ページの画像
PDF
ePub

many antient Manufcripts, in this place of Mark, instead of téxtwv, read ó tỡ téxtovos viòs, viz. the carpenter's fon. It is not to my prefent purpose to make any enquiries into the life of Christ, before his publick miniftry; it is generally thought, as Juftin fays, that he followed his father's trade of carpentry. So Erafmus, Eftius; Chemnitius, Grotius, Lightfoot, Dr. Cave, and many others.

Thus much concerning Juftin Martyr, till whose time there is the greatest reason to conclude the facred text of the New Teftament continued very pure and incorrupt; foon after the Hereticks of thofe times made many and large interpolations and additions to it; fuch as Marcion, Valentinus, and others, whereby they frequently make both Chrift and his Apostles to speak what they judged moft agreeable to their own fentiments. It would be endless to collect all thefe, nor would it be of any fervice in fettling the Canon, and indeed but little in fettling the true reading of the text; Irenæus and Tertullian have mentioned feveral of them; Epiphanius has made a large collection of Marcion's alterations in the Gospel of Luke, and St. Paul's Epiftles. I fhall think it sufficient to produce the following remarkable inftance of an addition to the Gospel history made by the Gnofticks in the second century, and perhaps afterwards inferted in fome Apocryphal Gofpel. The inftance I mean is that out of Irenæus adv. Hæref. lib. 1. c. 17. Speaking of the Gnofticks, and their fpurious Scriptures, he adds,

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

This paffage is in the Gospel of the Infancy, published by Cotelerius in Greek, c. vi. and in that tranflated out of Arabick into Latin by Mr. Sike, c. xlviii. though with fomne variations and additions in both, especially the laft; where it is faid, that upon Chrift's refufing to fay the letter B, his mafter threatening him with the rod, he run through all the Alphabet, told his mafter the meaning of the letters, &c. which he ad mired, and faid he believed he was born before Noah.

XV. A Saying of Chrift, in Irenæus adv. Hæref, lib. 1. c. 17.

̓Αλλὰ καὶ ἐν τῷ εἰρηκέναι, πολλάκις ἐπεθύμησα ακέσαι ἕνα τῶν λόγων τέτων, καὶ ἐκ ἔσχον τὸν ἐρῶντα, ἐμφαίνοντος φασιν εἶναι διὰ τὸ ἑνὸς τὸν ἀληθῶς ἕνα Θεόν, ὃν ἐκ ἐγὼ νώκεισαν.

But that which (Chrif) has
faid, I have often defired to
hear one
hear one of those sayings, but
tell me, they (viz. the Gnof-
have found no one who could

ticks) interpret concerning
him who is the only true
God, whom they have not

known.

Dr. Milla thinks this paffage to have been in one of the Gofpels of the Valentinians, or Gnofticks; but I fear he is herein much mistaken; for though Irenæus had mentioned

a

VoL. I.

Prolegom. S. 331.
Ff

their

their Apocryphal books in the beginning of the Chapter, yet he had left that subject, and was giving inftances of their abfurd interpretations of the true Gospels; and this he affigns as one; fo that I am apt to think these words were in Irenæus's copy of one of the four Gofpels, because it is certain he acknowledged no other".

XVI. A History of the age of Christ, in Irenæus adv. Hæref. lib. 2. cap. 39.

Quia autem triginta annorum ætas primæ indolis eft juvenis, et extenditur ufque ad quadragefimum annum, omnis quilibet confitebitur; a quadragefimo autem et quinquagefimo anno declinat jam in ætatem feniorem; quam habens Dominus nofter docebat, ficut Evangelium et omnes feniores teftantur, qui in Afia apud Joannem difcipulum Domini convenerunt, id ipfum tradidiffe iis Joannem. Permanfit autem cum eis ufque ad Trajani tempora. Quidam autem eorum non folum Joannem, fed et alios Apoftolos viderunt, et hæc eadem ab ipfis audierunt, et tef tantur de hujufmodi relatione.

he

Forafmuch as a young man first arrives to a perfect maturity at his thirtieth year, and continues therein till the fortieth, as every one must acknowledge, and that from his fortieth or fiftieth year begins to decline towards old age, to which age our Lord having arrived did teach, as the Gospel and all the elders do teftify, who attended upon John, the Difciple of our Lord, in Afia; (affirming) that John himself gave them this account. Now he continued with them till the time of Trajan, and fome of them did not only fee John, but also other Apoftles, and received the fame account from them, and they affirm this same tradition to be true.

