulty restrained from the massacre of the entire population of Rome.

In another part of this volume we will have occasion to detect and expose the genius of this Father, in his attempt to create a chronology so as to give semblance to a list of men who never existed, but who were required to fill an important gap in the life of the church. No fitter instrument could be found to help consummate the fraud conceived by Irenæus to impose a spurious John on the world than Eusebius of Cæsarea.

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CHAPTER VIII.

The Gnostics.—Irenæus makes war on them.—His mode of
warfare.—The Apostolic succession and the object.—No
church in Rome to the time of Adrian.—Peter never in Rome—
nor Paul in Britain, Gaul, or Spain.—Forgeries of Irenæus.

Before we approach the principal subject treated of in this section, it will be proper to say something of a sect or society which in its day took a leading part in the affairs of the world, but which has long since disappeared from history, and whose former existence is now only known to the careful reader. We refer to the Gnostics, who for the most part flourished in the second century. They were divided among themselves into more than fifty different sects. "The principal among them were known under the names of Basilidians, Valentinians, and Marcionites. They abounded in Egypt, Asia, Rome, and were found in considerable numbers in the provinces of the West. Each of these sects could boast of its Bishops and congregations, of its doctors and martyrs, and instead of the four Gospels adopted by the church, they produced a multitude of histories, in which the actions and discourses of Christ and his apostles were adapted to their respective tenets."— (Decline and Fall, chap. xv. vol. I. p. 257.) They supported their opinions by various fictitious and apocryphal writings of Adam, Abraham, Zoroaster, Christ, and the Apostles. They were for the most part composed of Gentiles who denied the divine authority of the Old Testament, and rejected the Mosaic account of the creation, of the origin and fall of man, and claimed that a God was unworthy of adoration, who for a trivial offence of Adam and Eve pronounced sentence of condemnation on all their descendants. They adored Christ as an Æon, or divine emanation, who appeared on the earth to reclaim man from the paths of error and point out to him the ways of truth; but with these opinions they mingled many sublime and obscure tenets derived from oriental philosophy. This divine Æon or emanation they considered was the Son of God, but was inferior to the Father, and they rejected his humanity on the principle that everything corporeal is essentially and intrinsically evil. They agreed with the Christians in their abhorrence of polytheism and idolatry, and both regarded the former as a composition of human fraud and error, and demons as the authors and patrons of the latter.

As we have stated, the Gnostics for the most part sprang up in the second century and disappeared in the fourth and fifth, suppressed by a law of the Emperor Constantine. "The Emperor enacted a law by which they were forbidden to assemble in their own houses of prayer, in private houses, or in, public places, but were compelled to enter the Catholic church.... Hence the greater number of these sectarians were led by fear of consequences to join themselves to the church. Those who adhered to their original sentiments did not at their death leave any disciples to propagate their heresies, for, owing to the restrictions to which they were subjected, they were prevented from preaching their doctrines."— (Sozomen, Ecc. Hist., book ii ch. 32.)

Thus passed from history the Gnostics, "the most polite, the most learned and most wealthy of the Christian name." (Decline and Fall, chap. xv. vol. I. p. 256.) Such was the character of the men who, brought into collision with the orthodox Christians in the second century, became involved in the most violent and bitter struggles in which men were ever engaged. It was to defeat and destroy these men that Irenæus devoted the labor of a lifetime, that on their ruin he might erect the Catholic church. The undertaking was Herculean, but the means employed were well chosen, vigorously and tenaciously pursued, and its success is one of the most remarkable and exceptional cases in history of the triumph of cunning, falsehood, and fraud. The grand idea was, that Christ, the Son of God, was the founder of the church on earth, and that, at his death, the power to establish others after him he conferred on the Apostles, and upon no one else. As they might confer this power on others as they had received it from Christ, so these last could in turn do the same to those who followed them, and in this way continue the church through all time. This is what Irenæus calls the "Apostolic succession." A church which could not prove its connection with Christ through this Apostolic chain was no church at all, and it amounted to impiety and vile heresy for such a pretended church to undertake to explain or understand his gospel. Such a church has no relation to Christ, but with demons and evil spirits.

Irenæus found it much less difficult to show that there was no such succession in the Gnostic churches than he did in proving that it existed in his own. To do this, as we will show in another place, he was forced to introduce on to the stage the names of at least nine persons who, he claimed, had been Bishops of Rome, most of whom were mere myths and never had an existence, and those who had were never in Rome at all.

Christ, at his death, he further maintains, not only conferred on the Apostles the sole right to establish churches, but also imparted to them some divine knowledge or gifts which they on their death intrusted to the church as a special deposit for the benefit of all who yielded obedience to her authority. These precious gifts left with the church Irenæus compares to money or riches deposited in a bank by a rich man. But we will let him speak for himself: "Since, therefore, we have such proof, it is not necessary to seek the truth among others, which is easy to obtain from the church; since the Apostles, like a rich man depositing his money in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth; so that every man, whosoever, can draw from her the water of eternal life. For she is the entrance to life, and all others are thieves and robbers." (Book iii. chap. 4, sec. I.) Having established the principal proposition by his mere assertion (which is his way of making history of all kinds), Irenæus next proceeds to show that the Gnostics could not trace any connection with a church founded by the Apostles. "For prior to Valentinianus (he says), those who follow Valentinianus had no existence: nor did those from Marcion exist before Marcion; nor, in short, had any of those malignant-minded people, whom I have above enumerated, any being previous to the initiators and inventors of their perversity." (Book iii. chap. 4, sec. 3.)

The ancient Father has, so far, established two of his main propositions: first, that a church must derive its origin through the Apostles, or some one of them, to be genuine; and second, that there was no such connection in the churches of the Gnostics; and it only remains to show that the church claiming to be orthodox had. He declines to point out the order of succession in all the churches, but consents to do it in the case of Rome, which, he says, according to tradition, derived from the Apostles, was founded and organized at Rome by the two glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul. (Book iii. chap. 3, sec. 2.) The church at Rome, founded by such great lights as Peter and Paul, Irenæus continues, should be regarded of the highest authority in the church, for, he says, "it is a matter of necessity that every church should agree with this church, on account of its pre-eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those faithful men who exist everywhere." (Sec. 2.)

As Peter was selected to be head of the church, and Rome the capital of the Christian world, the scheme to establish a church on the ground of an Apostolic succession must fail, unless it can appear that Peter had not only been there at some time, but that he was also the founder of a church at the holy city. A letter said to have been written by Clement, the third Bishop of Rome, is selected as the medium by which it is made to appear that Peter had been in Rome; and Irenæus took upon himself to show what he was engaged in while there. At the proper place we will show that this Clement is a fiction, brought on the stage as a link in the Apostolic chain forged by the great criminal of the second century.

Now follows a forgery so apparent on its face, that it does not require the skill of an expert to detect it.

"But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to those who, in these last days, have wrestled manfully for the faith; let us take the noble examples of our own age. Through envy, the faithful and most righteous pillars of the church have been persecuted even to the most dreadful deaths. Let us place before your eyes the good Apostles. Peter, by unjust envy, underwent not one or two, but many labors: and thus having borne testimony unto death, he went into the place of glory, which was due to him. Through envy, Paul obtained the reward of patience. Seven times he was in bonds; he was scourged; was stoned. He preached both in the East and in the West, leaving behind him the glorious report of his faith. And thus having taught the whole world of righteousness, and reached the fullest extremity of the West, he suffered martyrdom by the command of the governors, and departed out of this world, and went to the holy place, having become a most exemplary pattern of patience." (Epistle I. of Clement to Corinthians, sec. 5.) By the side of this extract we will lay a passage of Irenæus. Speaking of the writers of the Gospels, he says: "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews, in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the church." (Book iii. chap. 1.) Now, we assert with confidence, that the hand which penned the first passage wrote them both. It is not said in so many words, in Clement's letter, that Peter was in Rome, but it is to be inferred, as in the case of John at Eph-esus. Irenæus seldom states anything which is positively untrue in direct language, but makes falsehood inferential. The passage we have quoted does not contain a single truth, except as it relates to Paul. Paul and Peter were never engaged together in laying the foundation of a church. They quarrelled in Damascus and could never agree. The doctrine of circumcision formed an impassable wall between them, and, as we will show, was never given up by Peter. Besides, it is not true that Peter had anything to do in laying the foundation of the church at Rome.

Christians, during the reign of Claudius in Rome, were too few in number and too poor to form a church, especially such an one as would require the office of a Bishop. Renan, in speaking of the church in the time of Claudius, says it was composed of a "little group—every one smelt of garlic. These ancestors of Roman prelates were poor proletaries, dirty, alike clownish, clothed in filthy gabardines, having the bad breath of people who live badly. Their retreats breathed that odor of wretchedness exhaled by persons meanly clothed and fed, and collected in a small room." (Life of Paul, 96.)

We have no reason to believe that at any time during the life of Peter was the church of Rome, if there was any church there at all, composed of different materials or greater in numbers than at the time referred to. What was there for a Bishop to do in such a crowd, or what was there to keep him from starvation? Christians engaged in riots growing out of the hostility between them and the Jews, were driven from Rome by an edict of the Emperor Claudius, and did not return during his reign, which ceased in A.D. 54, when that of Nero commenced. In A.D. 58 they had not rallied, and at that time Rome was without a church. It was the practice in all cases with Paul to address Christians through the churches, where churches were established; but his Epistle, in A.D. 58, to the Romans, is addressed not to a church, but "to all that be in Rome" In his three years' imprisonment in that city, commencing in the spring of A.D. 61, he makes no mention of a church, nor does he during the second, which lasted from the summer or fall of A.D. 65 to the spring of A.D. 66. There is no proof that the historian can discover, worthy of his notice, that there was a church in Rome of any kind, even down to the time of Adrian, A.D. 117, and even later. We are overrun with traditions on this subject, the creations of the second century, to which the attention of the reader will be called when we treat of the twelve traditional Bishops named by Irenæus. Adrian, in the seventeenth year of his reign, knew so little about a Christian church, that he supposed the office of a Bishop belonged to the worship of the god Serapis. In a letter written by him from Alexandria, A.D. 134, to his brother-in-law Servianus, he says: "The worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and those are devoted to the god Serapis, who, I find, call themselves Bishop of Christ."

