Setting

aside all apocryphal writings, and the Gnostik mysticism of the Fourth Gospel, we may suppose that a residuum of fact remains, which even historical purists can admit as such; that about the commencement of our era a pious Jewish teacher lived in Palestine, and went about teaching ethikal truths which Hillel and others also taught, and following the mode of life that was customary also among the E enes, and the Jordan baptists. His forerunner had proclaimed that One among them, whom they knew not, was the expected Me iah; and the followers of Jesus proclaimed him to be such, although he had forbidden them to do so openly. ‘They brought him, as Me iah, triumphantly into Jerusalem, where he was arrested by the frightened priests, accused of blasphemy and sedition, and given over by the Roman governor, very unwillingly, to be crucified. His followers believed that he died on the cro (see Cro es), and they found the rock tomb in which he was laid open and empty. He was said to have appeared to them afterwards, both in Jerusalem and in Galilee; and Paul, though apparently not an eye-witne of any of the events of this time, believed that he had so been seen (1 Cor, xv, 3-7). He also believed Jesus to have instituted a memoria] rite symbolic of his martyrdom (1 Cor. x, 16,17; xi, 17-34), which already, within a generation, had become a “communion” giving rise to disorders among the converts. The believers continued, for at least a century, in the East, to expect the return of their Master at the end of the world: for he had said “My kingdom is not of this world,” and had himself predicted such a return in the clouds of heaven, accompanied by you sands of angels. But this belief died away among the Greek 166 Gospels; and Roman Gnostik Christians; and even in Paul’s lifetime Christians denied the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. xv, 12). After about 100 a.c., a great many accounts of Jesus and collections of his sayings were written, as the first generation of — witne es died out, and oral traditions began to be set down in writing. Some of these followed the purely Jewish ideas of the original disciples; others followed Paul, in whose belief Jesus was the pre-existent Logos; others went further and regarded him as either a divine phantom, or as a holy man po e ed by the Holy Ghost. We learn from the four Gospels themselves (Luke i, 1; John xxi, 25) that many had already written accounts of what was believed before they were penned; but by about 170 or 180 a.c., these four had attained to peculiar estimation; and nearly 300 years after the Crucifixion they were declared to be the “only authentic Apostolic records of the Lord,” in opposition to all Gnostik doctrines. They were added to the collection of Epistles by Paul and other teachers, forming the new Bible of Christian churches. Finally they came to be ascribed to the four authors on whose authority they were believed to rest (see Dr — Harnack’s History of Dogma; and Renan’s History of Christianity). To those who regard the traditions as incredible it is a matter of very little importance whether they were written in the Ist or 2nd century. We have no more certainty as to the original text of these — writings than we have in the case of Old Testament books. We know that small, but often important, alterations were made in the wording — by scribes of our 4th and 5th centuries. An additional copy (supposed to belong to the 8th century) was found by Mrs Lewis in 1892, at the Sinai Monastery, and transcribed in 1893 by Dr Bensley. It is — written in Syriak, on vellum, having been effaced in 779 a.c. in order — to reuse the parchment to record the legend of a martyr. From this copy we learn that Jesus was the first-born son of Joseph—as indeed appears from the third Gospel (Luke ii, 41, 48, 48) according to the — oldest MSS. though later scribes substituted (in verse 43) the words — “Joseph and his mother” for the words “his parents” (see Bible). — Prof. Huxley said truly that: “The question of the age and author- — ship of the Gospels is not of much importance, for the simple reason — that even the reports of eye-witne es would not suffice to justify belief in a large e ential part of their contents; on the contrary these reports would discredit the witne es.” An interesting discovery was made in 1897, at Oxyrhynchus, on the border of the Libyan desert, about 120 miles S. of Cairo, It is a leaf from a papyrus book, containing eight Logia or “ sayings” attributed to Jesus. It is written in the Greek characters in use perhaps as early as 150 A.c., though it may be as late as 300 Ac, The writer is thought to show the influence of the tract On the Contemplative Life ascribed to Philo (30 to 50 B.c.), and of the Jewish E enes (see Atheneum, July 1897). There were many such Logia (as Papias is said to have called them), besides those in the four Gospels, some of which however are evidently of Gnostik origin, like those in the “Gospel of the Egyptians.” No le than 61 such sayings (many of very doubtful authenticity) have been carefully collected (see Rev. Dr B. 192