[783] See chap. 3, note 1.
[784] kuroteon
[785] See the previous chapter, note 20. Upon Eusebius' treatment in this chapter of the canonicity of the Apocalypse, see note 1, above.
[786] Compare the previous chapter, note 21.
[787] en homologoumenois
[788] ton antilegomenon
[789] gnorimon
[790] See Bk. II. chap. 23, note 46.
[791] See ibid. note 47.
[792] See above, chap. 3, note 4.
[793] See the previous chapter, note 19.
[794] en tois nothois.
[795] See above, chap. 3, note 20.
[796] Ibid.note 23.
[797] Ibid.note 9.
[798] The author of the so-called Epistle of Barnabas is unknown. No name appears in the epistle itself, and no hints are given which enable us to ascribe it to any known writer. External testimony, without a dissenting voice, ascribes it to Barnabas, the companion of Paul. But this testimony, although unanimous, is neither very strong nor very extensive. The first to use the epistle is Clement of Alexandria, who expressly and frequently ascribes it to Barnabas the companion of Paul. Origen quotes from the epistle twice, calling it the Epistle of Barnabas, but without expressing any judgment as to its authenticity, and without defining its author more closely. Jerome (de vir. ill. 6) evidently did not doubt its authenticity, but placed it nevertheless among the Apocrypha, and his opinion prevailed down to the seventeenth century. It is difficult to decide what Eusebius thought in regard to its authorship. His putting it among the nothoi here does not prove that he considered it unauthentic (see note 1, above); nor, on the other hand, does his classing it among the Antilegomena just below prove that he considered it authentic, but non-apostolic, as some have claimed. Although, therefore, the direct external testimony which we have is in favor of the apostolic Barnabas as its author, it is to be noticed that there must have existed a widespread doubt as to its authenticity, during the first three centuries, to have caused its complete rejection from the canon before the time of Eusebius. That this rejection arose from the fact that Barnabas was not himself one of the twelve apostles cannot be. For apostolic authorship was not the sole test of canonicity, and Barnabas stood in close enough relation to the apostles to have secured his work a place in the canon, during the period of its gradual formation, had its authenticity been undoubted. We may therefore set this inference over against the direct external testimony for Barnabas' authorship. When we come to internal testimony, the arguments are conclusive against "the Levite Barnabas" as the author of the epistle. These arguments have been well stated by Donaldson, in his History of Christian Literature, I. p. 204 sqq. Milligan, in Smith and Wace's Dict. of Christ. Biog., endeavors to break the force of these arguments, and concludes that the authenticity of the epistle is highly probable; but his positions are far from conclusive, and he may be said to stand almost alone among modern scholars. Especially during the last few years, the verdict against the epistle's authenticity has become practically unanimous. Some have supposed the author to have been an unknown man by the name of Barnabas: but this is pure conjecture. That the author lived in Alexandria is apparently the ruling opinion, and is quite probable. It is certain that the epistle was written between the destruction of Jerusalem (a.d. 70) and the time of Clement of Alexandria: almost certain that it was written before the building of Ælia Capitolina; and probable that it was written between 100 and 120, though dates ranging all the way from the beginning of Vespasian's reign to the end of Hadrian's have been, and are still, defended by able scholars. The epistle is still extant in a corrupt Greek original and in an ancient Latin translation. It is contained in all the editions of the Apostolic Fathers (see especially Gebhardt and Harnack's second edition, 1876, and Hilgenfeld's edition of 1877). An English translation is given in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I. p. 133 sqq. For the most important literature, see Schaff, Ch. Hist. II. p. 671 sqq., and Gebhardt and Harnack's edition, p. xl. sqq.
[799] ton apostolon ai legomenai didachai. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, Didache ton dodeka apostolon, a brief document in sixteen chapters, was published in 1884 by Philotheos Bryennios, Metropolitan of Nicomedia, from a ms. discovered by him in the Jerusalem convent in Constantinople in 1873. The discovery threw the whole theological world into a state of excitement, and the books and articles upon the subject from America and from every nation in Europe have appeared by the hundred. No such important find has been made for many years. The light which the little document has thrown upon early Church history is very great, while at the same time the questions which it has opened are numerous and weighty. Although many points in regard to its origin and nature are still undecided, the following general positions may be accepted as practically established. It is composed of two parts, of which the former (chaps. 1-6) is a redaction of an independent moral treatise, probably of Jewish origin, entitled the Two Ways, which was known and used in Alexandria, and there formed the basis of other writings (e.g. the Epistle of Barnabas, chaps. 18-21, and the Ecclesiastical Canons) which were at first supposed to have been based upon the Teaching itself. (Bryennios, Harnack, and others supposed that the Teaching was based upon Barnabas, but this view has never been widely accepted.) This (Jewish) Two Ways which was in existence certainly before the end of the first century (how much earlier we do not know) was early in the second century (if not before) made a part of a primitive church manual, viz. our present Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. The Two Ways, both before and at the time of (perhaps after) its incorporation into the Teaching, received important additions, partly of a Christian character. The completed Teaching dates from Syria, though this is denied by many writers (e.g. by Harnack), who prefer, upon what seem to me insufficient grounds, Egypt as the place of composition. The completed Teaching formed the basis of a part of the seventh book of the Apostolic Constitutions, which originated in Syria in the fourth century. The most complete and useful edition is that of Schaff (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 3d ed., New York, 1889), which contains the Greek text with English translation and a very full discussion of the work itself and of the various questions which are affected by its discovery. Harnack's important edition Die Lehre der zwölff Apostel (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Gesch. der altchrist. Lit., II. 1 and 2, 1884) is still the standard German work upon the subject, though it represents many positions in regard to the origin and history of the work which have since been proved incorrect, and which he himself has given up. His article in Herzog, 2d ed., XVII. 656 sqq. and his Die Apostel-Lehre und die jüdischen Beiden Wege, 1886, should therefore be compared with his original work. Schaff's book contains a very complete digest of the literature down to the close of 1888. As to the position which the Teaching occupied in the canon we know very little, on account of the very sparing use of it made by the early Fathers. Clement of Alexandria cites it once as Scripture (graphe), but no other writer before the time of Eusebius treats it in the same way, and yet Eusebius' mention of it among the nothoi shows that it must have enjoyed a wide circulation at some time and have been accepted by at least a portion of the Church as a book worthy to be read in divine service, and thus in a certain sense as a part of the canon. In Eusebius' time, however, its canonicity had been denied (though according to Athanasius Fest. Ep. 39, it was still used in catechetical instruction), and he was therefore obliged to relegate it to a position among the nothoi. Upon Eusebius' use of the plural didachai, see the writer's article in the Andover Review, April, 1886, p. 439 sq.
