1

dreams even amongst the Midianites. Certainly by some means or other, you must account for a great deal of very curious knowledge with respect to the Messiah to come, which pervaded the whole heathen world-knowledge, too, which the Gentiles themselves (though not understanding it of the Messiah, but puzzled how to understand it at all), did consider to relate to the events of futurity, and themselves assigned it to the Sibyl as its author. I scarcely need remind you of the Pollio of Virgil, where the incidents are expressly said to be drawn from the vaticinations of the Sibyl, some of them according most remarkably with those of Isaiah, and the whole almost as applicable to Christ as any chapter of that Prophet. The Prometheus, too, of Eschylus, though the facts are not in that case avowedly referred to the same source, does savour of the same original; and however dark the fable might seem to those who handled it, nobody can dispute that it is founded on more than human knowledge. The well-known passage in Suetonius' Life of Vespasian tends to the same point, that "there had been for a long time, all over the East, a prevailing opinion, that it was in the Fates," (in the decrees or books of the Fates, says Lardner,) "some one from Judæa should then obtain the empire of the world."2 Where was the harm of the early Fathers taking advantage of a medium like this for arresting the attention of the heathen to the tidings they had to impart to them? more especially as it should appear from a few words let fall by Origen, that it was really debated (whether amongst the Christians one with another, or amongst the heathens and Christians), what authority was due to the Sibyl, and whether she was to be accounted a prophetess or not, so that there would seem to be nothing clandestine or underhand in the use the Christians made of the argument; and, moreover, the passage would lead us to infer that this question had been agitated even as early as the times of Celsus, who lived some hundred years before Origen.*

As another instance of the unscrupulous use made of authorities by the Fathers, Daillé adduces the appeals, which Clemens Alexandrinus makes to Apocryphal books that circulated under the names of Apostles and disciples of the Lord,

Judges vii. 13, 14.

2 Suetonius, Life of Vespasian, § 4.

3

Origen, Contra Celsum, V. § 61. 4 I. § 8.

LECT. III.]

THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS.

"3

51 and his quotations from the pretended works of Barnabas and Hermas.1 He also takes the like exceptions to Fathers of a later age than I am concerned with, and which, therefore, I shall not investigate; my object being to impress you with the importance of reading, not all the Fathers of every age, so much as the Fathers of the first three centuries. But does the manner in which Clemens avails himself of Apocryphal writings affect his own credit as an author or a candid Apologist? Certainly he refers to the "Gospel according to the Hebrews;" to the "Gospel according to the Egyptians;" to the "Traditions of Matthias;" to the "Preaching of Peter;" to a "certain Gospel ;" and perhaps to the " Acts of Peter.' And often he so refers without any remark whatever as to the value of the document he is laying under contribution. But you will bear this in mind, a fact which Daillé altogether overlooks, but a very important one; that on one of these occasions he expressly speaks of no Gospels being of authority except the four. "On Salome inquiring," this is the passage, "when the things which she asked about would be known; the Lord replied, when ye shall tread under foot" (or have no need for)" the covering of your shame; and when two shall become one, and the male with the female shall be neither male nor female ;" and then Clemens adds, by way of shaking the effect of this paragraph, which was advocating a cause to which he was opposed,* "First, then, I contend, that we have not this saying in the four Gospels delivered to us, but in the Gospel according to the Egyptians."5 I say this observation must be carried along with us, when we meet with other quotations from Apocryphal Gospels and like works in Clemens; for however he may not at the moment declare in so many words the comparative estimation in which he holds. them, we have it under his own hands, that none of them rank with him at all as the four Canonical Gospels do. For example, he adduces this same Gospel according to the Egyptians in another place, as follows: "But they who oppose

Daillé, p. 53.

2 Ο Κύριος ἔν τινι Εὐαγγελίῳ. Clem. Alex. Stromat. V. § x. p. 684. 3 VII. § xi. p. 869. See Grabe, Spicilegium, vol. i. p. 79.

The passage was advanced by a heretic, one Cassianus, as adverse to

marriage; Cassianus being himself opposed to marriage, whilst Clemens contends for the lawfulness of it.

5 Ἐν τοῖς παραδεδομένοις ἡμῖν τέτο ταρσιν εὐαγγελίοις οὐκ ἔχομεν τὸ ῥητὸν, ἀλλ ̓ ἐν τῷ κατ ̓ Αἰγυπτίους. Clem. Alex. Stromat. III. § xiii. p. 553.