We will dismiss this part of the subject for the present, with the promise to return to it in a subsequent chapter, when it will be demonstrated that there was no Christian church in Rome until after the reign of Antoninus Pius.*

* See Appendix C

Were Peter and Paul together in Rome at all? Paul went there in the spring of A.D. 61, for the first time, and remained until the spring or summer of A.D. 63. During this time he wrote four epistles, as follows:—to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and to Philemon, and, if we except the first, he closes them by naming the persons who are with him. He says nothing about Peter, nor does he mention his name, so far as we know, during the three years he was confined in Rome. That Paul should omit to mention Peter, one of the Apostles, in some of his letters, is the very best proof that he was not in Rome at all. After his release in the spring of A.D. 63, after making a visit to the churches in Europe and Asia, he returned to Rome again in the fall of A.D. 65. He had with him a few friends who stood by him to the last. They were Luke, Mark, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia. There could not have been many other Christians in Rome at the time besides those named, because Paul, after naming the above who sent salutations to Timothy, adds, "and all the other brethren," which implies that there were not many of them. Paul does not mention Peter, because he was not there. Timothy, no doubt, was with Paul in the winter of A.D. 65 and A.D. 66, and was put to death in the spring of the latter year, with his friend and fellow-laborer. We never hear of him again. In the spring of A.D. 66, the labors and sorrows of the great Apostle of the Gentiles ceased. He had fought the good fight—he had finished his work—he had kept the faith; and now, by his death, bore testimony to the doctrines he preached. He was among the last of Nero's victims. Nothing that belongs to history is surer than that Peter and Paul never were in Rome together, laying the foundation of a church, or anything else.

Having proved that one-half of what is stated by Irenæus in the passage which we have quoted is false, according to the usual rule for testing the truth of any statement, we might claim that the remaining half is also untrue. But we ask no such advantage in disproving any of the statements made by this father.

When was Peter in Rome? No writer in the first or second century pretends to give the time when he was in Rome, or when he died.

Irenæus gives the names of twelve Bishops who succeeded each other, commencing with Linus, but does not give a single date, so that we can tell when or how long any one of them held the office. This want of dates, where it was easy to give them—if what was stated was true—was urged with so much force against what Irenæus said, that Eusebius, in the fourth century, undertook to fix the time when these traditional Bishops succeeded to, and how long each held the office. He fails to say when Peter first became Bishop, or when he ceased to be the head of the church, but commences giving dates from the time of Linus, his successor. Without intending, he has furnished the data to determine when Peter died, if his dates are correct, which is not even probable. He says: "After Vespasian had reigned about ten years, he was succeeded by his son Titus; in the second year of whose reign, Linus, Bishop of the church of Rome, who held the office about twelve years, transferred it to Anacletus." (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii. ch. 13.) As Linus succeeded Peter, the latter must have died just before his successor took the office. Titus became emperor June 24th, A. D. 79, and as Linus died two years after this, after holding the office twelve years, he became Bishop in A. D. 69; which must have been the year of Peter's death. Nero died in June A. D. 68, and at his death the persecution against Christians ceased altogether. It is not claimed that Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, or Titus ever inflicted persecution of any kind on Christians during the time they held the government of the empire. Eusebius, in attempting to fix a date when the second Bishop took office, answers the objections made to the vagueness of Irenæus, but robs Peter of the laurels of a martyr.

But it is claimed that Linus was installed Bishop before the death of Peter, and Irenæus pretends to give the time. He says: "The blessed Apostles then having founded and built up the church, committed unto the hands of Linus the office of the Episcopate." (Book iii. ch. 2, sec. 3.) The blessed Apostles are Peter and Paul. Now we have just shown that these Apostles were never in Rome together, and that there was no church to be committed to the charge of Linus or anybody else. As it is an important part of the story that Peter died a martyr at Rome, this could only happen to him between A. D. 64 and A. D. 68, for the persecution under Nero commenced during the former year, and ended with his death in A. D. 68. We have the most conclusive proof that Peter was not in Rome in A. D. 64, when the persecutions under Nero commenced, nor afterwards. He was in Babylon—whether Babylon in Assyria, Babylon in Mesopotamia or Egypt—he was in Babylon more than two thousand miles away. Peter was born about the time of Christ, and was sixty-four years of age when the persecutions under Nero began. He was married, and when he wrote his first Epistle he was in Babylon and had his family with him, for he mentions the name of Marcus, and calls him his son. "The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus, my son." (1 Peter v. 13.)

The date of this epistle is fixed by Dr. Lard-ner and other critics at A. D. 64. Did Peter, at the age of sixty-four, when he heard that Nero was feeding the wild beasts of the Amphitheatre with the flesh and bones of Christians, "lured by the smell of blood," start for Rome? If Peter was in Babylon in A. D. 64, an "Apostolic succession," so far as it depends on him, must fail, and Rome must surrender the authority by which she has held the religious world in subjection for the last seventeen centuries.

But this she will never do, as long as her audacity and cunning are left to hatch schemes to escape from the dilemma. Inspired by despair, she now claims that Peter means Rome when he says Babylon, and that the Marcus spoken of was not the son of Peter, but the nephew of Barnabas and companion of Paul! Just as well claim anything else, and say Babylon means Alexandria, and that Marcus was the stepson of Nero. Here two impressions are made: one that the letter was written at Babylon, and the other that Peter was attended by his son. Are both false? What did Peter, or anybody else, expect to gain by giving false impressions? By an agreement between Peter and Paul, made early and observed strictly, the labors of the former were limited to the circumcised, and he found them in large numbers in cities watered by the Euphrates. There and in Judea, among the Jewish people, was the scene of Peter's labors, and there he died. He had no business in Rome. As there was no church in Rome in A. D. 64, it is impossible, if Peter was there at the time, for him to make the salutation he does in his address to his countrymen. He could say, "the church that is at Babylon," but not "the church that is at Rome," for there was none.*

* See Appendix B.

Mark the son of Peter, and Mark the nephew of Barnabas, are two different persons, whom the genius of Irenæus seeks to confound. The epistle to Philemon was written in the latter part of A. D. 63, which shows that Paul, Timothy, and Mark were then in Rome. They left in the following spring. During the winter of A. D. 63, Paul wrote the Colossians that they might expect Mark to visit them, and it would seem that he had made arrangements with them of some kind in regard to him, when he arrived among them. "Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas (touching whom ye received commandments: if he come unto you, receive him.") Col. iv. 10.

Unless Mark changed his mind afterwards, he went from Rome to Colosse in Phrygia. The next reliable information we have of Paul after the spring of A. D. 63, except at Nicopolis in A. D. 64, he is back in Rome in the fall of A. D. 65, and in prison; and the first knowledge we have of Mark, he is in some part of Asia Minor. Timothy and Mark were together, and Paul writes to the former from his prison, to come to Rome and to bring the latter with him, and to get there before the winter sets in; which request was complied with. To suppose that Mark had been to Rome in the mean time would be most unreasonable, and against all the probabilities in the case. There was nothing to take him there until Paul called him back. If Peter was in Rome when he wrote his first epistle, in A. D. 64, Mark the nephew of Barnabas was not with him. If Mark saw Peter at all in A. D. 64, it was not in Rome. Nor did he see him that year in Babylon in Egypt, or Babylon in Mesopotamia or Chaldea.

The latter Babylon was long known for its vices and wickedness, and was called a sink of iniquity; and as Rome had become corrupt and steeped in crime of all kinds, it is claimed that Peter uses the word Babylon in a typical sense when he was writing from Rome! If this is so, he did not write from Babylon in Egypt or Mesopotamia, as some have contended, for they were each small and inconsiderable places of no importance, and there could be no object in using either as a type to represent the corruptions of Rome. If Mark saw Peter in Babylon, it was in Chaldea. Measured by degrees of longitude, Rome and this Babylon are more than two thousand miles apart. Why would Mark make a visit to Peter involving a journey of four thousand miles, br half that distance? He never did. He could not. He went among the Colossians under some arrangement made by Paul, and no doubt remained with them until he was wanted at Rome. When Peter calls Mark his son, he means just what he says. Mark the companion of Paul, and Mark the son of Peter, are two different men.

What should take Peter to Rome or keep him there when burning and torturing Christians was one of the amusements of Nero? Had Peter's character for courage so much improved that he went there when all the Christians had gone, to defy Nero, and invite his destruction? There is something in the character of Peter that makes it improbable, if not impossible, that he should be in Rome in a time of danger. He was a man of strong impulses, but a constitutional coward. He followed Christ to the scene of the crucifixion, "but he followed him afar off." (Matt. xxvi. 58.) He had pride, and a proper sense of manliness, and when he was betrayed through a want of courage into the commission of a mean act, he had spirit and sense enough to be ashamed of it. He denied Christ, but it cost him bitter tears of repentance. Either his cowardice or his jealousy stood in the way of his coming to the aid of Paul, whenever Paul was in danger of his life. When the Jews were about to tear him to pieces in Jerusalem, and he had to be rescued by the Roman soldiers, Peter was nowhere about, and we do not even hear of him, In his trials before the Roman Governors, when he had no one to stand by him but a few faithful companions, the presence of Peter, at such a time, would have done much to aid and console the great champion of a common cause. But in all these places there was danger, and where danger was was no place for Peter.

