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LECT. VIII.] WITH THOSE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 363

Passion-we have Irenæus, I say, refuting these notions by a series of appeals to the Acts of the Apostles; to the scene of the election of Matthias in the first chapter; to St. Peter's speech in the second chapter; to the cure of the impotent man by Peter and John in the third chapter with all the circumstances of it; to the cry of exultation of all the brethren, when, in consequence of this miracle, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, "Lord, thou art God," &c., in the fourth chapter; and so on,' the quotations too, often extending to half a chapter at a time.

The identity of the substance of the present Epistles with that of those bearing the same name in the Primitive Church, admits of proof of the same kind more or less copious. For you will bear in mind that the task which Irenæus imposes on himself in his fifth book is this: after having refuted the heretics by authorities drawn from other quarters, to do it now by portions of our Lord's own teaching, which he had not as yet touched, and by the Apostolical Epistles "ex reliquis doctrinæ Domini nostri et ex apostolicis epistolis conabimur ostensiones facere:"2 so that his subject led him to range largely over those Epistles, and lay them liberally under contribution. And this circumstance accounts, as well for the very full testimony he supplies on the question of the Canon of Scripture, as on that other question, no less important, with which we are now engaged, the identity of the substance of the Epistles we at present possess, with that of those familiar to this Father.

The controversies of those days place us exactly in the same advantageous position for drawing information on this subject from Tertullian. For besides his innumerable references to the Epistles, throughout his writings in general, in his fifth book against Marcion he conducts his argument upon precisely the same principle as Irenæus in his fifth book against the Gnostics in general; viz. on the principle of proving his case out of the Epistles of St. Paul. He will show that 66 as Christ himself had made no such revelation respecting God as Marcion contended for, there was the more need it should be made by that Apostle; and he had arranged his reasonings in the order he had done, for the purpose of demonstrating, that as no other God besides the 1 Irenæus, III. c. xii.

2 V. Præf.

Creator had been set forth by Christ, so had none other been set forth by the Apostle; as will appear," says he, "from the Epistles themselves of Paul; which however, like the Gospel, had been mutilated by the heretics, because they were perceived to be against them."1 Here, therefore, as before, the very plan of the argument of the Father developes, not the Canon only of the Epistles, but the substance of them, which is what we are now considering; proving to a demonstration, and by quotations so ample and so numerous, that it is out of the question to recite them, the substance of the Epistles known to us, to be the substance of the Epistles known to Tertullian.

Before I make an end, I cannot forbear once more drawing your attention to the folly of those, for I can call it by no gentler term, who would drive the Fathers out of the field of ecclesiastical literature, and regard all such as take an interest in them with suspicion; pregnant as you see they are with conclusions of such enormous importance as those which I have been deducing from them to-day.

1 Sive nihil tale de Deo Christus re- | Deum ab apostolo circumlatum, sicut velaverat, tanto magis ab apostolo debu- | probavimus, nec a Christo; ex ipsis utierat revelari, qui jam non posset ab alio; non credendus sine dubio, si nec ab apostolo revelatus. Quod idcirco præstruximus, ut jam hinc profiteamur nos proinde probaturos, nullum alium

que epistolis Pauli, quas proinde mutilatas etiam de numero, forma jam hæretici Evangelii præjudicasse debebit.— Adv. Marcionem, V. c. i.

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LECT. IX.] USE OF THE FATHERS IN ASCERTAINING

365

LECTURE IX.

Use of the Fathers in ascertaining the text of the New Testament. Their motives for accuracy in this particular. Importance of their testimony in establishing the genuineness of whole passages. The impression produced by it increased, when the occasion of it is known. Its use further exemplified, where the genuineness of the passage is doubtful, as 1 John v. 7, and the subscription of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. The same testimony of still greater value in the criticism of single words; opposed to the reading of Griesbach and Wetstein in Acts xx. 28, and to that of the "Improved Version" in Rom. ix. 5. Some other examples.

