Section 880

10. Teslimomjto the Scriptures.— The influence which Irena'us exerted at this time, and in other controversies that preceded, adds additional interest to the writings of this Church father, and makes especially valuable any testimony that he may have left us on the authenticity of the sacred writings. A leading representative of the Asiatic Joliannean school of the second half of the 2d centurj', born ere the apostle John had departed this life, and consequently called by Eusebius " a disciple of the apostles," and by Jerome " the disciple of John the apostle," he bears us such direct testimony in behalf of the Gospels, or, as Eusebius terms them, the " Homolo- goumena," that it becomes to us of the very highest im- portance among the external proofs of their genuine- ness, more especially at the present moment, in face of the denials of this truth by Rationalists, and by those " who take up themes which lie outside of their chosen studies, or with which they are not profoundly convers- ant," among them figuring no less a personage than the distinguished English historian Froude {Short Esscn/s on Great Subjects). Now what does Irenseus say of the Gospels ? " We have not received," he says, " the knowledge of the way of our salvation by any others than those by whom the Gospel has been brought to us ; which Gospel they first preached, and afterwards by the will of God committed to writing, that it might be for time to come the foundation and pillar of the faith." Here follows a declaration that the first Gospel was written among the Jews by JIatthew ; the second by Mark, a companion of Peter ; the third by Luke, a com- panion of Paul ; and the fourth by John, of whom he says, "Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast, he likewise published a gos- pel while he dwelt in Ephesus, in Asia." " Let us as- sume now that Irenaeus — between whom and the apos- tles there is only one intervening link — was an honest man and an intelligent man ; in skort, that he is a com- petent witness. At the time when he knew Polycarp, were the four Gospels extant and acknowledged author- ities in the Church? ^Ve will here confine the question to the Gospel of John (([. v.), which is now so much a topic of controversy. Was or was not this gospel re- ceived as the production of him whose name it bears by Polycarp and his contemporaries at the time to which Ircniuus, in his graphic reminiscence, refers? If it was thus received — received in the neighborhood of Ephe- sus, in the very region where John had lived to so ad- vanced an age, and where his followers and acquain- tances survived — it will be vcr}' difficult to disprove its genuineness. But if it was not thus received, when, we ask, can it be supiMjscd to have first seen the light? Who contrived a book of which Polycarp had known nothing, and palmed it off on him and on the whole cir- cle of Johannean disciples and churches in Asia? How is it that Ircnneus knows nothing of the late discovery or promulgation of so valuable a book? Why does he not mention the momentous fact— if, indeed, it be a fact — that after his interviews with Polycarp there was found somewhere, or put forth by somebody, this price- less treasure? It is ol)viou3 that Irenaius would have had sometliing to say of the extraordinary concealment and final appearance of this Gospel history had he re- membered a time or known of a time since John's death when this Gospel had not been a familiar and prized possession of the Church. This testimony of Iren.Tus is a tough piece of evidence. Here we have specific declarations as to what he had himself seen and heard. Yet the attempt is made to disparage the value of this testimony on the ground of the following passage, which stands in connection with his statements al)out the com- position of the several gospels : • Nor can tliere be more