ceeds to point out, how the facts, out of which the contested chapters have been fabricated, were first moulded, under the form of two spurious Gospels, into Apocryphal Scripture. From the other, which he palms upon Origen *, he proceeds to disclose how the cheat was kept secret, which he ingeniously imagines the orthodox thus played on themselves; until the origin of the facts which gave rise to the spurious scriptures being forgotten, the Apocryphal Gospels were finally manufactured into Canonical Text. We shall make brief work with our author's very learned, and we make no doubt very ingenious hypothesis. A few of the tes timonies which support the credit of the authority which he gratuitously bestows on St. Jerome, we subjoin in our margint. If they fail to do justice to his exquisite taste in the Latin Fathers; they will, we doubt not, fully evince the stability of the foundation on which his theory rests. To Origen himself we consign the task of proving, that his skill in the Greek Fathers is equal, if not superior, to his taste in the Latin. Of the passage of that author, which he quotes from a barbarous version, we annex the original; which was discovered in the Colbert and Royal library at Paris, by P. Simon, and is published in his Critical History of the Greek Text, and has been consequently restored by the Benedictine editors, to its proper place in his works +. On confronting it with the trans * Vid. Orig. Hom. in Luc. Tom. III. p. 933. c. col. 1. + Erasm. Tit. Tom. IV. Op. S. Hier. ed. Par. 1646. “În tertia [parte] lectu prorsus indigna, et impudenter attributa doctis viris." Præf. Gen. in Epist. Hier. [p. vii.] Tom. V. ed. Bened. "In tertia similiter [parte sunt] quæ suos auctores ipsa præ se ferunt; sed quæ parum docta." Catal. Epist. Tom. IV. p. 143. "Cæterum in hoc catalogo nihil reperies quod non sit ex æquo indoctum, infans & impudens. Adjecimus censuras," &c. Cens. Epist. Ib. col. 420. fol. 136. ed Erasm. "Quid opus est in hoc argumentis uti, cum id totus sermonis insulsissimi character adeo palam præ se ferat.-Nunc auriculæ prominentes produnt asinum, & totus sermo clamitat indignum fuisse qui in Divi Hieronymi culina ministri locum teneret. Conf. col. 444. ed. Bened. fol. 143. ed. Erasm. Orig. Hom. in Luc. Tom. III. p. 982. b. wλ pèr bu imexáρησαν [εὐαγγέλια ανατάξασθαι] καὶ κατὰ Ματθίαν, καὶ ἄλλα πλείονα, τα τέταρα μόνα προκρίνει ἡ Θεῦ ἐκκλησία. εχ ἁπλῶς δὲ πεπιτευμένων ἀλλὰ πεπληροφορημένων τὸ ἀπαράβατον τοῖς λεγομένοις μαρτυρῶν. Comp. Simon, Hist. Crit. des Comm. du N. T. ch. v. p 81. ed 1693. We add the authority cited by our author from the old Latin version; subjoining the clause which he has so industriously suppressed: lation, lation, the misfortune is, that it acknowledges not a particle of the circumstance on which our author's deduction is built! But we may proceed even farther, and as our author has un dertaken to trace the contested chapters to their origin, we will venture to point out the source of the spurious testimonies, by which their credit is subverted. With respect to the testimony adduced from Josephus, it is as certain that it was wanting in the copy of Origen, as that it was extant in that of Eusebius It is thus obvious that a manuscript in which it was inserted must have made its way into the library of Cesarea, in the period which intervenes between the times when they respectively lived. And thus, it is not improbable, that a copy directly passed from the Ebionites into the possession of Pamphilus, who was a great benefactor to the Cesarean library, and a curious collector of books †. And as it cannot be doubted that this tes timony was wanting to render Josephus a favourite with those heretics, who must have been strongly prejudiced in favour of his works; it is unquestionable that some of their sophisticated books were deposited in that library previously to Eusebius's age+. Let the reader weigh these considerations, together with the internal and external evidence produced against the contested passage; let him then make his choice between the following proba bilities; whether it was suppressed in the copy possessed by Ori 3 gen, or inserted in that which was consulted by Eusebius? The answer to this question decides the difficulty before us. With respect to the learned Epistle which has been foisted into St. Jerome, we must probably consult the annals of our monastic