BOOKS.

SUPERNATURAL RELIGION.* [FIBER NOTION.) WE give a hearty welcome to this learned and able work. When we add that the conclusion which it aims at establishing is one which we should consider more fatal to all the best aims and hopes of humanity than the universal prevalence of superstition, this welcome may seem intended as a sarcasm. This intention we would earnestly disclaim. The ability and acquirement which these volumes manifest are, we believe, never more valuable than when they are employed to distinguish the convictions which are of right the inheritance of all, from those opinions which can be legitimately held by only a few. To disentangle our ultimate beliefs from the prejudices which are let in with every fresh link in a chain of popular inference is often the first step towards truth. And this we hold to be the achievement of the present volumes.

It is, however, so far from being the intention of the writer, that the whole book seems to depend on the confusion of things known at first-hand with things known at second- hand. The question he sets himself to answer is—Whitt is the Supernatural ? Has the word any definite meaning? Is anything above Nature? Are the dreams which have haunted humanity that the something above Nature has more to do with us than Nature itself, anything more than objectless yearnings? And the emphatic negative which he returns to these varied forms of the ultimate question of our day is established by an elaborate proof that the Christian Scriptures are the slow and natural growth of the age which succeeded the birth of Christ. So clear an intellect would not have been blind to such a chasm in his logic, if it were not bridged by the only assumption of Christians which he is willing to accept,—viz., that these Scriptures contain our whole evidence for the supernatural action of God on man. It is natural enough to consider that the only opinion which two opposed parties hold in common is likely to be true. At issue with every view of Christianity as to its first principles, he is at one with the average believer in Christianity as to a single point in the popular creed, he believes that the supernatural character of the events narrated in the Christian Scriptures, and the supernatural character of those Scriptures themselves, must stand or fall together. He thinks that if he shows the evidence for those events to consist in writings which, only appearing in their present shape about a century and a half after the events to which they refer, prove themselves to have grown up by a perfectly natural process among a cluster of traditional narratives, he dis- proves events which, in their utter improbability, could be estab- lished by nothing but a consensus of enlightened contemporary testimony. This is the belief which we desire to commend to the reader's reconsideration, and we are glad to have so good an ex- cuse for doing so as is afforded us by the masterly examination of the evidences for the antiquity of the Christian Scriptures con- tained in these volumes. So far as we know, it is an unparalleled specimen in the English language. It might have been a little condensed, but when we have said this much, we have only un- mixed praise for the literary workmanship of this part of the volume. We propose to-day to give a slight account of it ; on a future occasion we hope to notice the preliminary dissertation on the miraculous, which seems to us so much feebler, that, from a literary point of view, we cannot help regretting that it forms a portion of the same work, although we feel that the comparative strength of these two parts is a striking illustration of our state- meat as to the confusion in the writer's mind on the relation of Christianity to its records.

If, like this opponent of our religion, and most of its supporters, we concede that the evidence of Christianity consists in a number of writings known collectively as the New Testament, it becomes of the utmost importance to ascertain what is the New Testament. These four biographies, purporting to be written by the disciples of Christ (at first or second-hand), are the guarantee for the facts of his life, but what is the guarantee for them ? How are we sure that the writers had any means of knowing what they assert ? How do we know that they were not religious romances written long after the events to which they refer, such as the singular work called the Clementina, which (to quote the description of an or- thodox historian of our Church) "bears on its front and through-

* Sttpenkaf twat Ijdipton. London : lownWS.

out the character of a romance," written "by a representative of what can scarcely be supposed an insignificant party in Rome, who does not scruple to couple fiction with the most sacred names " ? (Milman's History of Latin Christianity.) If the author of the Ckmentina felt entitled to take such liberties, why not the writers of the four Gospels? The answer to this question is given by apologists in the shape of quotations from our Gospels to be found in early Christian writers, showing the credence with which they were re- ceived by the whole Church, at a time when tradition was fresh and lively enough to act as a check upon error. Now what do we know about these writers ? The account given in the volumes we are noticing is a perfect mine of information on this subject, alloyed indeed with no small prejudice, yet so wonderfully faithful and comprehensive, that any error may be detected by the light of the writer's own searching and scholarly criticism, and what follows is mainly a slight sketch and occasional illustration of his disser- tation, with his references now and then enlarged, and his arguments supplemented from other sources.

