veral relations of the Evangelists? Mr. M. is represented as stating that there existed a common Hebrew document; that this original document, before it received any additions, was translated into Greek; and that it afterward required some additions, &c. To this mode of explaining the origin of the Greek Gospels and their several particularities, the Remarker objects, not only as it makes the Evangelists to be the mere copiers of copyists,' the compilers from compilations from a farrago of Gospels of unknown authority, but as there is a total absence of antient testimony in its favour. He even accuses Mr. M. of a want of sincerity and correctness,' in quoting the Τῶν Δώδεκα Ευαγγελίον, without acquainting the reader that it is a spurious work; and the 'Απομνημονεύματα τῶν Αποτολών, mentioned by Justin Martyr, without hinting that by this title Justin means the four Gospels.

Mr. M. complains in the Letters that his hypothesis has been misrepresented. His supposition is that a document drawn up from communications made by the Apostles, was used by St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, as the basis of their Gospels,' and he asks how this makes the Evangelists "the copiers of copyists" and degrades them? He rests the theory itself on the numerous and manifold appearances in the verbal harmony of the first three Gospels; and though he denies that it requires historical evidence, he thinks that the general opinion of antiquity, and particularly the assertion of Origen that St. Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, may in part be adduced as direct testimony in its favour.

In answer to the charge of incorrectness, on the score of the Ευαγγέλιον τῶν δωδεκα and the 'Απομνημονεύματα των Αποςόλων, Mr. M. first accuses the Remarker of misapprehension, and then replies that he had repeatedly stated the first as an apocryphal writing; and that, as to the second work, the Memoirs of the Apostles, good reasons may be given for believing that they were not our four Gospels, but a single Gospel, which had much matter in common with the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, but was not the same with any of them.' of them.' In confirmation of this position, the following passage is exhibited from Justin's quotation of the Απομνημονεύματα, which does not exist either in sense or in substance in any of our four Gospels. He says in his Dialogue, speaking of the baptism of Christ, κατελθοντος τε Ιεσε επι το ύδωρ, και πυρ ανήφθη ἐν τω Ιορδανη, και αναδυντος αυτό απο τα ὕδατος, ὡς περιτεραν το ἅγιον πνευμα ἐπιπτῆναι ἐπ' αυτόν εγραψ οἱ αποςολοι. Lardner that the circumstance of a suggests fire being kindled in Jordan is only a conclusion from those words in the Gospels, and the heavens were opened: but this is

αν

an

an inference which most readers will doubt; and the subsequent observations, in the notes of the Remarker, on the punctuation of the passage, together with his parallel passages from the Memoirs and Gospels, designed to shew their agreement, leave the evidence in favour of Mr. Marsh's opinion.

The Remarker proceeds with more apparent success, when he hints that Mr. Marsh's hypothesis was not consistent in itself; and when he shews, by a comparison of texts, that the strong language which he employs in its support is not fully justified: but it would carry us too far to enter into these details.

When, perhaps, readers reflect on the little difference between the two hypotheses, on which so much critical argument has been lavished; and that one disputant would account for the verbal harmony of the Greek Gospels, from their having been previously committed to writing in that language, while the other contends for the discourses of Christ having been preserved for a time by oral tradition; they may incline to think that the disagreement is not important enough to justify the fierce contention which it has provoked, and that the advocate for one statement can have no plea for cautioning theological students against the other. *

ART. VII. The Evidence for the Authenticity and divine Inspiration of the Apocalypse, stated and vindicated from the Objections of the late Professor F.D. Michaelis; in Letters addressed to the Rev. Herbert Marsh, B. D. F.R.S. &c. 8vo. 3s. Hatchard.

T

HE learning and critical sagacity displayed in this treatise will be creditable to the author in the mind of every reader, whatever may be the result of the argument. Indeed the Apocalypse has seldom been vindicated with a more patient research into evidence, or with a more strenuous display of the abilities belonging to an apologist; and we recommend the pages before us to the consideration of those who are inclined to reject this book from the canon of the N. T. While, however, we regret that we cannot give to this work the space to which it is intitled on the score of its merit as a well-written discussion; we must be honest enough to own that its reasoning has not been successful in removing our doubts respecting that very singular book, which the auther venerates as the produce of Divine Inspiration. That such profound biblical scholars as Lardner and Michaelis should have entertained suspicions of its authen

Since the above article was written, we have heard a report that the Remarks are the production of Dr. Randolph, Bishop of Oxford.

ticity,

ticity, is some plea for scepticism on this head; and the highly mystical, and at present unintelligible, nature of the composition itself must remain a stumbling-block to sensible believers. The existence of such a writing as the Apocalypse, in a very early age of the Gospel, is fully proved by the testimony of the Fathers: but the multitude of spurious compositions, which infested the Church about that period, makes it necessary to pay more attention to the internal than to what is called the external evidence.

It is asserted by the present vindicator of the authenticity and divine inspiration of this book, that there is not one writer of the primitive church, no Father, no ecclesiastical author, who seems to have questioned it.' As far as quotations from a composition are testimonies of its authenticity, Iræneus, Hermas, Polycarp, Papias, Justin Martyr, &c. may be adduced in its favour: but in whatever manner these Fathers may have mentioned and quoted the Apocalypse, the conviction of the Primitive Church respecting its authenticity was not complete; or otherwise Eusebius, in the enumeration of the books composing the canon of Scripture, would not have so particularly specified it as a writing of doubtful authority. The very manner in which this ecclesiastical historian mentions the Apocalypse is not favorable to the writer before us in his unqualified position, that the authenticity of the book was never doubted by the Church, during the first century after it was published.' Eusebius's testimony is thus exhibited:

He has distributed (says the author) into four classes all the books pretending to a place in the sacred canon of the New Testa

ment.