antiquities, in order to obtain an attested certificate of its birth. Robert Grossetest, Bishop of Lincoln, no unlearned clerk for the age in which he lived, seems to have been wonderfully tickled with the ambition of being thought a translator from the Greek though rather unfortunate in his choice of a subject. For the purpose of displaying his rare talent at the work, he made choice of the Apocryphal Scriptures, the hidden treasures of which, as locked up in a tongue unknown to the translator, were opened to him by a native Greek, who seems Ib. p. 983. c. et juxta Mathiam, et alia plura legimus, ne quid ignorare videremur propter eos qui se putant aliquid scire, si ista cognoverint. Eed in his omnibus nihil aliud probamus nisi quod ecclesia, id est, quatuor tantum evangelia recipienda." I. * Comp. Orig. ubi. supr. p. 349. n. t. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. Lib. eap. xi. p. 34. 1.36. + S. Hier. Cat. Script. Eccl. in Mat. Tom. I. p. 120. Id. ibid. to to have been retained in his service for this purpose. And we accordingly possess*, at this day, the "Testament of the x11 Patriarchs" done into Latin by his reverence, and ushered into the world with a suitable preface, proclaiming the divine authority of the original +. That the Gospels of Mary and the Infancy, together with the Introductory Epistles, have proceeded from the same source, we do not take upon us to affirm. We however retain our suspicions of the fact, and beg leave to suggest, in justification of what we suspect, that they are of the same spurious race, speak the same barbarous language, and were suited to the gross credulity of the same period. But we retain no doubt of the cause which procured St. Jerome the honor of being reputed their father: and there is nothing further in the matter at issue, which is worth contesting. A professing to come from the Hebrew, they required his sanction to authenticate their contents, and account for their appearance in Latin; no other member of the Western Church having been versed in the Hebrew: his name was accordingly borrowed, and an epistle framed, to answer the exigency of the translator. On the testimony of Origen a very few words will suffice. It is one of these blunders which an unskilful or ignorant translator is in all ages liable to make, who not certain of the sense of his author, expresses the best meaning which he can extract from his words in a long unmeaning periphrasis. Let us now briefly run over the muster-roll of witnesses opposed to the concurring testimony of the whole Catholic Church, headed by the Holy Evangelists. Josephus and Philo, two masked Jews, in the character of primitive Christians: Josippon Ben Gorion, and the author of "Toldoth Jesu," two barefaced and blasphemous Hebrews, who have derided our holy religion: two spurious Gospels, of Mary and the Infancy, one of which is confessedly a burlesque on the evangelical history: three spurious passages in St. Jerome, Josephus, and Origen, which require much twisting and torturing to bring them to bear upon the matter at issue: the Ebionites, a set of heretics, who were so grossly ignorant of the religion which they professed, that they conceived themselves grafted into Christianity, by the knife that circumcised them: and the Therapeute, or contemplative Essenes, a sect of fanatical Jews, distinguished by some practices deemed purifications, the *Test. xii. Patriarch. preserved in the British Museum, Kings MSS. 4. D. vii. 4. 5. + Ibidem. decency decency of which would require the pen of Swift to do them Now were we not disgusted with the impudence displayed in this catalogue of authorities, the absurdity of the crazy system raised on such a foundation, would surely have its full ef fect on our risible faculties. In order to maintain the sapient hypothesis, supported by these vouchers, the great body of professed Christians, from Justin to Photius, are represented as combined in a plot, for the purpose of concealing those important facts which our profound researcher has recovered from the obscurity in which they have lurked for centuries. Justin Martyr and St. Irenæus are convicted of prevarication; Origen and St. Epiphanius of calumny; and the whole body of martyrs and confessors, are represented as united in carrying on the farce of Christianity, while they deemed it an imposture. We are greatly apprehensive the patience of