The Christian writings of the post-Apostolic age present them- selves to the critical attention of our time in a thin stream of authentic utterance, accessible only through thorn-brakes of con- troversy and quicksands of doubt. Let us take a few descriptions of them, not from the present work, with its evidently sceptical bias, but from a biographical dictionary stamped with the impress of cautious orthodoxy at every page where such a stamp was possible : "To Clement of Rome are ascribed two epistles addressed to the Corinthian Church, both probably genuine, the first certainly so. This," the only unquestionably genuine epistle, " seems to contain an important interpolation, the style of which savours of a later age." " Respecting the epistle attributed to Barnabas, great diversity of opinion has prevailed from the date of its publica- tion to the present day." One of the main reasons why the " Shepherd of Hermas " was generally held in such high esteem was undoubtedly the belief that its author, Hermas, was the same as the one mentioned by St. Paul. and we must suppose that its author was either this person, or one who assumed his name, for the purpose of acquiring a greater influence on the mind of his readers." These passages are taken from the account given in Smith's Classical Dictionary of the first docu- ments subjected to our author's searching analysis, and are enough, we think, to show what is the most that can be said for the authenticity of these fragments, as the volumes before us show what is the most that can be said against it. Till we come to Justin Martyr, we do not meet with a single writer whose re- maining works can be undoubtingly ascribed to him. There are other reasons for this than the lapse of time. The writers of these early ages had a wholly different feeling about authorship from what we have now. Their whole view of truth—that it was something to be thought out within the mind—induced an in- difference about testimony which made the question of authorship comparatively unimportant. There is a curious illustration of this at a much later date than any work germane to the present question, in a controversy between Jerome and Augustine at the beginning of the fourth century. Augustine writes to Jerome to find fault with a passage "in your reputed writings" (scripta quo tux dicerentur), and keeps this loophole for escape carefully open, though apparently the only reason for doubt was the writer's wish to disbelieve,—a reason felt equally valid by his corre- spondent, for he writes back that he will not answer the letter till he is certified that it really was written by Augustine. Per- haps neither Father had any very serious doubt as to the author- ship of the obnoxious passages, but the fact that both could veil their displeasure beneath this guise of incredulity, speaks forcibly for the insecurity of any judgment of ours upon the subject of doubtful authorship in these early ages.

Suppose, however, that this difficulty is overcome ; suppose that the Epistles of Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Ignatius, and Polycarp were all as well authenticated as the unquestioned Epistles of St. Paul, what would be the inference from their quotations of Scripture ? If our witnesses are all of unimpeachable character, what is the value of their evidence? We could wish that our author had brought out this last question in all its predominance by a somewhat slighter treatment of the first ; it is a little confusing to our perception of the real issue to find so long a preliminary investigation of the authenticity of writings the genuineness of which he might, so far as his argument goes, have very well assumed. For let us confine our attention to the quotations from the undoubted writings of Justin Martyr, who may be taken as the best witness for the orthodox view, and see what they prove. His first Apology, addressed to Marcus Aurelius, representing his attitude towards the Gentile world, and his Dialogue with Trypho, representing his attitude- towards the Jewish—our earliest considerable specimens of Christian apologetics—are rich in quotations from the Old Testament, and references to the facts and doctrines contained in the New. These Old-Testament quotations form an important element in the problem we have to decide as to the nature of these asserted references to the New, and our author might have strengthened his case by bringing forward a few of them, in order to show the reader how entirely Justin was a sup- porter of what we should call plenary or literal inspiration. " God has proclaimed to you through the prophet Isaiah in these words, &c." (Dial. cum Tryph. 16.) "The Holy Spirit cries to you through Isaiah, as it were &peaking in the character of a child of Abraham." (lb. 25). "You must believe Zachariah showing you the mystery of Christ in a parable. His words are these," &c. (lb. 115.) " We know that all who can declare the truth and do not declare it will be judged by God, as God has declared through Ezechiel in these words," &c. (lb. 82.) "The Holy Spirit speaks through Jeremiah." (78.) The reader will see from these specimens, taken at random, that Justin's idea of inspiration is as definite and extended as that of a rigid Evangelical in our• own day. God speaks through the prophet, the man is a mere pipe for the divine voice, and this not only in those passages: which would in the ordinary sense of the word be called prophecies, but in passages which have nothing to distinguish them from mere human utterances except the fact that they were spoken by a particular person. The first of our quotations, for instance, introduces the first few verses of the 57th chapter of Isaiah, " The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart," &c.,—words. in which there is nothing that we cannot imagine the Evangelical prophet to have spoken of his own accord, and without reference to any special divine impulse. Generally the name of the writer- is given, and this is a very important point for our present pur- pose; but sometimes the reference is made simply to "the Scrip- ture," " the prophetic spirit," " the Holy Spirit," and sometimes. the quotation is introduced simply by "it says," "the inspiring spirit " being understood. By every form of reference and quota- tion we are continually reminded that Justin is citing a series of utterances in which the human personality goes for nothing ; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechiel, and Moses are for him so much blank paper, on which certain divine messages have been written, and_ are named apparently only for convenience of reference. It is a, theory which would not perhaps be accepted in its simple con- sistency by more than a small party in our day, but we do not see- that it differs from the ordinary orthodox view in anything but. consistency.