He lacked moral, as he did physical courage. At Damascus he did not hesitate to sit at the same table with the uncircumcised, when there was no one present to object; but when those came from Jerusalem who could not tolerate the liberal ideas of Paul on circumcision, he cowardly sneaked away. Paul took fire at the appearance of so much meanness, and boldly reproved him. Is this the kind of man who would enter the lion's den, and brave the wrath of Nero at a time when the tyrant was flooding the streets of Rome with the blood of Christians?

Justin Martyr was born about the year A. D. 100, and was a native of Neapolis in Syria. (Apology, sec. I.) At the beginning of the reign of Antoninus Pius he fixed his abode in Rome, and afterwards wrote numerous works, principally devoted to the defence of Christians. (Cave's Life of Martyr, vol. 2, chap. 6.) No one had better opportunities of knowing about Peter, and the church at Rome, than he had, and no one who wrote as much as he did which concerned Christianity, would have been more likely to mention him, if what Irenæus says of him had been true. He is so oblivious of Peter that he seems to have been unconscious of his existence. No writer in the first years of the second century, who is entitled to credit, speaks of him, and he first begins to figure in the pages of Irenæus when the disputes with the Gnostics were at their height. The Clementines were composed later in the century, when Pauline Christianity was giving way to the new school, and the dogma of an Apostolic succession had taken possession of the church. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, who lived and wrote during the reign of Marcus Antoninus and his son Commodus, about A. D. 180, according to Eusebius, also states that Paul and Peter were at Rome together engaged in laying the foundation of a church. (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., lib. ii. ch. 25.) But this writer has got out of the Pauline period, and even goes beyond Irenæus, for he states, according to the same authority, that Peter and Paul laid the foundation of the church at Corinth.

Theophilus of Antioch, Melito of Sardis, Apollinarius of Hierapolis, all writers about the same time, A. D. 180, like Irenæus, take sides against the Gnostics, and show that they were committed to the new school. From this time Irenæus is quoted as the authority for the fact that Peter and Paul had founded the church at Rome, and we are asked to give special weight to what he says, as he was the companion of Polycarp, who had seen and conversed with John.

Speaking of Paul, Clement is made to say, "He preached both in the East and in the West—taught the whole world righteousness, and reached the farthest extremity of the West, and suffered martyrdom, by the command of the Governors." This passage has long been a stumbling-block among learned critics. It is the only authority on which is founded the story, that after Paul was discharged from prison in A. D. 63, he went into Spain, Gaul, and Britain. Caius, the Presbyter, in the beginning of the third century, says: "Writings not included in the canon of Scripture expressly mention the journey from Rome into Spain." Hippolytus, in the same century, says that Paul went as far as Illyricum, preaching the gospel. Athanasius, in the fourth century, says that St. Paul did not hesitate to go to Rome and Spain. Jerome, in the same century, says that "St. Paul, after his release from his trial before Nero, preached the Gospels in the Western parts." (Quoted from Chevallier's Apostolical Epistles, note, p. 487.)

These is no authority for Paul's travels in the Western provinces, except the passage from Clement, and as Irenæus is the founder of the story, it is not improved by the repetition of subsequent writers. The whole is a transparent falsehood. From the time of Paul's career, commencing with his adventure near Damascus to the time of his imprisonment in Rome, in the spring of A. D. 61, we have an account of his travels, and know where he was each year during this time. He never in this time went west of Rome. In the spring of A. D. 63, in company with Mark, Titus, Timothy and others, he left Rome and went in all probability to Colosse, where, in pursuance of some agreement he made with the people of that place, he left Mark. How long he remained is uncertain, but the next time we hear of him he is in Crete, where no doubt he spent the winter of A. D. 63 and A. D. 64, In the mean time he made some converts, whom he left in charge of Titus, and in the spring went west into Macedonia. Some time in the summer or fall of A. D. 64 we find him in Nicopolis, where he informed Titus he meant to spend the winter. The following spring or summer he went to Rome and was soon imprisoned. If he was at Colosse or Crete in A. D. 63, and Nicopolis in A. D. 64, he could not have gone to Britain, Gaul, and Spain between the spring of A. D. 63 and the summer of A. D. 65, for it would not be possible.

But it is conclusive that Paul did not go into the provinces of the West after his release from prison; that there is no mention of his travels in the West, except what is said in this passage from the letter of Clement—a thing impossible, when we consider that he never went anywhere but he made his mark, and left his footprints behind him. Even Paul himself, in his subsequent letters, makes no allusion to any such travels, which is accountable upon no other hypothesis than that he never made them. But what was gained in fabricating this passage?

The idea of Irenæus, that there could be no church unless its origin could be traced to some one of the Apostles, who were special bankers of divine favors, never left him. He furnished Rome with Peter, and Asia with John, and now he is required to furnish one for the churches in Gaul, Spain, and Britain. Here were churches in these countries in his day, and who had authority to establish them? It would not do to claim that either of the Twelve had been in the West, for even falsehood has its' boundaries. Paul will do. He is the great Apostle of the Gentiles. Besides, according to the Acts, he had submitted to ordination at the hands of the Apostles. The explanation of the reasons which dictated this spurious passage in Clement's letter is consistent with the acts of Irenæus, and the whole current of his thoughts throughout his life. But this story, invented by him, has been repeated by others, until it settled down—as history! It is clear from the proof here shown, that Irenæus has no claim to our belief as a writer, and that the statements he makes in regard to Peter in Rome and Paul in the West are mere inventions of his own to assist him in his disputes with the Gnostics, in which he was engaged for the best part of his life.

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CHAPTER IX.

The claim of Irenæus that Mark was the interpreter of Peter,
and Luke the author of the third Gospel, considered.—Luke
and Mark both put to death with Paul in Rome.

Irenæus, after stating that Peter and Paul preached in Rome and laid the foundation of a church at that place, continues: "After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the gospel preached by him." (Book iii. sec. 1.) Again no time is given. The last time we know anything of Mark and Luke that is certain, or at all reliable, they were both with Paul in Rome. In his second letter to Timothy he says: "Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry." (2 Timothy iv. 11.) That Timothy obeyed this request and took Mark with him, does not admit of doubt. Paul and Timothy were inseparable, and Mark was Paul's near friend and companion. This must have been in the fall of A. D. 65, when Paul was in prison, with little or no hope to escape the second time from the fangs of Nero.

At the time Timothy and Mark entered Rome, the fury of Nero raged with all its sanguinary cruelty. It was just about the time the conspiracy of Piso was brought to light. Made mad by his fears, he struck in all directions. Not content with the destruction of the conspirators, he put to death all who offended his vanity or moved his jealousy. Seneca, a man whose many virtues added lustre to the Roman people, and who was an honor to any age, was not suffered to live. His very virtues gave offence to the tyrant. Lu-can and others, distinguished for genius and learning, were put to death. Tacitus says that at this time "the city presented a scene of blood, and funerals darkened all the streets." (Annals, book XV. sec. 21.) Speaking of the events of the year 66, when Paul was put to death, the same writer says: "We have nothing before us but tame servility, and a deluge of blood spilt by a tyrant in the hour of peace. The heart recoils from the dismal story. But let it be remembered by those who may hereafter think these events worthy of their notice, that I have discharged the duty of an historian, and if in relating the fate of so many eminent citizens, who resigned their lives to the will of one man, I mingle tears with indignation, let me be allowed to feel for the unhappy. The truth is, the wrath of Heaven was bent against the Roman State. The calamities that followed cannot, like the slaughter of an army or the sacking of a city, be painted forth in one general draught. Repeated murders must be given in succession." (Annals, B. XVI. sec. XVI.) The author then proceeds to give a long list of victims. At the time Paul was in prison, and Mark and Luke his companions were with him, the Roman legions, under the command of Vespasian, were marching to make war upon the Jews, if they had not done so already. They had rebelled and defied the power of Rome. At this time, no Jew could be in Rome and live. Not only was the anger of Nero aroused against them, but that of the entire people of Rome—and this feeling did not abate until after almost the entire nation was destroyed. No doubt Timothy, Luke, Linus, Paul, and all others who were with them, perished in the general calamity. Why put to death Paul, and not his fellow-laborers? Nero waged war not against Christians, but against Christianity. We trace all these parties inside the gates of Rome, and then we lose their trail forever. There is not one single item of reliable proof that any one of them ever left the doomed city. The footprints of Christians going into Rome at this time were like the tracks going into the cave of Polyphemus—many were seen going in, but none coming out.

We learn from Eusebius and Jerome, that Mark went to Egypt and founded a church at Alexandria, and the latter states that he died and was buried there in the eighth year of the reign of Nero. This is impossible. As Nero commenced his reign A.D. 54, this would made him die in A.D. 62. Now we find him alive with Paul in A.D. 65. Eusebius, in his loose way, says: "The same Mark, they say also, being the first that was sent to Egypt, proclaimed the gospel there which he had written, and first established churches in Alexandria." (Book I. ch. 16.) This father had special reasons why he wanted to get Mark to Alexandria. The close resemblance between Christians and Therapeutæ, as we have shown, was a reason with him why he should insist that the latter were in fact believers in Christ by a different name. Mark is sent to be their teacher, and was claimed to be the founder of this new sect of Christians. Nothing is wider from the truth. If ever Mark or Luke left Rome, there is no reason why we should not hear something of them. Situated as they were in their relations with the founders of Christianity, had they survived the slaughter at Rome, one or both would have left behind them evidence, of some kind, of their escape. What remained of Paul, Timothy, Mark, Luke, Linus and others after they entered Rome in the winter of A.D. 65 and A.D. 66, could only be found after that time among the graves of Nero's victims. Whatever Mark and Luke wrote, in the nature of Gospels, was written before they entered the gates for the last time.

As this was in A. D. 65 or A. D. 66, and the gospels ascribed to them were neither extant nor known before the beginning of the second century, we are forced to look to some other quarter for those who wrote them.