This is indeed fomewhat furprising, viz. that Irenæus fhould fo expressly affert, that Chrift lived and taught beyond his fortieth, if not till his fiftieth year; whereas it is a thing

Adverf. Hæref. 1. 3. c. 11.

H

moft

most notorious, that Chrift was crucified between his thirty third and thirty fourth year. His arguments to prove it are as extraordinary as his affertion, viz. That fince he came into the world to fave perfons of all ages, viz. infants, little ones, boys, young men, and old men, it was neceffary he should pass through all these degrees of age. But if this will prove any thing, it must prove Chrift to have lived much longer than Irenæus contends for, and not only to the age of fifty, but even to the age of the antediluvian Patriarchs; and even, for the fame reason, to the age of Methusalem himself. It is strange indeed he should so pofitively, urge the teftimony of St. John for this notorious falfehood, and fay that he delivered it to the Prefbyters of Afia; for this cannot be fuppofed true, without fuppofing also at the fame time, that our accounts in all the Gospels are falfe. Indeed, the next argument, which he uses in the beginning of the next Chapter, is fomewhat more plausible, viz. from those words of the Jews to our Saviour, John viii. 57. Thou art not yet fifty years old, and haft thou feen Abraham? Whence, fays he, it appears, that he was near fifty, they gathering this either from the rolls of the tax (in which every one's name and age were written), or from his countenance. But neither is this argument of any force, be-` cause if we suppose Chrift to have been, as he really was, no more than thirty three, the Jews might very well be supposed to ask their queftion thus, viz. either,

1. Because our Saviour, being a man of forrows, and acquainted with grief, and having gone through infinite fatigues and labours, might very probably be thought eight or ten years older than he really was; which is all that need be supposed to make the Jews' question just and pertinent, and is a very common thing: or, which feems to me to have been the cafe:

2. Nothing is more common in fuch cases, than for perfons to express themselves by a round number, not confining themfelves when the fubject is fuch as does not reftrain them to any exact particular number.

3

Ifai. liii. 3.

Vid. Grot. ad loc.

Ff2

Irenæus

Irenæus therefore is certainly mistaken in this matter, although he plead Apoftolical tradition for the fupport of his notion; and it feems plain that he was drawn into the mistake by a too warm oppofition to the Gnofticks, who afferted, that Chrift did not live to the end of his thirtieth year, but was crucified in the twelfth month of his ministry. And here by the way I cannot but obferve, that feveral of the most celebrated Fathers have coincided with the Gnofticks in this opinion, and afferted that Chrift preached but one year, and suffered in the end of his thirtieth. Thus Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Lactantius, in the places cited in the margin.

in

But to return to Irenæus, however abfurd the preceding history is, it cannot be fuppofed with any reason, that it was any of the Apocryphal Gospels, unless we were to suppose with the great annalist Cardinal Baronius, that this passage was foifted into the works of Irenæus; but for this there is not the least evidence, as the learned Jefuit Petavius has well demonftrated in his notes on Epiphanius ‘.

XVII. A Saying afcribed to Chrift in Athenagoras, Legat. pro Chriftianis, c. 28.

Πάλιν ἡμῖν λέγοντος το Λόγε, Ἐάν τις διὰ τᾶτο ἐκ δευ dia TTO ix devτέρα καταφιλήσῃ, ὅτι ἤρεσεν αὐτῷ.

Again, the Word faith unto us, If any one shall kifs a woman a fecond time, becaufe it pleafes him, &c

It is not very easy to determine any thing certain concerning this paffage. Pfaffius fuppofes it to have been in fome Apocryphal Gofpel, and an addition to those words of Chrift, Matt. v. 28. and fo makes the following words to be a continuation of it, viz.

[blocks in formation]
« 前へ次へ »