THE 'HE next advantage which I said resulted from the testimony of the Fathers, was the light they throw on the text of Scripture. It must be so with writers who lived at so very early a date, whose works are filled with quotations from the books of the New Testament, and with dissertations on the meaning, and who were under the strongest impressions of the grievous sin there was in taking any liberty with the sacred text. Neither was it enough for them to have a general acquaintance with Holy Writ: the various forms of heresy, with which they had to contend, exacting more from them than this. Many of the heretics mutilated Scripture to serve their purposes; it was the more necessary, therefore, that they should be prepared with the genuine text. Many misinterpreted and perverted it; it was required of them, therefore, to wrest the passages thus distorted from their hands, on which occasions the disputes would sometimes turn on so small a matter as the position of a point. A particular knowledge, therefore, of Scripture was absolutely demanded of the champions of orthodoxy and the Church and I think we must be often struck, especially when reading the works of the early Fathers, with the microscopic eye, which they

1 See Irenæus, V. c. XXX. § 1. Επειτα δὲ τοῦ προσθέντος, ἢ ἀφελόν τος τι τῆς γραφῆς, ἐπιτιμίαν οὐ τὴν τυχοῦσαν ἔχοντος, εἰς αὐτὴν ἐμπεσεῖν ἀνάγκη τὸν τοιοῦτον. Where it may

be remarked, the observation is called forth by a question respecting a text in the New Testament and not the Old; the number of the beast in the Revelation, ch. xiii. 18.

cast on Scripture, and the conclusions-the fair conclusions— they frequently extract from texts, which would not have suggested themselves to listless or superficial readers.

In treating of the subject before us, I am only overwhelmed by the mass of matter proper to illustrate it, which lies at the command of any man even moderately informed in these early authors. I will, however, endeavour to lay before you some examples of the use of the Fathers in this particular, not, perhaps, the best that might be furnished-for the best will not always come at one's call; and one often has to regret, after having delivered a Lecture, that such and such passages to the purpose did not present themselves at the time of composing it—but at all events examples sufficiently in point to establish the proposition before us, and to increase your respect for the study of authors so conducive to the most important interests of sound theology. Our own sense, indeed, would dictate to us that such use as I am now drawing from the Fathers must naturally belong to them, and some may think that it is superfluous to enter into details in a case so clear; but that sort of general acquiescence in a truth is a very different thing from a conviction of it wrought by the effect of specific illustrations in point, and with these present in our minds we become far more able to contend with gainsayers.

Now in the first place, whole passages of the New Testament have been objected against as spurious or of doubtful authority by persons who would understand the Scriptures in a sense of their own, and in no other, and who were, therefore, under a temptation to decry portions of it which stood in the way of their theory. For instance, modern Unitarians have called in question large portions of the two first chapters of the Gospel of St. Matthew.' The "Improved Version" of the New Testament pronounces it impossible that the genealogy and the history which follows the genealogy, and extends to the end of the second chapter, and which contains an account of the miraculous conception, could have been written by the same author.2 Certainly it would be enough to reply, as it may be replied with truth, that the manuscripts are altogether against them. But two witnesses are better than

i.

' Bloomfield's Greek Testament, vol. p. 3.

2 The New Testament in an Improved Version, p. 1, 4th Ed.

THE FIRST CHAPTER OF ST. MATTHEW

LECT. IX.] 367 one nevertheless, and it is satisfactory to be able to confirm the manuscripts by the testimony of the Fathers, who lived almost as early as when manuscripts of the New Testament began to have any existence-especially as such testimony is of a popular character, more readily remembered, and more easily appreciated, than the number and value of the manuscripts. Such a Father is Irenæus; fortunately, providentially we may say, he was engaged in controversy with parties whose faith was unsound as to the nature of Jesus Christ: not that they denied or doubted the Divinity of Christ (with the exception of a small and inconsiderable sect of heretics1); but instead of believing that "Though he be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ," maintained that Jesus and Christ were separate beings, Christ descending upon Jesus at his baptism and quitting him before his crucifixion. In refuting this absurd notion, Irenæus appeals, amongst other proofs, to the whole of the first chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew, both to the genealogy and to the history of the miraculous conception which follows it, and evidently without the least suspicion that its genuineness could be disputed. "I have already sufficiently proved," says he, "from the language of John, that he understood the Word of God to be one and the same, to be the Only Begotten; to be the same who took flesh for our salvation, even Jesus Christ our Lord. However, Matthew knowing that Jesus is one and the same, when setting forth his human generation of a virgin (even as God promised David, that of the fruit of his body he would raise up an everlasting king; and again, long before, gave the same promise to Abraham), saith, 'The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham ;' afterwards, in order, to set our minds free from all suspicion about Joseph he saith, 'Now the birth of Christ was on this wise; when as his mother was espoused unto Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Ghost;' afterwards, when Joseph was thinking of putting Mary away because she was pregnant, an angel of God appeared unto him and said, 'Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost; and she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.

1 Tivés.-Justin Martyr, Dial. § 48.

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