ページの画像
PDF
ePub

declared not consistent with the Christ it knew by personal experience, such a gospel would be set aside when a better one came to hand. In this way the promise of Jesus concerning the Comforter's mission as teacher (John 14:26) was being fulfilled. By the middle of the second century or a little later, practically all Christians in orthodox circles were accepting the Four Gospels now in the New Testament as the only authoritative ones. The others were either quietly discarded, or else were cherished by those only who held views that the church pronounced heretical. As a matter of fact the church now had a canon of the gospels, though it did not yet realize this because it had not begun to call these books sacred writings.

In the last quarter of the second century a great change came over the church. Circumstances forced the rapid development of creed and church government and the idea of Christian Scriptures. Enemies appeared in the bosom of the church itself, and their heretical teachings had to be combated. On the one hand were teachers who broke with the past entirely, and claimed that they themselves were the recipients of new and wonderful revelations: these were the Montanists. On the other hand were sects who professed to have esoteric knowledge and mysterious books, handed down from the first century, in which new meanings were given to the teachings of Christ: these were the Gnostics.

The church thus confronted and put on its defence, seems to have felt that its present inspiration was not enough. These enemies also claimed to be inspired, and must be met by something stronger than mere counterclaims; so the church emphasized the inspiration that was in the apostles. And because the heretics had their own sacred books, or claimed the right to reject any Christian books that did not agree with their own teachings, the church was compelled to emphasize the sacredness and consequent authority of the writings it had accepted. Almost unconsciously and before they were aware of it, these Christians of A. D. 180-200 had put their treasured volumes on the same level with the Old Testament, and were quoting from them as inspired and authoritative. The canon of the New Testament, which includes the canon of the gospels, was set forth. It is a remarkable change; and yet it came about very simply and naturally. The books were there, and the church was constantly using them; the hour had come when their divine authority needed to be clearly proclaimed, and the church proclaimed it. The sword of the spirit had been fashioned long before; but it was not recognized to be a weapon until this time of danger when the church seized it and used it for battle.

We call the writers of this period the Apologists, because their chief labor was the defense of the faith against its enemies. They were able men, and many

of them had been heathen scholars and philosophers before they were converted to the Christian faith. We have much of their writings still preserved, and can tell just what books they thought should have a place in the canon of the New Testament. And while there was not full agreement as to certain books, of which some later on were placed in the New Testament and others were not, there was full agreement as to the gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the lives of Christ, and the only lives of Christ, that the Apologists, speaking for the church of their day, proclaimed sacred. And the church at no later period of its history has ever shown a disposition to question that decision, or a desire to change it. Of course, there are, as there have always been, individual scholars who assail the inspiration and authority of some one gospel or of all four; but such assaults produce little impression. The church patiently meets the objections urged, though none of them are new, and sets itself to the task of answering them; but it is never seriously disturbed; for its faith in the sacred authority of the Four Gospels rests on a deeper foundation than any that these critics can undermine, namely, on the witness of the Spirit of Christ, testifying to the things concerning himself.

By whom, then, was the canon formed? A popular opinion is that certain great councils of the church, especially those at Hippo, in A. D. 393, and at Carthage,

in A. D. 397 and A. D. 419, definitely determined the New Testament canon. But really all that these councils did (as also the one at Laodicea, in A. D. 363, if it took any action) was to publish in an authoritative manner the list of the twenty-seven books which the church, independent of the council, was using and deeming sacred. The canon was already made, and it was not made by any council or any one leader: the whole body of Christians had a voice in the matter. And we may push our conclusion one step further. Deissmann, speaking of the New Testament as literature, says, "The fact that scarcely any but popular and primitive Christian writings found their way into the nascent New Testament, is a brilliant proof of the unerring tact of the church that formed the canon." this not equivalent to saying-whether Deissmann would admit it or not-that the Spirit of God working in the church, guiding the selection of its sacred books, and endorsing their spiritual power and authority, was the real agent in the formation of the canon?

Is

CHAPTER V

THE TEXT OF THE GOSPELS

IN a critical study of the Four Gospels, the first question properly is, Have these books come down to us without alteration so that we possess the text in its original form? And that the answer must be no, is evident from the fact that among all the existing manuscripts no two exactly agree. Such a lack of agreement is not surprising, because the very earliest of these manuscripts was written long after the Apostolic Age, and is the result of copying the original we know not how many times. Until after the middle of the second century, as we have seen, no special sacredness was attached to the books, such as would lead a copyist to take unusual pains with his work; and the men who did the copying were often without special training. A humble Christian who felt that he would like to possess a gospel would set himself in his spare hours to making a copy of the one his church or some friend owned, or would hire an acquaintance more skilful with the pen to copy it for him; and later on this copy might serve as the original for another copy made with similar freedom. How great, then, the possibility that in the

« 前へ次へ »