But does this hold good when we come to the quotations from the writings which any one now holding Justin's views on in- spiration would look upon as typical specimens of inspired Scrip- ture ? By no means. The tone of reference is entirely different. He never tells us that the Holy Spirit, speaking through Matthew- or Mark, says so and so; nor does he ever speak of his authorities: as " Scriptures," or use any of the forms with which his Old- Testament references have made us familiar. His information is- derived, he tells us, from the " Recollections, or Reminiscences," of the Apostles,—for so, we agree with our author, the ..A.,re- gmezeUiu,artt. relif ' AlrosrOXam might be more suitably rendered than by its ordinary translation, "The Memoirs of the Apostles." Except in one doubtful instance, he never mentions an author's: name, and from the invariable use of the article, it would appear that these " Reminiscences " were a single collective work, which the substance of his quotations proves to have stood in such a rela- tion to our Gospels that some critics are able to assert their identity,—with what justice we hope, even in our narrow space, to give the reader some means of forming a judgment. We must, however, delay for a moment upon the title. The theory of inspiration current among us is too vague and elastic to resist anything but its direct contrary, but that which is implied in every word Justin cites from the Old Testament refuses to make room for anything that can be called "recollection." His sense of the contrast of the two things is expressed in a remarkable passage, which follows an account of the miraculous birth of Christ.. " Thus we are taught by those who have recorded everything about our Saviour Jesus Christ, and we trust them because the prophetic spirit has declared, through Isaiah, that he should be thus born." (Ap. i. 33.) This is a classical passage for our pur- pose. First, there is an exhaustive record of the history of Jesus Christ, executed by his Apostles from their recollections. Secondly, this record is worthy of credence, not because the recorders are themselves partakers of the prophetic spirit, not because the afflatus which so many ages before the birth of Christ descended on the seers of the old dispensation, to reveal through them to the world the great events in which that dispensation should conclude, now enlightened contemporary spectators as to the details of those events, but merely because the narrative is authenticated by prophecy. This is such an inversion of our ordinary way of looking at things, that it needs a little consideration to take it in. If we have to compare a narra- tive and a prophecy, we start from the narrative. Our first ques- tion is what is the evidence for such and such events posterior to their taking place? It seems a topsy-turvy way of looking at history, to begin from the other end, to ask first, what was to happen, and give or withhold credence to the narrative in pro- portion as it mirrors this anticipation faithfully or not. But there is no question that this is Justin's view. No unprejudiced person, we venture to assert, will deny that it puts the Old and New Testament on a totally different foundation. They cease to be equivalent representations of the same transactions seen by the old writers in the future, by the new in the past, and by both under some supernatural light. They are contrasted exactly as a photograph and a drawing are con- trasted. The prophecy has the guaranteed accuracy of an in- fallible presentation, the narrative is authenticated by its faithful correspondence with this unquestionable test, but it is the work of fallible intelligence, and might have erred, though it has not. Supposing, then, that Justin was quoting from our four Gospels, he was quoting from a book of which he did not hold the opinion held by modern orthodox writers concerning our New Testament. But had he even the same words before him? Were these Recollections of the Apostles the same as our four Gospels ? " Certainly they were," was the reply of the old-fashioned com- mentator, who explained any inconvenient variations by con- veniently elastic theories of free quotation from memory, imperfect and varying MSS., combination and condensation of passages, and so on.' To these uncritical students our author offers the most complete antithesis, and we think he has fully proved that the work from which Justin quoted can be identified with our Gospels only on a most peculiar view of textual development. Hardly any of Justin's quotations exactly fit the corresponding place in our Gospels ; he narrates some facts which they do not contain, such as the incident of Christ's birth in a cave, and a fire being kindled in Jordan at the baptism, and betrays an ignor- ance of some facts which some of them do contain, such as the attack on Maichus by Peter, although he has expressly said that these Reminiscences contain all things concerning the life of Christ. (Apol. i., 33.) We think these facts are enough, since books do not grow like trees, to show that the work mentioned by Justin cannot havel been one of our Gospels, but we will specify one divergence which all will allow to be a crucial test. The narrative:of the baptism of Christ cited by Justin contains two important variations from our text,—the fire in`Jordan, which we have mentioned before, and one other. " When Jesus came out of the water a voice came from the heavens, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.' " (Dial. 88.) The fire in Jordan occurs in the apocryphal gospel of the Hebrews, and is a manifest adaptation to the preaching of John the Baptist, but it is the variation of the address to Christ on which we would now fix attention. The context is important. Trypho, the Jew whom Justin is trying to convert, has just allowed that a pro- phecy of Isaiah which has been quoted refers to Christ, and goes on, " But you assert his pre-existence as God how can he have pre-existed who is completed OrXnfiefiroii) by the powers of he Holy Spirit, as if he had any need of them ?" Justin allovis in answer that there is some difficulty in the passage quoted, which is Isaiah x1,1-3, " And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a blossom shall come up out of the root of Jesse. And the spirit of God shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and under- standing,the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of wisdom and piety, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill him." He evi- dently feels the natural inference from this passage to be that the person thus described was some favoured mortal, whose endowment of supernatural grace was an event in his career, and not a peculiarity of his nature, and goes on to explain away this inference in an answer containing nothing to our purpose except this account of the baptism. Now, nothing could be more appropriate to Justin's argument than the divine words addressed to Christ as they stand in our version. That at the moment when this symbolic purification was undergone, a voice should declare from heaven, " Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," seems an answer to the very difficulty felt by Trypho ; this celestial assurance, coming at the moment of an act which might seem a confession of imperfection, would appear a special provision