But what proof is there that Mark and Peter were on such intimate terms as is claimed by Irenæus? None, except that which is afforded in the first Epistle of Peter (1 Peter v. 13), wherein Mark is spoken of by Peter as his son. What better evidence can we have of the studied dishonesty of Irenæus, than his attempt to have it appear or believed that the Mark referred to in the first of Peter, was the companion of Paul and interpreter of Peter? We have just shown he was not—but an entirely different person, and it sweeps away the whole foundation upon which rests the claim that the Gospel of Mark was written at the dictation of Peter. While Mark was with Paul, either in Rome or Asia Minor, Peter, with his son Mark, is preaching among the Jews of Chaldea.

What Presbyter John says on this subject is here worthy of notice. Eusebius, speaking of the writings of Papias, says: "He also inserted into his work other accounts of the above-mentioned Aristion respecting our Lord, as also the traditions of the Presbyter John, to which referring those that are desirous of learning them, we shall now subjoin to the extracts from him already given a tradition which he, sets forth concerning Mark, who wrote the Gospel, in the following words: 'And John the Presbyter also said this: Mark being the interpreter of Peter, whatsoever he recorded he wrote with great accuracy, but not in the order in which it was spoken or done by our Lord, for he neither heard nor followed our Lord, but, as before said, he was in company with Peter, who gave him such instruction as was necessary, but not to give a history of our Lord's discourses.'" (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii. chap. 39.) Papias here gives a tradition derived through Presbyter John. Slender proof that Peter dictated the Gospel of Mark! To rank among canonical Gospels, and as a corner-stone of Christianity, with the authority of an inspired book, the proof falls far below what we have a right to expect and demand. On such a subject it is no proof at all. It is difficult to tell what Mark did write, according to Papias. What he did write was not in the order in which the events in the life of Christ occurred—nor in the order in which he spoke or taught. Peter would not allow him to give the history of our Lord's discourses. If that is so, then the Gospel to which Papias refers is not our present Gospel of Mark. This relates the acts of Christ in the order of time, and gives his discourses in full. In this respect the second Gospel does not differ from the first and third. It is quite probable that Mark, in his intercourse with the Apostles, may have learned many things in relation to Christ which he wrote out, but which, like the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, was condemned or cast one side, as it did not help to strengthen the new ideas in relation to Christ, which sprang up some time before the death of Paul. But we can never know what Mark wrote, as Papias does not claim he ever saw it, nor do we know of any one who did.

What is said by Clement of Alexandria and all other writers on the origin of the second Gospel is derived from the extract taken from the works of Papias, and from what is said by Irenaeus: their statements do not better the case, any more than a superstructure will give strength to the base on which it rests. If Mark ever wrote anything, it would contain nothing that did not accord with Paul, for he was not only his fellow-traveller, but he was his fellow-laborer in the spread of the doctrines of Christianity; and so near and dear were the relations between them, that when Paul saw his end approach, he wrote to Timothy to bring Mark with him, as brother would for brother, for a parting inter view. What Paul taught, Mark believed—and Paul dead or Paul in life would have made no difference with Mark.

After reading the Gospel of Mark, who would suppose that he had been the companion of Paul and the interpreter of Peter? We would expect to find some thought or expression that had in it the soul of Paul, as his very spirit penetrated all his followers and made them a reflex of himself. Paul drew from the depths of his own consciousness, which he took for revelations, the ideas which formed the basis of his religion and made Christ what he believed him to be. It was a holy faith with him, disconnected from all material laws. The second Gospel is founded on works, and the divinity of Christ proven by his power over the laws of the universe. All nature bows down before him; even demons and evil spirits fly before his presence. Mark the interpreter of Peter!! Where do we see Peter in the Gospel of Mark? What, all at once, has become of circumcision? Did he, after his quarrel with Paul, shake off his Jewish prejudice and bigotry and rise to a higher plane? The proof is he did not.

Paul, Luke, and Mark were as companions inseparable—they were fellow-laborers, held the same doctrines, died for the same cause and at the same time.

In another chapter we inquired from what source Luke got his knowledge of the wonderful statement he makes in relation to the visitation of the angel to Mary and Zacharias, for he did not get it from Paul, who never mentions the name of Mary. We now ask, from whom did Mark learn the story of John the Baptist? Paul knew nothing about him. Who had a better opportunity than he to know everything which related to him, if he had been the person described by Mark? What better proof can be offered to show that neither Luke nor Mark wrote the Gospels ascribed to them, than that they are made to state matters which lay at the bottom of Christianity in after-ages, of which Paul, their teacher and co-laborer, knew nothing? To find the authors of these Gospels we must look to the second century.

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CHAPTER X.

Acts of the Apostles.—Schemes to exalt Peter at the expense
of Paul.

The Acts of the Apostles dates between A. D. 140 or 150 and A. D. 170. The book, as we now find it, was not in existence before Justin's Apology, because before his time there were no miracles, as will be shown; while the Acts abounds in those of the most extravagant character. Between A. D. 140 or 150, and A. D. 180, is the time when the war among the different sects raged with the greatest violence, and frauds and forgeries were practised by all parties without remorse or shame. It was during this time that Lazarus was made to rise superior to death, and assume his place among men, after his body had become putrid and began to decay. There was nothing too false or extravagant for parties to assert at this period of the world, and the only wonder is, that the absurd stories of the age have passed down to subsequent generations as truths of a revealed religion.

The book of the Acts, in its present form, came to light soon after the doctrine of the Apostolic succession was conceived, for it is very evident that the first half is devoted to give prominence to Peter among the Apostles, who was to be made the corner-stone of the Church. As all other churches are made to bow to the supremacy of Rome, so all the Apostles must be subordinate to Peter. This is so obvious that the work is overdone. On the day of Pentecost he is put forward to explain the miracle of the cloven tongue, and show that it was in accordance with what the prophet Joel had foretold—which if Peter did say what he is made to say, only proved his ignorance of what the prophet meant. His miraculous powers are wonderful. He cured a man forty years old, who had been lame from his birth, so that he leaped and walked. His power extends over death, and he raises Dorcas from the grave. He is now chief speaker. Ananias and his wife Sapphira fall down dead before him. So extraordinary is his power over diseases, "that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them." (Acts v. 15.)

It is surprising that the incredulity of the Jews did not give way before such wonderful works; but it seems it did not, and the only effect produced on their minds was to send Peter to prison. Peter is twice committed to prison for doing good, and the sole object in sending him there is to give an opportunity to the Lord to deliver him, and show that he is under the special protection and guardianship of God. "And behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison; and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals: and so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me." (Acts xii. 7, 8.) "And when Peter was come to himself, he said, Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews" (verse 11).

The person over whom the Lord had manifested so much care, must certainly have been set apart to act some great part in his providences towards our race. At the time we are writing about, the struggle between the followers of Peter and Paul was raging; the latter claiming that the Apostle of the Gentiles was of equal authority as to doctrine with Peter or any of the Apostles; while the former insisted that Paul had a special commission—to convert the Gentiles—and as he had performed his work, his mission ceased, and he was no longer to be regarded as an authority in the church. No less a person than God himself can settle the dispute, and the cunningly devised stories of Cornelius, and Paul's conversion, are introduced into the Acts in order to give the Lord an opportunity to decide between the two parties.

Cornelius, a devout man, is laboring under what is called religious conviction, and is in doubt what to do. He stands in need of a spiritual adviser, and when in this condition of mind, "He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day, an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. And when he looked on him he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thy alms are come up for a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter." (Acts x. 3, 4, 5.) The centurion was sent to Peter, because he was the depositary of divine light, and the dispenser of spiritual gifts—an intimation from God to all the world, for all ages, where men must look to, to find the true interpreter and expounder of religious faith. Cornelius did as he was commanded.

But it was not enough that this was true of Peter; but it must be shown that Paul was but a simple missionary, whose powers ended with his death. To do this, the story of his conversion in the Acts is told, notwithstanding it is in direct conflict with what Paul says himself on the subject. When Ananias was requested by the Lord to call on Paul while he was still prostrate from the effects of the blow he received near Damascus, he declined to do so—apparently in fear of Paul, on account of his previous treatment of Christians. This gave the Lord an opportunity to tell Ananias, why he is anxious to do as he was requested. "But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake." (Acts ix. 15, 16.)

The Lord has now settled all disputes between the followers of Peter and Paul, and the office of each is settled and defined. Under such a judgment, pronounced by God himself, no wonder the influence of Paul ceased to be felt in the latter part of the second century, and Peter proportionally increased in weight and authority. This attempt to put up Peter and put down Paul, determines the date of the Acts, and fixes it somewhere between A.D. 150 and A.D. 170, a period in the century prolific of spurious writings. It may be called the Petrine age of Christianity.

When Paul made his defence before the Jews at Jerusalem, and explained to them the mode of his conversion, it would be dangerous, or at least suspicious, to leave out the story of Cornelius; but as it differed so much from the one he gives in second Corinthians, it was necessary to omit the one given in the epistle entirely. But the fraud is easily detected. The account as given in the Acts, to the sixth verse inclusive, is as it was doubtless delivered by Paul; but from this point the story diverges from the one given by himself, and is a sheer fabrication. "And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great. light round about me." (Acts xxii. 6.) Then according to Paul's account, given in his letter to the Corinthians, he was caught up to the third heaven, and there heard unspeakable words which it was not lawful for man to utter. What transpired between God and Paul, all took place in heaven, where no man could bear witness. The account in the Acts, which commences in the seventh verse, says that after the light shone from heaven, Paul fell to the ground, and did not ascend to heaven, but was led by the same light to Damascus. This version is to let in the story of Ananias. He could not bear witness to what passed between the Lord and Paul in the third heaven, but he might if the scene was laid on the earth. Besides, what passed between the Lord and Paul the latter does not pretend to state, for the words he heard were unspeakable and not lawful for man to utter. There is nothing in the story in the Acts that is unspeakable or unlawful to be repeated, unless it is to be regarded as a piece of blasphemy.