1. The Quoyeμeros Araufinexto, books universally read, and admitted to be genuine.

• 2. Αντιλεγομενοι Όμως Γνώριμοι Τοι; Πολλοίς, books objected to by some, yet acknowledged by the many, by the greater part of the Church.

3. Nofo, spurious, or apocryphal books, whose authenticity, or divine inspiration, was denied by the Church, but which might be usefully read, as containing pious thoughts, and no bad doctrine.

4. Books published by hereties, which no Father of the Church has deigned to support with his external evidence, and which have no support of internal evidence, being discordant from the apostolical writings, both as to matter and manner.

Eusebius places the Apocalypse in the first, and also in the third class; but as it cannot belong to both, so in placing it in each of these classes, he adds, Cavan, "if it should so scem proper." It was to stand in one of these classes, when the question concerning its merits should be determined. Hence may be inferred, that the question was then so far settled in the mind of Eusebius, that it must belong either to the first or third class, and by no means to the second or fourth.'

After

After so fair a statement of the enumeration in the Ecclesiastical History, we are not prepared for this observation: It appears then that, in the times of Eusebius, the Apocalypse had a place among the genuine undoubted books of sacred Scripture.' It does not hence appear that this was the case universally.

Had Eusebius only spoken of this book in the undecided manner above noticed, so as to give Christians their option of placing it, as they might seem inclined, either among authentic or among the spurious writings, (H. E. Lib.111. c. 25.) we should incline to believe from it that, on some particulars relative to this book, his own mind was not decided: but his subsequent declaration (H. E. Lib. VII. c. 25.) of his disbelief of its being the work of John the Apostle, with his opinion that from the style and composition it could not have proceeded from the same person who was the author of the Gospel of St. John, sufficiently attest the rank which he assigns to it. Eusebius. concludes his long chapter concerning the Revelation of John, with cautioning his readers against supposing that he had made his objections to the barbarous style of the Revelation by way of derision; a proof that some respectable Christians in his time regarded it with no great veneration.

In proceeding to the discussion of the internal evidence, the author observes that the ancient objection made by some before Dionysius, "that the Apocalypse is unworthy of any sacred writer," is not now persisted in and deserves not a particular refutation.' Begging his pardon, however, we must remark that this is the very ground which a person of common sense would take in pleading for its rejection from the authentic canon of Scripture, whatever sturdy opponent he might find in the author of this pamphlet. Its extreme obscurity is allowed: but it is contended that, if we cannot yet understand it, it is our duty to deliver it to the studies of posterity,' who may make great use of it as a bulwark of the Christian faith.

The language and imagery of the Revelation are unlike any which are to be found in the composition of a very old man, such as St. John was when he is said to have penned it; and this fact, combined with its dissimilarity from the acknowleged writings of the Apostle, forms a strong objection, which its advocate thus endeavours to obviate:

In perusing the Apocalypse I remark that the sentiments, the notions, the images presented in the books, are, in very few passages, those of the writer, (such I mean as had been digested in, and arose out of his own mind), but of that Holy Spirit, or of those heavenly inhabitants, who expressed them to him by symbols, or

declared

!

declared them by speech. The pen of John merely narrates, and frequently in the very words of an heavenly minister, "That which he sees and hears," he writes as he is commanded: (ch. i. 19.) but they are not his own ideas from which he writes: He relates simply and plainly, with little or no comment of his own, the heavenly visions which he has seen. And even in those parts of the book where we should most reasonably expect to meet with the proper sentiments of the writer, we perceive him teeming, (as, indeed, was natural), with his newly acquired images. He uses such at the very outset of his work; even in the Epistolary Address, which is full of images exhibited to him in the visions. The same are again seen at the close of the book. And, indeed, it is difficult to find many passages wherein the writer has recourse to his own sentiments, his own previous store of imagery.'

On the subject of the variety of style and manner in this book, Compared with those of the Gospel, it is hinted that, as the history of its first publication is unknown to us [an unfortunate circumstance in the detail of its external evidence,] it may have been written originally in Hebrew, or St. John might have employed an amanuensis or corrector of his language, at one time and not at another.' In addition to these mere conjectures, it is added:

The Gospel appears to have been written by St. John, after an interval of about thirty years from the events which he relates. At such a distance of time the mind is enabled to look back with calm composure, and to represent, with dignified serenity transactions which could not be narrated soon after they had happened, without warm and passionate expressions. It seems to be owing partly to this cause that the Evangelist is seen to relate in a cool tenor of style, in the Gospel, those sufferings of his beloved Lord which he had witnessed, and which if related by him immediately after the events had taken place, could not have been told otherwise than with commotion and indignation. But the Apocalypse was written by its author immediatley after he had seen the vision; the impressions on his mind had no time to cool; his expressions kept pace with his feelings, and his style became more vivid and glowing. The same clear rivulet which has been seen to flow calmy in its former course, becomes turbid and furious, when it meets with rocks, or, by other causes, is accelerated in its de

scent.'

We pretend not to say how far this figurative reasoning will avail, in defending the authenticity of a more figurative book.

A particular examination of the strange and uncouth pictures and images, pourtrayed in the visions of this writing, should form part of an inquiry into its internal evidence; for if it be almost impossible to affix to some of these any meaning, and if certain expressions, (viz. the seven spirits of God) are employed, to which no counterpart is found in any portion of authentic scripture, it is impossible to peruse this book without doubting its authenticity