[800] athetousin. See the previous chapter, note 20.
[801] tois homologoumenois. See note 1, above.
[802] This Gospel, probably composed in Hebrew (Aramaic), is no longer extant, but we possess a few fragments of it in Greek and Latin which are collected by Grabe, Spic. I. 15-31, and by Hilgenfeld, N. T. Extra Can. rec. II. The existing material upon which to base a judgment as to the nature of the lost Gospel and as to its relation to our canonical gospels is very limited. It is certain, however, that it cannot in its original form have been a working over of our canonical Matthew (as many have thought); it contains too many little marks of originality over against our Greek Matthew to admit of such a supposition. That it was, on the other hand, the original of which our Greek Matthew is the translation is also impossible; a comparison of its fragments with our Matthew is sufficient to prove this. That it was the original source from which Matthew and Luke derived their common matter is possible--more cannot be said. Lipsius (Dict. of Christ. Biog. II. 709-712) and Westcott (Hist. of the Canon, p. 515 sqq.) give the various quotations which are supposed to have been made from it. How many of them are actually to be traced back to it as their source is not certain. It is possible, but not certain, that Papias had seen it (see chap. 39, note 28), possible also that Ignatius had, but the passage relied on to establish the fact fails to do so (see chap. 36, note 14). It was probably used by Justin (see Westcott, ibid. p. 516, and Lipsius, ibid. p. 712), undoubtedly by Hegesippus (see below, Bk. IV. chap. 22), and was perhaps known to Pantænus (see below, Bk. V. chap. 10, note 8). Clement of Alexandria (Strom. II. 9) and Origen (in Johan. II. 6 and often) are the first to bear explicit testimony to the existence of such a gospel. Eusebius also was personally acquainted with it, as may be gathered from his references to it in III. 39 and IV. 22, and from his quotation in (the Syriac version of) his Theophany, IV. 13 (Lee's trans. p. 234), and in the Greek Theophany, §22 (Migne, VI. 685). The latter also shows the high respect in which he held the work. Jerome's testimony in regard to it is very important, but it must be kept in mind that the gospel had undergone extensive alterations and additions before his time, and as known to him was very different from the original form (cf. Lipsius, ibid. p. 711), and therefore what he predicates of it cannot be applied to the original without limitation. Epiphanius has a good deal to say about it, but he evidently had not himself seen it, and his reports of it are very confused and misleading. The statement of Lipsius, that according to Eusebius the gospel was reckoned by many among the Homologoumena, is incorrect; en toutois refers rather to the nothoi among which its earlier acceptance by a large part of the Church, but present uncanonicity, places it by right. Irenæus expressly states that there were but four canonical gospels (Adv. Hær. III. 2, 8), so also Tertullian (Adv. Marc. IV. 5), while Clement of Alexandria cites the gospel with the same formula which he uses for the Scriptures in general, and evidently looked upon it as, if not quite, at least almost, on a par with the other four Gospels. Origen on the other hand (in Johan. II. 6, Hom. in Jer. XV. 4, and often) clearly places it upon a footing lower than that of the four canonical Gospels. Upon the use of the gospel by the Ebionites and upon its relation to the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, see chap. 27, note 8. The literature upon the Gospel according to the Hebrews is very extensive. Among recent discussions the most important are by Hilgenfeld, in his Evangelien nach ihrer Entstehung (1854); in the Zeitschrift f. wiss. Theol., 1863, p. 345 sqq.; in his N. T. extra Canon. rec. (2d ed. 1884); and in his Einleitung z. N. T. (1875); by Nicholson, The Gospel according to the Hebrews (1879); and finally, a very thorough discussion of the subject, which reached me after the composition of the above note, by Handmann, Das Hebräer-Evangelium (Gebhardt and Harnack's Texte und Untersuchungen, Bd. V. Heft 3, Leipzig, 1888). This work gives the older literature of the subject with great fullness. Still more recently Resch's Agrapha (ibid. V. 4, Leipzig, 1889) has come to hand. It discusses the Gospel on p. 322 sq.
[803] ton antilegomenon
[804] anomologemenas
[805] ouk endiathekous men, alla kai antilegomenas. Eusebius, in this clause, refers to the nothoi, which, of course, while distinguished from the canonical Antilegomena, yet are, like them, disputed, and hence belong as truly as they to the more general class of Antilegomena. This, of course, explains how, in so many places in his History, he can use the words nothoi and antilegomena interchangeably (as e.g. in chap. 31, §6). In the present passage the nothoi, as both uncanonical and disputed, are distinguished from the canonical writings,--including both the universally accepted and the disputed,--which are here thrown together without distinction. The point to be emphasized is that he is separating here the uncanonical from the canonical, without regard to the character of the individual writings within the latter class.