Had Paul told the story as given in the Acts in his defence, there was nothing in it to arouse the Jews to such a pitch of madness as to cause them to insist that he should be put to death. There was more in it to provoke a sneer than to excite anger. The scene in Jerusalem, when Paul was compelled to make his defence, was in A.D. 58, and he could have appealed to Ananias, who in the course of nature might still be living, and others, if the story was true. It was not the story in the Acts that incensed the Jews. When Paul claimed he was taken up to heaven, and there met the Lord and talked to him face to face, he had reached, in the minds of his hearers, a point in blasphemy that drove them to frenzy, so that they exclaimed: "Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live." The Jews listened to Stephen with patience until he exclaimed, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God," when they could stand it no longer, and ran upon him with one accord and stoned him to death. It is clear that Paul's defence, made before the Jews, of his conversion, is omitted, and the story of Ananias substituted, to aid the enemies of Paul in placing Peter over him.

When we find the same story variously stated by Paul, and in the Acts, there should be no hesitation in choosing between the two. The Acts, like the works of the early fathers, bears so many marks of forgeries, to suit the emergencies and wants of the day, that very little contained in either is of any historic value. The epistles of Paul had obtained a large circulation before the time when the men of the second century inaugurated an era of forgeries, and long before the Acts were in existence; so that the forgers were compelled to exercise great caution when they came to deal with the epistles, and only ventured to insert passages into the genuine writings to give the sanction of his name to the doctrines of the Alexandrian or Johannean school, or some dogma of the day. Such passages are scattered all through the epistles, but we can easily point them out, for they are doctrinal and exceedingly pointed.

Peter disappears at the end of the twelfth chapter; but enough has been done to make him chief among the Apostles, and claim for him a spiritual supremacy in all matters which relate to the church. John, afterwards the great light of Asia, only plays the part of an esquire to Peter, his lord and superior. They are often together, but John is not suffered to speak. It was designed that John, who was to take Asia in charge, should stand next to Peter; but the writer, by imposing silence on him on all occasions, took care that the supremacy of Peter was not put in jeopardy. The preaching of Philip in Samaria was a device to show that Peter and John were superior to the rest of the Apostles in their power to confer the Holy Ghost. Philip made many converts, both men and women, and he baptized them—but his baptism was not sufficient. "Now when the Apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John. They laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost."—Acts viii. 14, 17.

According to Paul, and this is made clear by the quarrels between him and Peter, as related in the epistles, the latter was tenacious to the last for the Jewish rite of circumcision, and we have no evidence, and no reason to believe, that he ever gave it up. A sectarian Jew would never answer to be the head and founder of a Catholic church. The sectarian character of Peter must be got rid of, and we see studied efforts in the Acts to do so. We have seen that Peter, in the first words he addressed to Cornelius, took the opportunity to declare that he believed in the doctrine that God was no respecter of persons. But this was not enough, in the opinion of the writer of the Acts, or at least the first half, and to make Peter's emancipation from his old Jewish opinions more conspicuous, and enable him to explain how it happened that the change was brought about, the vision of Peter on the house-top is produced. He went up upon the house-top to pray, about the sixth hour, and became very hungry; but while they were preparing something for him to eat, he had a trance, "And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven."

The command of the Lord to Peter to eat, was a command to give up his Jewish views and notions; for that all flesh was alike, and equally proper to be taken on an empty stomach. Peter was at a loss to understand the vision, and while he was revolving the subject in his mind, Cornelius and his party came to be instructed by him, in accordance with the directions of the Lord. When Cornelius, who was of the Gentiles, made at known the object of his visit, Peter at once understood the import of the vision, and exclaimed, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons," and that the gospel of Christ is to supply the spiritual wants of all nations, as the beasts and fowls are to furnish food for the hungry.

The conversion of Peter receives further importance and prominence from the defence he is compelled to make before the brethren, for his disregard of the rite of circumcision in the baptism of Cornelius. Peter makes a speech, in which he declares that he was commanded by God, not less than three times, to give up his old Jewish notions; and no sooner was the command given than Cornelius, a Gentile, who was sent to him by God, made his appearance. The command from God to Peter, and the arrival of the centurion, who was instructed by the Lord to come to him, left him no choice in the matter, and that he baptized the Gentile, in obedience to the commands of the Lord. The reason was sufficient. "When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." (Acts. xi. 18.) The wall between Jew and Gentile is now broken down, and Peter a fit subject for the head of a universal or catholic church.

It seems that the person who put the speech into the mouth of Peter, renouncing circumcision, was not satisfied with what he said at the time. Something had been omitted or overlooked. Peter had shed his Jewish skin, but the Lord had not given him a commission to preach the gospel to all nations, and this he must have to be the head of a universal church. At the council held at Jerusalem by the Apostles to settle the question of circumcision, Peter, according to the Acts, seizes the opportunity to supply the omission: "And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago, God made choice among us, that the Gentiles, by my mouth, should hear the word of the gospel, and believe." (Acts xv. 7.) Now there was no occasion for Peter to make this claim or assertion, for it had nothing to do with the subject before the council, and was not true. The account which Paul gives of what took place at the council is quite different, contradictory, and no doubt true. He says, when he stated before the council the trouble and vexations which were occasioned by this rite, and reasons why it should not be forced on the Gentiles, that Peter, James, and John agreed with him—gave him the right hand of fellowship, and then entered into a compact that he should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. (Gal. ii.)

This agreement was never departed from; but not so with regard to circumcision. That Peter, James, and all the disciples disregarded the order of the Council in regard to that subject, is rendered clear by their subsequent conduct. After that, as much as two years, for the Council was held in A.D. 49 or A.D. 50, and the epistle to the Galatians was written in A. D. 52, Peter went to Antioch, where he found Paul. He ate with the uncircumcised until some Jewish converts came from Jerusalem at the instance of James, who found fault with his course. Peter, it seems, then changed front and stood up for circumcision. "I withstood him to the face," says Paul, for he was wrong. A discussion springs up. Paul claimed that men were not to be saved through old rites and ceremonies, nor by-works, but by faith. At this time, neither James nor Peter had given up their contracted notions on the Jewish rite. Nor had Peter as late as A. D. 57, twenty-four years after the death of Christ. Of the four parties which disturbed the peace of the church at Corinth at the time of Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, which was written in A. D. 57, the party of Cephas was one. Peter was at the head of a party which held out for circumcision, seven years after the council at Jerusalem; and if he had not given it up then, when he was fifty-seven years old, there is no reason to believe he did after that. Nothing gave the men in the second century who undertook to put Peter at the head of a universal church so much trouble as this thing of circumcision, which we can readily detect by the pains and labors they have taken to free him from it. But the stain will not wash out.

The story told in the Acts about the way in which Peter was disenthralled from his narrow Jewish notions, is wholly inconsistent with the subsequent history of the church at Jerusalem. After the Lord had taken so much pains to prove to the disciples that a new dispensation had commenced, and the wall between the Jews and Gentiles was broken down, there was no reason why they should not all dispense with the practice of circumcision. But they never did. The fifteen first Bishops of Jerusalem, commencing with James and including Judas, were all circumcised Jews. (Eus., Ex. 77., B., iv. ch. v. Sulpicius Severus, vol. 11-31.) With the twelve disciples, jealousy of Paul, who fought this Jewish practice to the last, seemed to be the most active feeling of their natures, and we seldom hear of them unless they were dogging his footsteps, and stirring up the Jews against him. It was through their intrigues that the doors of the synagogue were slammed in his face wherever he went.

The doctrine of ordination, through which that deposit of divine riches which Irenæus says Christ left with the Apostles is made to flow in an uninterrupted current through all time, is conspicuously presented in the Acts. When Paul and Barnabas were at Antioch, and about to start for the West, on a mission to preach to the Gentiles, the Lord said, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away." (Acts xiii. 2, 3.) Nothing could impose so great a humiliation as this upon Paul. The Lord again interferes and assigns him to a special duty, and to make this humiliation complete, he is ordered to receive his commission at the hands of the Apostles. Who laid their hands on Barnabas and Paul, is not stated, nor is it of any importance, as the object of the statement is to make it apparent that the latter, the great light of the Gentiles, submitted to the rite of ordination by the imposition of hands, administered by some one of the Apostles. Will any one believe this story to be true? If he does, he does not understand the character of Paul. There is nothing he would resent with so much feeling, as he would such an admission on his part that he was less than an Apostle. When it was claimed he was not, his soul took fire, and in his address to the Galatians, in the first chapter, he delivers himself in this defiant strain: "Paul, an Apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.) But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before me." (Gal. i. I, 15, 16, 17.) Is this the Paul who patiently submits to receive his commission from an Apostle to preach the doctrines of Christ to the nations of the earth at Antioch, when he is about to commence his labors?

It is not enough that Paul should submit to receive the Holy Ghost at the hands of the Apostle, and in this way be authorized to preach the gospel; but he gives the ordinance his full sanction by conferring ordination on others. "And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts, came to Ephesus; and finding certain disciples, he said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied." (Acts xix. 1, 2, 6.) No stronger proof could be given that the followers of Paul were opposed to the Episcopacy and the doctrine of succession and ordination, and contended against a government by Bishops with zeal to the last, than the labored and frequent efforts that are made to show that he himself gave his sanction to the order.

For Paul's persistence in claiming a human origin for Christ, there was a studied effort in the second century to destroy his claims as an Apostle; but after his epistles had undergone alterations so as to make Christ the Son of God in the sense of the Catholics of the second century, he was restored to favor, and his powers wonderfully magnified. He is now able to work miracles, and his power to heal diseases is such, that whatever comes in contact with his person, is so filled or imbued with holy energy, that its curative properties are sufficient to put death at defiance.