our readers is al ready more than exhausted, by the ideotic absurdities which The first part, compose the major part of our exposure. however, of the work before us presents little more which requires to be exposed or refuted. Some stale objections to the internal evidence of St. Luke's introductory chapters, which have been a thousand times answered, are again restated; and some * The author confounding the enrolment, which St. Luke ii. 1. declares was made at the time of the nativity; with the assessment which Josephus declares was made two years after the death of Herod; thence convicts the Evangelists of a contradiction, and infers that our Lord was born not before Herod's death, but ten years after that event happened, p. 141. sqq. The following distinctions will enable any person to solve the difficulties in which these chronological points are embarrassed by our author. Two assessments were made of Judæa, one of which happened under Herod, according to Josephus; Lard. Cred. of Gosp. Hist. Vol. I. p. 279. The first constitutes the census which Augustus took of his subjects and allies, and must have happened at the time of our The Saviour's birth: Prid. Connex. P. II. p. 650. 652. ed. 1718. second forms the taxation of Judæa, which was carried into effect by Quirinus, on the banishment of Archelaus, when Judea was reduced into a Roman province; Pagi Appar. Chron. ad Annal. That Josephus alludes to the latter in the Baron. n. cxxvii. p. 31. passage cited by our author is no where disputed. That St. Luke alludes to the former is equally incontrovertible. (1) He expressly declares it to be "the first enrolment;"&оyga¶h πęwτn: vid. Heb. xii. 23. conf. Raphel. Observ. in N. T. Tom. II. p. 723. Elsn. Observ. Sacr..p. 183. (2) He represents it as extending, not merely to Judæa, but to "the whole Roman Empire," a A a VOL. IV. OCTOber, 1815. την some perfectly original objections suggested to the introductory chapters of St. Matthew: the latter alone are deserving of particular notice. Our author lighting on the terms Magian and star, gets the notion of astrology into his wise head, and from the delusiveness of that art, the depravity of astrologers, and the coudemnation passed on them by Moses, takes occasion to rail against St. Matthew's account of the adoration of the wise meu, as an absurd and superstitious fiction (p. 119. sqq.). The readers of Dr. Bentley will not easily forget the blunder of Anthony Collins, who discovered that the Roman augurs, and Etruscan soothsayers were identical; but what a fool was he when compared to our researcher, who has not only found out that the Magian priests were identical with the Chaldean astrologers, but has blundered upon the discovery fifteen centuries after it has been exposed, as a gross error by Origen *. ge The term Magian is not unknown to the Persees, a religious sect, which prevails at Surat, in the Deccan, in India; Magoe signifying a priest, in the Pehlvit; a language in which many of the sacred books of that antient sect are written. The religious opinions of this sect, which originally migrated from Persia, are immediately derived from Zoroaster; but by the neral consent of the orientalists, they are ultimately referred to the Patriarch Abraham §. When it is known that their sacred books contain prophecies relative to the advent of a great prophet, who was to be born of a Virgin ; it will not be thought extraordinary that they should be deemed worthy of notice in the Evangelical history; it will not be conceived improbable that they are the identical Magi to whom St. Matthew refers in his Gospel. Thy oixapéme, as this phrase properly signifies: vid. Raphel. ib. p. 723. Elsn. ib. p. 173. (3) He accordingly marks the event, not by the reign of Herod, whose kingdom was not then taxed, as in alliance with the Romans; but by the Presidency of Quirinus, by whom, as Augustus's officer, all the subjects and allies of the Emperor, were enrolled as well in Judæa as Syria; vid. Pag. ubi supr. The reader who wishes for edification may now turn to our author; who extracts from these several circumstances, his proofs, that Judæa was not assessed under. Herod. * Orig. Contr. Cels. Lib. I. cap. lviii. p. 373. b. d. + Voy. Anquet. du Perron, Zendavest. Tom. II. p. 516. Vocab. au mot, Magoe. conf. Diog. Laert. in Proœm. Tom. I. p. 6. ed. 1692. 1. sqq. Anquet. du Perr. ibid. Tom. I. P. II. p. |