against any such inference from this act. But can the same be said of the passage which Justin does quote? Surely the very opposite. " Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee," as applied to Christ, confutes Justin, not Trypho ; he might more than ever urge, " How can Christ have pre-existed, if at the moment when this divine influence descended upon him, a divine voice declared him to be then first truly divine ? " So that those who assert Justin to have had our Gospels before him are in this extraordinary position,—they must allow that having before them a par.Lage which was most telling for his own argument, he changed it for another which was most telling for his adversary.

We may add, although our author does not, that the omissions of Justin in this part of his argument are almost as striking as his alterations. Nothing, for instance, would be more natural in reply to Trypho's objection than to reply, " This was the very objection made by John, when Christ came to him for baptism, I

have need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou to me ?" Can we believe that Justin had such a sentence before him in his Reminiscences of the Apostles, and wrote such an account of the appearance of Christ on the banks of the Jordan as the following, totally omitting this circumstance?—" And when Christ had come

to the Jordan, and was thought the son of Joseph the carpenter, and appeared void of grace, as the Scriptures had predicted, and

was considered a carpenter himself (for, indeed, he used to make, yokes and ploughs, teaching by these symbols energy and righte- ousness,) then the Holy Spirit, as I have already said, descended

upon him in the form of a dove," &c. We should say that this account left out the very point of the whole narrative, from Justin's point of view, but an alteration is so much more striking- than an omission, that if anyone thinks the first can be explained, the second will give him no difficulty whatever.

We do not mean to imply that the foregoing are average tests of the correspondence between Justin's citations and our- Gospel. This is, perhaps, too much the impression left by the author we are reviewing, though it must be added that his own careful accuracy of reference enables the reader to correct what- ever in it is erroneous. We have quoted all the instances which would separately convince us that Justin had not our Gospels before him, though that conviction is intensified, no doubt, by the numerous slight divergencies pointed out by our author. And we must repeat that in a question which, like the present, depends on the amount of evidence, the reader must be prepared to go. into the faintest shades of difference, and attend to every instance

of incongruity, before he can form an opinion. If he does so, without prejudice, we do not hesitate to say he will come to the conclusion of our author, that Justin was quoting from a work about as different from any one of our Synoptics as they are from each other. This negative proof must not be taken for more than it is worth. Our author has not shown that a copy of our- Gospels, such as we know them, may not have existed at the time- of Justin, but only that he had no such copy before him. Justin's writings do not disprove the existence of such a copy,—indeed the ambiguous character of his supposed quotations from, or co- incidences with, St. Paul's letters does seem to show that even, the most unquestionably authentic of those epistles were not familiar to him ; and of course, he might just as -well have been unacquainted with an authentic Gospel already in existence, and known elsewhere, as witfi an authentic epistle ;—but Justin's writings cannot, with such discrepancies, be brought forward to prove that any such copy did exist.