It is clear that the Acts of the Apostles is not the work of one century, but of two. The real itinerary of Paul commences in the thirteenth chapter, and from this to the end of the Acts, we can trace his footsteps in his various journeys among the churches, until he finally enters the gates of Rome, in the spring of A.D. 61.

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CHAPTER XI.

Matthew the author of the only genuine Gospel.—Rejected,
because it did not contain the first two chapters of the
present Greek version.

Matthew, surnamed Levi, was a native of Galilee. Before his conversion to Christianity he was a publican, or tax-gatherer, under the Romans, and collected the customs of all goods exported or imported at Capernaum, a maritime town on the Sea of Galilee, and received tribute paid by passengers who went by water. From the position of Matthew, he must have been a man of some learning and judgment, and from what we know of the early lives of the other Apostles, the only one among them, except perhaps Peter and James, that was capable of writing out a correct account of what was said and done by Christ.

As the first church at Jerusalem increased in number, and new converts were added to it, there was a necessity that there should be some written history given of what was said and taught by Christ before his death; and as Matthew was in every way qualified, the task was imposed on him. Matthew wrote this book about A.D. 40, not much, if any, more than seven years after the death of Christ. Everything was fresh in his memory, and no doubt he was particular to give to the new converts a full and correct knowledge of all the doctrines taught by Christ, and especially to place before them his sermon on the mount, so full of divine morality, which was to form the soul of the new religion.

From all we know with certainty, this Gospel of Matthew was the only account of Christ in use among the members of the first Christian church, and their only means of information, except what they learned direct from the other Apostles. Everything, then, was just as it fell from the lips of Christ, and had the odor of fresh-gathered flowers. How the Christians at Jerusalem clung to this Gospel of Matthew, their sufferings and persecutions through a period of more than two centuries will bear witness. These Christians, afterwards called by way of aversion Ebionites, were charged with the alteration of the Scriptures. This alteration, according to Epiphanius, consisted in the omission of the first two chapters of Matthew, which contain the account of the miraculous conception of Christ. The statements of Epiphanius are verified by the fact, that at the time these two chapters were added, by the men of the second century, we can trace through the pages of Ignatius, and other early fathers, numerous forgeries and interpolations which are unmistakable, and were intended to sustain the new aspect which Christianity took on in the early part of the second century. The addition of the two chapters, and the forgeries, belong to the period when the religion of Paul had passed off into the Philo-Alexandrian period of Christianity. Eusebius informs us what were the crimes of the Ebionites: "They are properly called Ebionites by the ancients, as those who cherished a low and mean opinion of Christ. For they consider him a plain and common man, and justified in his advances in virtue, and that he was born of the Virgin Mary by natural generation." (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii. chap. 27.)

The views held by the Ebionites of Christ were derived from the Gospel of Matthew, and what they learned direct from the Apostles. Matthew had been a hearer of Christ—a companion of the Apostles, and had seen and no doubt conversed with Mary. When he wrote his Gospel everything was fresh in his mind, and there could be no object on his part, in writing the life of Jesus, to state falsehoods or omit important truths in order to deceive his countrymen. If what is stated in the two first chapters in regard to Christ is true, Matthew would have known of them; and, knowing them, why should he omit them in giving an account of his life? It was impossible to pass from the first to the second stage of Christianity, as long as the Gospel of Matthew was recognized as authority in the church. It stood as a mountain in the way, and had to be torn down and made way with. The history of the Ebionites, from the time they are charged with altering the Scriptures, to the time when they disappear from history, is one of tyranny and bloody persecution. In the reign of Adrian, what was left of them settled in the little town of Pilla, beyond the Jordan, from whence they spread themselves into villages adjacent to Damascus. Some traces of them can be discovered as late as the fourth century, when they "insensibly melted away; either into the church or synagogue." (Gibbon, ch. xv. vol. I. p. 255.) With them perished the genuine Gospel of Matthew, the only Gospel written by an Apostle.

Much useless labor has been bestowed on the question, whether the genuine Gospel was written in the Hebrew or Greek language. How this may be is of little consequence, since the genuine writing is no longer in existence. It is just as certain that the present version of Matthew was written in Greek, as that the genuine one was published in the Hebrew tongue. To the church of Rome the world is indebted for the destruction of the only genuine Gospel, and with it the only authentic account of Christ. No greater loss could befall the world. It was written in the dawn of Christianity, before corrupt and ambitious men sought to make religion a way to power and distinction. The truths contained in this Gospel stood in the way of a gigantic scheme, conceived by corrupt and arrogant men, who saw in a church established by the authority of God, the road to the highest point of human power and grandeur. They succeeded, but their success,—

"Brought death into the world and all our woe."

It was not necessary to reject all of Matthew's Gospel, and it is very evident that much was retained—such as the discourses of Christ and some portions of history.

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CHAPTER XII.

The character of Irenaeus and probable time of his birth.—
His partiality for traditions.—The claim of the Gnostics,
that Christ did not suffer, the origin of the fourth
Gospel.—Irenaeus the writer.

The time when Irenaeus was born is variously stated. In the introduction to his works against heresies, translated by Alexander Roberts, D.D., and the Rev. W. H. Rambaut, A. B., is the following passage on this subject: "We possess a very scanty account of the personal history of Irenaeus. It has been generally supposed he was a native of Smyrna, or some neighboring city in Asia Minor. Harvey, however, thinks that he was probably born in Syria, and removed in boyhood to Smyrna. He himself tells us (lib. iii. sec. 3, 4) that he was in early youth acquainted with Polycarp, the illustrious Bishop of that city. A sort of clue is thus furnished as to the date of his birth. Dodwell supposes that he was born as early as A.D. 97, but this is clearly a mistake, and the general date of his birth is somewhere between A.D. 120 and A.D. 140" (page 18).

Among the many strong and representative men who have impressed their genius on the Catholic Church, and given to it its distinctive features, none have equalled Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons. It may in truth be said he was the father of the church. He assisted at its birth; took charge of its infancy; planted within its bosom seeds which sprouted and bore fruit which has been the source of its nourishment and strength for seventeen hundred years and more. It is enough to say of him, that he placed in the heart of the church the seed which bore the fruit of the Inquisition.

From the adoption of Trajan, in A.D. 98 to the death of the Antonines, in 180, a period of eighty-two years, has been selected by the learned author of the "Decline and Fall" as the most happy and prosperous period in the annals of the human race. (Vol. I. page 47.) Had he omitted the last of the Antonines, under whose reign Justin Martyr and other good men were put to death, the learned author would have come nearer the truth of history.

It was the prospect of peace and protection held out under this state of things that influenced the Christians who had survived the cruelties of other reigns to once more return to the imperial city. As soon as they were sufficiently numerous it was natural to adopt some form of government; but what that form was, we have no means of knowing, except by the dangerous light of tradition. It must be always fatal to tradition, where it claims to be important, that contemporaneous history says nothing about it. It is certain that the uninterrupted repose of the church to the time of Antoninus Verrus, A.D. 161, gave rise to disputes among Christians; for when they were relieved from the fears of an outward enemy, they soon found cause for quarrel among themselves. On the introduction of the first three Gospels, which happened during this time, as we shall prove, the character of Christ, or rather his mysterious birth from the Virgin, gave rise to numberless controversies.

Irenaeus was born at the right time to be thrust into the midst of them, and as soon as he was able to comprehend anything, his ears were filled with the disputes of the various contending parties. He was born with a love of contention planted in him, and had the best school ever de-vised to cultivate and strengthen it. The character of his mind was bold and daring, and in support of the cause he espoused, he had no scruples or shame in resorting to falsehood and forgery. If the end was good, in his sight, it was all the same to him, whether it was reached by truth or its opposite. Such, indeed, was the prevailing morality of the age. Towards his adversaries he was bitter and vindictive, applying to them low and vile language, such as thieves and robbers. He claimed to look with contempt upon those who differed from him, and took pleasure in the repeated use of the word heretic. Whether he ever saw Polycarp or not, and it is no proof he did because he says so, he claimed great advantage from it, because, as he declares again and again, Polycarp was the disciple of the Apostle John. He is only one remove from an Apostle, and for what he states he claimed the weight of Apostolic authority.

We say again, it is very doubtful whether he ever saw Polycarp; and it is very certain the latter never saw John. The studied dishonesty of Irenaeus, in attempting to palm off the Presbyter John for the Apostle, is as dark a piece of knavery as is to be found in the history of a church which has encouraged such practices from the time it claimed to be the depository of all the divine wealth left by the Apostles.

Driven to the wall by the sharp logic and superior wisdom of that class of Christians who were distinguished by the name of Gnostics, his devious and ingenious mind undertook to cut them off from all claims as members of a Christian church, by interposing the doctrine of the Apostolic succession. This step once taken involved the necessity of repeated forgeries and frauds. Cowardly Peter is to be changed into a hero,—sent to Rome, where death is certain, and there die a Christian martyr. John, who had not life and force enough in him to rise above the masses, and no more knowledge than is wanted to dip a net into the sea, is to be converted into a fiery spirit, and put forth a book which is to fall like a thunderbolt on the heads of the heretics. If anything arises in the course of the debates, which, to ordinary men, would present difficulties, with Irenæus they were easily disposed of by tradition. He had traditions for all emergencies, and when his adversaries dared dispute him, he stands ready to silence them by abuse. He says: "But, again, when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the Apostles, (and) which is preserved by means of the successions of Presbyters in the churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the Presbyters, but even than the Apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. It comes to this, therefore, that these men do now consent neither to Scripture nor to tradition. Such are the adversaries with whom we have to deal, my very dear friend, endeavoring like slippery serpents to escape at all points." (Irenaeus, Vol. I. book iii. page 260.)