1

3

themselves to the Creation of God by their specious continence, allege those things which were addressed to Salome, whereof I have made mention already. They occur, I think," continues Clemens, "in the Gospel according to the Egyptians." Now here you see the Gospel according to the Egyptians is cited without any notice of distrust in it or any mark of depreciation. Yet from the other passage, already laid before you, it appears, that though he is here silent about its merits, Clemens had no wish to disguise his real opinion of it. I may as well observe by the way, that though Clemens does not specify what were the four Gospels to which he assigns such superior weight, there can be no doubt that our four they were; for he was contemporary with Irenæus, though probably born a few years later than that author; and the testimony of Irenæus to the Canonical Gospels of his day being the four we now have, and no other, is undeniable2; not to say that Clemens himself quotes St. Matthew in one place as τὸ κατὰ Ματθαῖον Εὐαγγέλιον, and St. Luke in another, as τὸ Εὐαγγέλιον τὸ κατὰ Λουκᾶν. The same reasoning as before applies to the quotations made by Clemens from the Gospel according to the Hebrews. He is contending, for instance, that to admire is the first step to knowledge, and therefore, "in the Gospel according to the Hebrews," says he, "it is written, he that admireth shall rule, and he that ruleth shall rest," 5 without any remark added on the nature of the document; but if there were then only four acknowledged Gospels (as he felt was the case), there was no need for remark. The same may be said of his citation of the Ti Evayyériov. "It belongs to few to take these things in, for τι Εὐαγγέλιον. the Lord says in a certain Gospel, that he does not teach in a niggardly spirit, 'My mysteries are for me and the children of my house: no note or comment subjoined, because none was wanted. Even in the case of the Gospel according to the Egyptians, where the observation respecting the Four Gospels, on which I am relying so much, is made, it is made, you will perceive, quite incidentally, and almost as though it escaped him by the by.

6

1 Clem. Alex. Stromat. III. § ix. pp. 539, 540.

2 Irenæus, III. c. xi. § 8.

3 Clem. Alex. Stromat. I. § xxi. p.

409.

p. 407.

5 II. § ix. p. 453.

6 V. § x. p. 684.

LECT. III. IN QUOTING THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS.

53

And if it be said, why then multiply quotations? It may be answered in the first place, that Clemens was a man of enormous reading, and could not help showing it; his reference to profane as well as to sacred, or quasi-sacred authorities, being most profuse; indeed, he had a reason for the former display, which I shall make appear in a future Lecture. There is nothing singular or offensive in this. Look at Bishop Jeremy Taylor's Life of Christ, and you will see him supporting or adorning his narrative by appeals to numberless authors, whose credit he leaves his readers to settle as they will, contenting himself with saying who they are, or with referring to them in the margin. Yet how many of these authors are of little or no account! And in the next place, no doubt many of the documents, which were written at this very early period of the Church, in the midst of much error, contained much truth. It is the testimony of an Apostle himself, that “there are also many other things" (besides those carefully recorded), "which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one," he supposes, "that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."' There is a saying assigned to Jesus in the Acts, which there is no previous memorandum of his having ever uttered. There are several other sayings preserved by the early Fathers; together with one or two incidents respecting him, not taken notice of by the Evangelists. There might be, nay, it is highly probable that there was, much of this kind to be discovered in the many unauthorized publications which found their way into the world in the age immediately after our Lord's Passion, and which, however overlaid by base materials, did give to those publications a certain value nevertheless. Indeed, St. Luke's Preface to his Gospel implies, I think, that the histories of our blessed Lord, which his own was meant to supersede, were of this mixed character, not absolute fiction, but truth adulterated. "Forasmuch as many have taken in

1 John xxi. 25. 2 Acts xx. 35. 3 Ἐν οἷς ἂν ὑμᾶς καταλάβω, ἐν τούTOIS Kai Kрww.-Justin. Dialog. § 47.

Venient dies, in quibus vineæ nascentur, singulæ decem millia palmitum habentes, et in uno palmite dena millia brachiorum, &c.-Irenæus, V. c. xxxiii. § 3. A collection of these sayings and histories of Christ will be found gathered

from their several sources in the Appendix of the first volume of Jones on the Canon.

4 Ἐν σπηλαίῳ τινὶ σύνεγγυς τῆς Kóμns Karéλvoe.—He put up in a certain cave near the village.-Justin. Dialog. § 78. Tavra yàp Tà TEKTOVIKà ἔργα εἰργάζετο ἐν ἀνθρώποις ὤν, ἄροτρα kai (vyá.-Justin, Dialog. § 88.

hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed," the spirit of the passage not being utterly to condemn the writings he is contemplating of gross and wilful falsehood, but to imply that the authors' understanding of the incidents they had related was not perfect; that their opportunities of learning them had not been like his own, he having had perfect knowledge of them from the first, and that the knowledge therefore which he would communicate would be certainty, which could not be said of that of the others. Even when these early documents proceeded from heretical quarters, as probably many of them did, the substance of them would still, in many cases, be truth; they would scarcely have answered the purpose of their compilers had it been otherwise. The "Traditions of Matthias," the "Preaching of Peter," "the Acts of Peter," and something" of Paul's," probably combined with the "Preaching of Peter," all, as I have said, quoted by Clemens, were, no doubt, publications of the nature I am describing; truth mingled, or, as it might be, grossly debased with error. Origen himself takes this view of the last of these documents, observing, in a passage of his commentary on St. John, where he has occasion to quote a saying of Heracleon, who had adopted certain words from the "Preaching of Peter," we must inquire touching this work "whether it is genuine, or spurious, or mixed," himself apparently leaning to the last supposition. With respect to the first of these, the "Traditions of Matthias," Clemens refers to it several times, but not in a way to impress us with his confidence in it; rather the contrary; for though in one or two places he simply quotes without preface, in others he intimates in a manner that ought to satisfy M. Daillé himself, that its character, even in his eyes, was suspicious. Thus of the . heresies, says Clemens, "some are called by the name of their

1 Luke i. 1-4.

2 See Jones on the Canon, Part II. * Πότερόν ποτε γνήσιόν ἐστιν ἡ

2

JIKтóv.-Origen, vol. iv. p. 226. Bened. Ed.