' Well, but what does it matter?' the reader may exclaim, with some impatience. Why is the question of Supernatural Religion" to turn on a discussion interesting only to antiquarians ? There is no doubt that a couple of generations later than Justin you get to authenticated Scripture, what difference is it to make in one's view of the evidences of Christianity whether the records of its origin were accepted by the Church 1770 or 1650 years ago ? We shall devote what space remains to us to the answering this question.

It is the tendency of our day, for good and for evil, to shrink from all definiteness of statement in matters of ultimate belief._ People take refuge from definite issues in broad principles, and often think they are comprehensive when they are only illogical. Because logic is never applicable to premisses, it has come to be thought not quite invariably applicable to inference. Because, on the furthest subject which the human mind can reach, there is. no room for anything but assertion, there is a feeling in many

minds that in reasoning downwards from these ultimate data you. may make assertion do duty for argument. Especially is this ten- dency manifest in our attitude towards the inspiration of Scripture. The cultivated mind of our day has practically abandoned what our forefathers meant by those words. No thoughtful clergyman now believes that the writers of either Testament were shielded from unimportant error, hardly anyone, we suppose, would deny that our Gospels contain instances of such error. But when we come to the logical consequences of these admissions, we find that there is an intermediate region of mist, in which premiss and conclusion may be hopelessly severed, and as a compensation, contradictory propositions united in the firmest amity. We have said that the tendency we speak of has its good as well as its evil side, but as applied to the character of the Bible, it seems to ns merely evil. As to the authorship, the accuracy, and the date of a particular writing, there is room for ignorance, but for mystery, none whatever. You may come to the conclusion that you have no data for ascertaining one of these facts, but to confuse this with the conclusion that M dealing with the things of God, the mind is in contact with realities too large for its grasp, and must expect to find much that will not fit in to any logical system, is a piece of intellectual insincerity of the most dangerous kind. Yet this rhetorical device is not uncommon amongst holy men. They know that their held on the divine life, on an unseen Ruler, and the world of whiqh he is the centre, is one they cannot under- take to justify to those who do not share it and they feel that this is due, not to any feebleness or vagueness in the ground of their belief, but to its very nature,—that no reason can be given for that which lies at the basis of all reasoning. And when they come to a book which meets and illustrates all these nitimete convictions, it seem to them that the one must stand on the same foundation as the other. Because the words of Christ bring the spirit into contact with ultimate truth, therefore the book -which contains the narrative of his life must pot be examined with the impartiality with which we should turn to any other historical question. It is not the break-down of logic on which we would now fix attention—not even the want of faith in the independent reality of the things recorded implied by such a break-down it is the effect upon those who, like the thinker we are criticising, stand outside Christianity. They see that, the supernatural character of the record of certain events is contended for with just as much earnestness as the supernatural character of the events themselves (for of course it would be just as much a miracle that a set of writers should be shielded from im- portant error as that they should be shielded from any error at all). Now of the character of the record they can judge. To decide whether a book was written in the first or second century needs learning, patient attention, and a good judgment of evi- dence,—qualities which stand in no relation to spiritual insight. The opinion of the most devout of men who have none of these qualities is quite worthless on this question, and the most irreverent of mankind may throw valuable light on it, if he has the intellectual qualification for doing so. But from the major premiss, that the supernatural character of the record and of the things recorded stand or fall together, and the minor premiss, that the supernatural character of the record is a matter it needs only attention and learning to decide against, who can doubt the conclusion? It is moat natural that men should come to think, as this author has done, that an examination of the age of the Christian Scriptures is an examination of Supernatural Re- ligion, and that in deciding that these Scriptures have no super- natural pretensions or character, that they are no more than that portion ultimately selected by a set of men, not possessing any special qualifications for their task, beyond those with which God endows all whom He calls to important work, out of the whole traditional literature which grew up round the life of Christ—he decides that the faith which they embody and support is a dream,

Now, we, who hold that it is our most precious possession, welcome every effort which shall result in disentangling it from what is perishable, what must soon perish. We hope that these volumes, and those which the author promises as a sequel, will suggest to many minds the vast disproportion between the things they believe and the means by which they are supposed to attain that belief ; to a few, perhaps, the surer foundations of those truths which they know, as they know that the sun warms them, and that water quenches their thirst.