The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 16

11s wo find nltribut.ecl to tho citntions from the Gospels. It is not possible, on tho hround of this vnguenesR or innccuracy, to argue that the apologists never saw or read 1bo Greek trnnsla.tions of tbo Old Testament. The same indulgence should be afforrlo,t to tbo o.postolic I<'nthers nnd npologistij, when they cite the words of Jesus. 'fhe devi- nlions of Justin Martyr's quotation of the celebrated pnssago in Matt xi. 25, etc., havo Leen supposed to invalidate tho proof of the pre-existence of St. Matthew's GospPI ~ivon tlH'roin (author of 'Supernatural Religion'); but the argument has been turne,l by Dr. Abbott producing a long series of quotations of the very same passage, from Ircnmus to our own day, and many made by writers who had the Gospel before thrm in printed form, and wore perfectly familiar with its apostolic origin, who also have deviated from the original text and more widely than Jnstin. Some of the early writers are known to have produced numerous books, but the smallest portion only of some of these is extant. Because a Gospel or Epistle is not referred to in these fragments, we have no right to conclude that the author wn~ ignorant of their existence. Suppose, eighteen hundred years hence, a fragment of ono of Ruskin's volumes of • Stones of Venice' should be all that the most vigilant book- collector could ·find of his works ; and if in it no mention was made of Turner or Hnnt, will it therefore become 1easonable to say that Turner did not live until two hundred years after Ruskin? A thousand other illustrations might be given of the unreason of the modem methods of identifying and disparaging the books of the New Testament. (5) One of the most powerful testimonies to the existence of an ancient document is the fact that it was translated into a foreign tongue at an ascertainable da.te. We are, therefore; justified in placing great confidence on the fact that the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul are found in the Pescbito Syriac and the Old Latin tramla.tions of the New Testament; but even this evidence, if it be negative, is not final. The Apocalypse, e.g., iB not found in this most ancient Syriac Version. Moreover, first-class manuscript authority for its presence in the canon of the New Testament is lacking; and yet other positive external evidence of authenticity is so strong that perhaps there is no portion of the New '>.'estament that stands upon a more irrefragable basis. Our con- clusion is that the non-mention of a book in the fragments that remain of the literature of the second century, even in places where one might expect a reference to it from the nature of the subject-matter, affords no reason for concluding that the book in question was not.known to the author of the fragment. Other reasons for the omission can be conjectur~d, just as satisfactory explanations for the omission of the Apocalypso from the Syriac cation of the New Testament can be easily advanced. 2. We may now proceed to show that during the last quarter of the second century, we have indubitable proof of the existence of four Gospels, distinguished from all other narrotives.of the life and sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that the four Gospels thus selected were regarded in every part of the Roman empire with peculi:\T reverence, and were quoted and appealed to with the same frequency as they have been in every decade from that day to this. There is no discussion now as to the substantial identity of the documents thus 'signalized with our four Gospels, attributed to or described as being according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Granting for the moment that the previous references to these documents are less explicit, it is expedient to look at the nature, quality, and fulness of the evidence which we possess for the fourfold character of this wonderful nanative at the date in. question. In earlier times the entire substance of the apostolic teaching on this subject was called Tb eba.yylll.,op-" the Gospel," and this word \His used somewhat vaguely by both Christian nnd heretical writers, as descriptive of the good message or acceptable speculation which they wore oITering to their readers. Thus the followers of Basileides are said by Hippolytus (' Ref. Hrer.,' vii. 27) to have had a "gospel" which was ~ .,..,. vrepHouµ.(wp -ypii,u,s, "the knowledge of suprnmundane things," and, though a Gnostic speculation, it was dignified by this great name. The same name was subsequently by Theophilus applied to the four separate Gospels; and from that date we begin to hear, not only of .,.1, eba.yyl11.10P1 but Tei eba.yybua.. (1) 'l'ho first and greatest authority is IRENlEUS, Bishop of Lyons, in Gaul, who lived between A.D. 14.0 and 202, nnd who probably wrote his great and important trfatisll b:twecn A.D. 180 and 190, of whom also, with other fragments, is preserved by Euse- b1us (' Hist"-. Eccl.,' v. 20) a letter written by him to one Florin us, who, towards  IN'l'RODUCTION TO