He brings often and repeated charges against his enemies for forgeries, and at the same time makes more himself than all of them put together. In the disputes about the twofold nature of Christ as he appears in the Synoptics, and as will be fully explained hereafter, the Gnostics had the advantage in the argument. If Christ the God descended upon the man Christ at the baptism in the Jordan, it left him at the crucifixion. Then, say the Gnostics, there is no atonement, for the Son of God did not shed his blood. No other man, in that or any other age, could meet the crisis but Irenaeus; and the result is the fourth Gospel.

The time when this Gospel first appeared as a historical fact, has been so thoroughly sifted by late writers on that subject, that it will only be necessary here to notice some of the prominent reasons why its date is fixed after the middle of the second century. All allusions, or pretended allusions, found in the writings of the fathers, on inspection will be found to be the work of those who have attempted to poison the fountains of history. Papias lived near the age of John, and if John had written he must have known and spoken about it, as he speaks of Matthew and Mark; but he says nothing about John or Luke. He was Bishop of Heliopolis A. D. 165, and informs us that it was his habit to inquire of those who were the followers of the elders, what was said by them: what was said by Andrew and Peter or Philip; what by Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any other of the disciples of the Lord. (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii. chap. 39.)

The Apology of Justin to the emperor was written some time between the years A. D. 130 and A. D. 160. The precise time is not known, and there is some uncertainty about it. In his Apology, Justin makes thirty-five distinct allusions to Matthew, eighteen to Luke, and five to Mark, and if he says anything which points to John at all, on examination it will appear that the allusions are found elsewhere, in writings anterior to Justin. "For Christ said, 'Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.'" This, it is claimed, is taken from the fourth Gospel, which must have been in existence when Justin wrote. The language in the Gospel is, "Jesus answered and said unto them, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John iii. 3.) This language, imputed to Christ, was drawn from a common source—from the Gospel according to the Hebrews, as has been fully proven, and so in every other instance where the writer seems to allude to the Gospel of John.

The new ideas concerning Christ found in this Gospel had not yet dawned upon the world when Justin wrote, for on that subject he had not got beyond what was contained in the Synoptics; or, to speak with greater accuracy, his Logos idea was that of Philo, which differed from that of John.

An examination of this subject by the most learned and careful writers, proves that there is no reliable evidence that the fourth Gospel was in existence before A. D. 175, when a direct reference is made to it in the Clementine homilies, a production written in praise of Peter against Marcion. The language quoted is unmistakably the language of John. Tatian, who wrote between A. D. 160 and A. D. 185, quotes from the fourth Gospel: "And this is what was said, Darkness does not comprehend the light; the Logos is the light of God." In the nineteenth chapter we read: "All things were made by him, and without him not a thing was made." These were quotations from John without his being named as the author; but Theophilus of Antioch, who wrote about A. D. 176, especially ascribes the Gospel to him. "In the second book of this treatise addressed to Antolycus, he says: 'Whence the holy Scriptures teach us, and all who carried in them a holy spirit, of whom John says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.'" It may be claimed as an historic fact, that the fourth Gospel was extant in A. D. 175, and that all efforts to give it an early date spring from uncertain data: obscure allusions and doubtful inferences altogether too vague and unreliable to satisfy the mind in pursuit of truth.

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CHAPTER XIII.

Why Irenaeus wrote the fourth Gospel in the name of John.—
He shows that the Gospels could not be less than four, and
proves the doctrine of the incarnation by the Old Testament
and the Synoptics.—The author of the epistles attributed to
St. John.

The zeal of Irenaeus against his adversaries had carried him so far in support of the doctrine of the incarnation that he ventured upon a new Gospel, under the name and authority of an Apostle. Without the authority of some one of the Apostles to sustain him, of what consequence would the opinion of one man be, on a question which involved the substance and essence of Christianity? Nothing would be easier than to publish a fourth Gospel in the name of-some one among the disciples. They were all dead a hundred years or more, and the time and place of their death no one knew.

But why did Irenaeus select the name of John? It was his policy to select from among the twelve the one who had been the least conspicuous during his life, so that what was said or done by him in Judea at one time should not conflict with something else claimed to have been done at the same time somewhere else. The one that said and did nothing in his own country might be claimed to have said and done a great deal in another. If the proof adduced to prove that John, the son of Zebedee, was not the John of Ephesus, and that Irenaeus was engaged in making a false substitute, we have gone a great way to show that he himself was the author of the fourth Gospel. To be sure, John's presence in Asia was required for the Apostolic succession; but the man who brought him there for that purpose would be most likely to use his name in all other cases when it might prove useful.

The book against Heresies was written between A. D. 182 and A. D. 188, so that about eight years elapsed between the appearance of the Gospel and the one against the heretics. In the mean time, no doubt the Gospel had been attacked from more quarters than one, so that it became necessary that the writer should come to its defence. The book against Heresies is nothing more than a supplement to the Gospel, and the writer had in view its defence as much, if not more, than he had the heresies of the Gnostics.

No better evidence could be given of the violence with which the fourth Gospel was attacked, when it first appeared, than the character of the defence made to sustain it. That it was something new in the time of Irenaeus is evident from the fact that he is called upon and employed his genius to defend it. He is not called upon to defend either of the other Gospels, because whatever doubts there may have been as to them, the time for discussion had long passed away. But the fourth Gospel was something new; it had not gone through that fermentation in the minds of men which always follows the introduction of some new idea or principle, but was undergoing that process at the time Irenaeus wrote in its defence. If this Gospel had been written by John, it would have been, at the time Irenaeus wrote, nearly one hundred years old, and its claims settled years before he was born. The very arguments he brings to its support are proofs that it is a fraud. He proves that it is genuine because it is a necessity—just as pillars are necessary to the support of a portico. In his mode of argument he proves that a falsehood may be exposed by the poverty and weakness of the arguments which are relied upon for its support.

Irenaeus proves not only that the appearance of the fourth Gospel was something new, but that the doctrines it contained were unheard of before. He says: "It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are; for since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the church is scattered throughout all the world, and the pillar and ground of the church is the Gospel and the Spirit of life, it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh." (Book III. chap. 2, sec. 8.) On this subject, after drawing many illustrations from the Gospels in proof of his position, he concludes as follows: "These things being so, all who destroy the form of the Gospel are vain, unlearned, and also audacious: those (I mean) who represent the aspects of the Gospel as being more in number than as aforesaid, or, on the other hand, fewer." (Book III. chap. 2, sec. 9.)

The fourth Gospel was written with no other purpose than to prove the incarnation, and that purpose is so persistently kept up in every line and verse, from the beginning to the end, that if we strike out this, and the miracles which are mere supports of the main idea, there is nothing left. And so with the third book against Heresies—it has but one theme. The writer sets out with the Logos idea of this Gospel, which is never lost sight of. He finds proof in the traditions of the church—in every page of the Old Testament—in the Synoptics, as well as in the fourth Gospel; and as we read his misapplication of words and sentences, we would conclude that he was a lunatic if we did not know he was something else. He has no quarrel with the first three Gospels, because he can see nothing in them that does not furnish proof of what is taught in the fourth; and in the language which makes most against his dogmas, he sees the clearest proof of their truth.

As an example of his mode of interpretation, and turning the plain sense of words from their proper meaning to proofs that Christ was God in the flesh, we will give his explanation of the prophecy of Isaiah, which relates to his birth from a virgin: "Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son; and ye shall call his name Emmanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat: before he knows or chooses out things that are evil, He shall exchange them for what is good; for before the child knows good or evil, He shall not consent to evil, that he may choose that which is good." Here follow the comments: "Carefully, then, has the holy Ghost pointed out, by what has been said—His birth from a virgin and His essence, for he is God (for the name of Emmanuel indicates this). And he shows that he is a man when he says, 'Butter and honey shall he eat;' and in that he terms him a child also, in saying, 'before he knows good from evil;' for these are all tokens of a human infant. But that he 'will not consent to evil that he may choose what is good,' this is proper to God; that by the fact, that He shall eat butter and honey, we would understand that He is a mere man only—nor on the other hand from the name Emmanuel, should suspect him to be Christ without flesh." (Book ill. ch. 21, sec. 4.) That is, Christ is in the flesh, because he is to eat butter and honey; and he is God, because he knows how to distinguish between good and evil; and as a consequence, the divine and human nature are united in his person, and he is the incarnate God. We have shown in another part of this work that the prophecy of Isaiah had nothing to do with a future Christ, but was meant as a measure of time, governed by the period of gestation.

Again: "'The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies Thy footstool.' Here (the Scripture) represents to us the Father addressing the Son; He who gave Him the inheritance of the heathen, and subjected to Him all his enemies. Since, therefore, the Father is truly Lord, and the Son truly Lord, the Holy Spirit has fitly designated them by the title of Lord. And again, referring to the destruction of the Sodomites, the Scripture says, 'Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven.' For it here points out that the Son, who had also been talking with Abraham, had received power to judge the Sodomites for their wickedness. And this (text following) does declare the same truth: 'Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever; the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee.' For the Spirit designates both [of them] by the name of God—both Him who is anointed as Son, and Him who does anoint, that is, the Father. And again: 'God stood in the congregation of the gods, He judges among the gods.' He (here) refers to the Father and the Son, and those who have received the adoption; but these are the church. For she is the synagogue of God, which God—that is, the Son Himself—has gathered by Himself. Of whom He again speaks: 'The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken, and hath called the earth.' Who is meant by God? He of whom He has said, 'God shall come openly, our God, and shall not keep silence;' that is, the Son, who came manifested to men, who said, 'I have openly appeared to those who seek me not.'" (Book ill. chap. 6, sec. 1.)

"And again, when the Son speaks to Moses, He says, 'I am come down to deliver this people.' For it is He who descended and ascended for the salvatipn of men. Therefore God has been declared through the Son, who is in the Father, and has the Father in Himself—He who is, the Father bearing witness to the Son, and the Son announcing the Father." (Book III. chap. 6, sec. 2.)

