[7] The apologists of the second century will be found in a collected shape in Otto's _Corpus Apologetarum_, in nine vols. (Jena, 1842-72). Most of those mentioned above will be found in an English shape in Clarke's Ante-Nicene Library. See also Harnack in _Texte und Untersuchungen_, bd. i., hft. i. (Leipzig, 1882).
[8] St. Jerome, in _Ep._ 70, addressed to Magnus, a Roman rhetorician, expressly says that Justin Martyr imitated Aristides. The _Cohortatio ad Græcos_ attributed to him is much liker the treatise of Aristides than Justin's admitted first and second apologies.
[9] Overbeck, Zeller, and Schwegler fix the composition of the Acts between 110 and 130, the very date of the _Apology_ of Aristides. See Zeller's _Acts of the Apostles_, p. 71 (London: Williams & Norgate, 1875).
We have a number of treatises directed against the Jews by Christian writers of the second century: the _Dialogue_ of Justin Martyr with Trypho the Jew, of Jason and Papiscus, and the treatise of Tertullian directed _Ad Judæos_. When compared with one another we find that the staple arguments of these writings are much the same.[10] They were evidently framed upon the model of St. Stephen's address at Jerusalem, of St. Paul at Antioch in Pisidia, and of the Epistle to the Galatians. They deal with the transitory and temporary character of the Jewish law, they enter very largely into the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, and they notice Jewish objections. The second century works are, however, elaborate treatises, dealing with a great controversy in a manner which experience had showed to be far the most effective and telling. The Jewish controversy in the Acts, whether in the mouth of St. Peter, St. Stephen, or St. Paul, is treated in a much simpler way. The speakers think, speak, write, like men who are making their first essays in controversy, and have no experience of others to guide them. Had the Acts been written in the second century, the writer must have composed the addresses to the Jews as well as those to the Gentiles after the model of the age when he was writing. The more carefully, however, we examine and contrast these two controversies, as conducted in the Acts and in the writings of the second century respectively, the more thoroughly shall we be convinced of the apostolic date of St. Luke's narrative, of its genuine character, and of its historic worth.
[10] For an account of the Jewish controversy in the second century see Gebhardt and Harnack's _Texte_, bd. i., hft. 3 (Leipzig, 1883), where Harnack seeks to critically restore the substance of the dialogue between Jason and Papiscus. An article on "Apologists" in the _Dictionary of Christian Biography_, vol. i., pp. 140-47, and another on "Theophilus" (13) in the same work, vol. iv., p. 1009, should be consulted.
I have written this book from my own standpoint as a decided Churchman, but I hope that I have said nothing which can really hurt the feelings of any one who thinks otherwise, or which may tend to widen those differences between Christians which are such a terrible hindrance to the cause of true religion and its progress in the world.
I have tried to use the Revised Version consistently throughout my expositions, but I fear that my attempt has been but vain. In my formal quotations I think I have succeeded. But then, in commenting upon Scripture, a writer constantly refers to and quotes passages without formal reference. Here is where I must have failed. The Authorized Version is so bound up with all our earliest thoughts and associations that its language unconsciously colours all our ideas and expressions. Any one who at present makes such an attempt as I have done will find illustrated in himself the phenomena which we behold in writings of the fifth and sixth centuries. St. Jerome published a Revised Version of the Latin translation of the Scripture about the year 400 A.D. For hundreds of years afterwards Latin writers are found using indiscriminately the old Latin and the new Latin translations. St. Patrick's _Confession_, for instance, was composed about the middle of the fifth century. Quotations from both versions of the New Testament are found in that document, affording a conclusive indication of its date; just as the mixture of the Revised and Authorized Versions will form a prominent feature in theological works composed towards the close of the nineteenth century.