He quotes many passages from the Gospel of Matthew to prove his doctrine. "But Matthew says, that the Magi, coming from the East, exclaimed, 'For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship Him;' and that, having been led by the star into the house of Jacob to Emmanuel, they showed, by those gifts which they offered, who it was that was worshipped: myrrh, because it was He who should die and be buried for the mortal human race; gold, because He was a king, 'of whose kingdom is no end;' and frankincense, because He was God, who also 'was made known in Judea,' and was 'declared to those who sought Him not.'" (Book III. chap. 9, sec. 2.) "And then, (speaking of His) baptism, Matthew says: 'The heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of God, as a dove, coming upon Him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' For Christ did not at that descend upon Jesus, neither was Christ one and Jesus another: but the Word of God—who is the Saviour of all, and the ruler of heaven and earth, who is Jesus, as I have already pointed out, who did also take upon Him flesh, and was anointed by the Spirit from the Father—was made Jesus Christ." (Book III. chap. 9, sec. 3.)

The following is proof derived from Luke. "As Zacharias, also, recovering from the state of dumbness which he had suffered on account of unbelief, having been filled with a new spirit, did bless God in a new manner. For all things had entered upon a new phase, the Word arranging after a new manner the advent in the flesh, that He might win back to God that human nature (hominem) which had departed from God." (Book III. chap. 10, sec. 2.)

Many citations of a like nature are taken from Luke and Mark to prove the Logos doctrine of John's Gospel. Irenaeus even brings John upon the stand to prove the doctrine of an incarnate Christ! which John himself was the first to communicate. "John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that 'knowledge' falsely so called, that he might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father of the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another."... "The disciple of the Lord, therefore, desiring to put an end to all such doctrines, and to establish the rule of truth in the church, that there is one Almighty God, who made all things by His Word, both visible and invisible; showing at the same time, that by the Word, through whom God made the creation, He also bestowed salvation on the men included in the creation: thus commenced His teaching in the Gospel: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'" (Bopkm. chap. 11, sec. 1.)

He makes many references to John, and sums up his complaints against the Gnostics in the following words: "But according to the opinion of no one of the heretics was the Word of God made flesh. For if any one carefully examines the systems of them all, he will find that the Word of God is brought in by all of them as not having become incarnate (sine carne) and impassible, as is also the Christ from above." (Book III. chap, in, sec. 3.) The writer cites many passages from the epistle of Peter, all confirming the Logos doctrines of John.

The following is the heading of chap. xxii. book III.: "Christ assumed actual flesh, conceived and born of the Virgin." In this chapter the doctrine of the incarnation is elaborately argued, and proof supplied from many quarters; but as there is a great sameness in the argument throughout, it would only tire the reader to pursue the subject any further.

The third book against Heresies contains twenty-five chapters, which are extended through one hundred and seventeen pages, and throughout there is but one idea presented, and the proof offered in its support; and from the first to the last, there is a studied effort to turn the plain import of biblical passages from their true meaning into the support of the doctrines in the fourth Gospel. Thus this father of the church, in about seven years after this Gospel appeared, came to its defence, and for that purpose wrote a book, which must have cost him much time and study, for in its way it is a work of great research, and required an intimate acquaintance with the Old and New Testaments, and the writings of the Gnostics, which were numerous in his day. From the zeal which is shown throughout, it is evident that the writer had some personal interest in the subject, and that he was defending his own doctrines, and not those of St. John or any one else.

We do not detect in the work against Heresies the lofty and sublime tone of the Gospel, and, from the nature of the subject, it could not be expected. He is engaged in an attempt to impose on the world, and as what he declares to be the work of an Apostle has no foundation in truth, nor the doctrines it teaches, he struggles like a man in a morass, who is compelled to seize upon anything to keep him from sinking. No doubt he was pressed hard by his adversaries, and he seems in his defence of the fourth Gospel like a gored bull with a pack at his front and heels. We can detect the keen lance of his adversary, piercing him to the quick, in the repeated cry of Antichrist, which is the favorite weapon when hard pressed by his enemies.

As he fights all his battles in the name of St. John, hear him exclaim, in the first and second epistles, which he falsely ascribes to the Apostle: "Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son." (1 John ii. 18, 22.) "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that' Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God. And this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world." (1 John iv. 2, 3.) "For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver, and an Antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." (2 John 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.)

The spirit that dictated the foregoing denunciations of those who disbelieved the dogma of Christ incarnate, also gave birth to what follows: "But again, those who assert that he was simply a mere man, begotten by Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of death; having been not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving liberty through the Son, as He does himself declare: 'If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.' But, being ignorant of Him who from the Virgin is Emmanuel, they are deprived of His gift, which is eternal life; and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life. To whom the Word says, mentioning His own gift of grace: 'I said, ye are all the sons of the Highest, and gods; but ye shall die like men.' He speaks undoubtedly these words to those who have not received the gift of adoption, but who despise the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, defraud human nature of promotion into God, and prove themselves ungrateful to the Word of God, who became flesh for them." (Book iii. chap. 19, sec. I.)

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CHAPTER XIV.

Four distinct eras in Christianity from Paul to the Council
of Nice.—The epistles of Paul and the works of the fathers
changed to suit each era.—The dishonesty of the times.

From the time Paul commenced his labors, to the latter part of the second century, we can trace three eras or periods in the state and character of Christianity, as marked and distinct as the various strata of the earth which indicate the different ages of their formation. First, the Pauline; second, the Philo-Alexandrian, which includes the time of the first three Gospels; third, the Incarnation, which includes the fourth Gospel. As we approach the end of the third century, we may include a fourth period—that of the Trinity.

We have stated elsewhere, that the distinguishing feature between the Logos of Philo and the Christ of Paul was, that the former was coexistent in point of time with the Creator or Father, while in case of the latter, there was a time he did not exist. There was still another difference: the Logos was begotten in heaven, but Christ was born on the earth, of earthly parents. Through the influence of the Alexandrian Jews, who had been converted to Christianity by the preaching of Paul, the Christ of Paul was made to give way, in time, to the Logos of Philo. This change can be traced in the forgeries which are found interlarded through the epistles of Paul, and the writings of the early fathers. We trace the gradual and stealthy departure from the first to the second stages of Christianity in the use of terms in Paul's epistles which were employed among the Gnostics and others in the early part of the second century. The epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians have been pronounced by able critics to be spurious, because of some verse which have an Alexandrian look; when it is easy to discover that these verses are mere insertions into the original text. The term pleroma, or fulness, was a favorite phrase among the Gnostics, and now we find it scattered here and there through the epistles: "For it pleased the Father, that in him should all fulness dwell." (Col. i. 19.) "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." (Col. ii. 9.) "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head of all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." (Eph. i. 22, 23.) "And to know the love of Christ, which passeth all knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." (Eph. iii. 19.) The preexistence of Christ, and his rank as God, is now openly avowed. "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist." (Col. i. 16, 17.) Here the Christ of Paul disappears, like the great Apostle himself. The works of the fathers are now mutilated by the same ruthless hand, to maintain the new phase which Christianity is forced to assume. "Ignatius, who is called Theophorus to the church which is at Ephesus in Asia, deservedly happy, being blessed through the greatness and fulness of God the Father, and predestinated before the world began, that it should be always unto an enduring and unchangeable glory; being united and chosen, through actual suffering, according to the will of the Father and Jesus Christ our God, all happiness by Jesus Christ and his undefiled grace." (Epistle to Eptsiceris, sec. 1. 17.) The balance of this section, which will be cited in a subsequent page, was added in the third or fourth century, when Christianity put on its fourth phase. "For this cause they were persecuted also, being inspired by his grace, fully to convince the unbelievers that there is one God, who hath manifested himself by Jesus Christ his Son, who is his eternal Word, not coming forth from silence, who in all things was well pleased in him that sent him." * (Sec. 8.)

* The word silence is a word which grew in use among the
Gnostics long after the time of Ignatius, and affords
unmistakable proof of the fraudulent interpolation.
Valentinianus, a Gnostic of the second century, held that
there is a certain Dyad (twofold being), who is
inexpressible by name, of whom one part should be called
Anhetus, unspeakable, and the other Silence. The word, in
the connection in which it is found in the passage from
Ignatius, speaking about what related to a later age, has
been the occasion of much discussion: some contending that
it has reference to the Silence of Valentinianus, which
proves the passage spurious; others, that it relates to the
erroneous opinions of heretics anterior to Valentinianus.
What heretics! (See Chevalier's Apostolical Gospels, note
6.)

Such passages as we have cited, and others of a like nature which might be cited, have led critics to the conclusion that the writings which contain them are forgeries; but if examined in connection with the texts, it will be found that they are interpolations, forced into the places they fill. As the writings of Paul now stand, they present Christ in two distinct characters or aspects: his own as the Son of Man, from which he never wavered; and the other that of Philo. All through his epistles we find passages which inculcate doctrines with which he combated during his whole life. All that is essential to, or that is embraced in, the writings of Philo, as to the nature of the Logos, may be found in the epistles of Paul. We will give a few examples which we gather from the work of Jacob Bryant, and found among the notes of Adam Clarke in his Commentaries on St. John.

Philo. "First begotten of God."

COLOSSIANS i. 15. "Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature."

HEBREWS i. 6. And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, "And let all the angels of God worship him."

PHILO. "By whom the world was created." Hebrews i. 2. "Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds."

1 Corinthians viii. 6. "But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him."

Philo. "The most ancient of God's works, and before all things."

The Christ of Paul; Or, The Enigmas of Christianity

THE CHRIST OF PAUL;

OR, THE ENIGMAS OF CHRISTIANITY

ST. JOHN NEVER IN ASIA MINOR. IRENÆUS THE AUTHOR OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. THE FRAUDS OF THE CHURCHMEN OF THE SECOND CENTURY EXPOSED.

By George Reber

1876.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.