The Gospels in the Second Century Part 20

_Athenagoras, Leg. pro Christ. 11._

What then are the precepts in which we are instructed? I say unto you: Love your enemies, bless them that curse, pray for them that persecute you; that ye may become the sons of your Father which is in heaven: who maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.

[Greek: Tines oun haemon hoi logoi, hois entrephometha; lego humin, agapate tous echthrous humon, eulogeite tous kataromenous, proseuchesthe huper ton diokonton humas, hopos genaesthe huioi tou patros humon tou en ouranois, hos ton haelion autou anatellei epi ponaerous kai agathous kai brechei epi dikaious kai adikous.]

_Matt_. v. 44, 45.

I say unto you: Love your enemies [bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you], and pray for them that persecute you; that ye may become the sons of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.

[Greek: ego de lego humin, agapate tous echthrous humon [eulogeite tous kataromenous humas, kalos poiete tous misountas humas], proseuchesthe huper ton diokonton humas hopos genaesthe huioi tou patros humon tou en ouranois, hoti ton haelion autou anatellei epi ponaerous kai agathous kai brechei epi dikaious kai adikous.]

The bracketed clauses in the text of St. Matthew are both omitted and inserted by a large body of authorities, but, as it is rightly remarked in 'Supernatural Religion,' they are always either both omitted or both inserted; we must therefore believe that the omission and insertion of one only by Athenagoras is without ma.n.u.script precedent. Otherwise the exactness of the parallel is great; and it is thrown the more into relief when we compare the corresponding pa.s.sage in St. Luke.

The quotation is completed in the next chapter of Athenagoras'

work:--

_Athenagoras, Leg. pro Christ._ 12.

For if ye love, he says, them which love and lend to them which lend to you, what reward shall ye have?

[Greek: Ean gar agapate, phaesin, tous agapontas, kai daineizete tois daneizousin humin, tina misthon hexete;]

_Matt._ v. 46.

For if ye shall love them which love you, what reward have ye?

[Greek: Ean gar agapaesaete tous agapontas humas tina misthon echete;]

Here the middle clause in the quotation appears to be a reminiscence of St. Luke vi. 34 ([Greek: ean danisaete par' hon elpizete labein]). Justin also, it should be noted, has [Greek: agapate] (but [Greek: ei agapate]) for [Greek: agapaesaete]. If this pa.s.sage had stood alone, taking into account the variations and the even run and balance of the language we might have thought perhaps that Athenagoras had had before him a different version.

Yet the [Greek: tina misthon], compared with the [Greek: poia charis] of St. Luke and [Greek: ti kainon poieite] of Justin, would cause misgivings, and greater run and balance is precisely what would result from 'unconscious cerebration.'

Two more references are pointed out to Matt. v. 28 and Matt. v.

32, one with slight, the other with medium, variation, which leave the question very much in the same position.

We ought not to omit to notice that Athenagoras quotes one uncanonical saying, introducing it with the phrase [Greek: palin haemin legontos tou logou]. I am not at all clear that this is not merely one of the 'precepts' [Greek: oi logoi] alluded to above.

At any rate it is exceedingly doubtful that the Logos is here personified. It seems rather parallel to the [Greek: ho logos edaelou] of Justin (Dial. c. Tryph. 129).

Considering the date at which he wrote I have little doubt that Athenagoras is actually quoting from the Synoptics, but he cannot, on the whole, be regarded as a very powerful witness for them.

4.

After the cruel persecution from which the Churches of Vienne and Lyons had suffered in the year 177 A.D., a letter was written in their name, containing an account of what had happened, which Lardner describes as 'the finest thing of the kind in all antiquity' [Endnote 251:1]. This letter, which was addressed to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia, contained several quotations from the New Testament, and among them one that is evidently from St. Luke's Gospel.

It is said of one of the martyrs, Vettius Epagathus, that his manner of life was so strict that, young as he was, he could claim a share in the testimony borne to the more aged Zacharias. Indeed he had _walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless_, and in the service of his neighbour untiring, &c. [Endnote 252:1] The italicised words are a verbatim reproduction of Luke i. 6.

There is an ambiguity in the words [Greek: sunexisousthai tae tou presbuterou Zachariou marturia]. The genitive after [Greek: marturia]

may be either subjective or objective--'the testimony borne _by_'

or 'the testimony borne _to_ or _of_' the aged Zacharias. I have little doubt that the translation given above is the right one.

It has the authority of Lardner ('equalled the character of') and Routh ('Zachariae senioris elogio aequaretur'), and seems to be imperatively required by the context. The eulogy pa.s.sed upon Vettius Epagathus is justified by the uniform strictness of his daily life (he has walked in _all_ the commandments &c.), not by the single act of his constancy in death.

The author of 'Supernatural Religion,' apparently following Hilgenfeld [Endnote 252:2], adopts the other translation, and bases on it an argument that the allusion is to the _martyrdom_ of Zacharias, and therefore not to our third Gospel in which no mention of that martyrdom is contained. On the other hand, we are reminded that the narrative of the martyrdom of Zacharias enters into the Protevangelium of James. That apocryphal Gospel however contains nothing approaching to the words which coincide exactly with the text of St. Luke.

Even if there had been a greater doubt than there is as to the application of [Greek: marturia], it would be difficult to resist the conclusion that the Synoptic Gospel is being quoted. The words occur in the most peculiar and distinctive portion of the Gospel; and the correspondence is so exact and the phrase itself so striking as not to admit of any other source. The order, the choice of words, the construction, even to the use of the nominative [Greek: amemptos] where we might very well have had the adverb [Greek: amemptos], all point the same way. These fine edges of the quotation, so to speak, must needs have been rubbed off in the course of transmission through several doc.u.ments. But there is not a trace of any other doc.u.ment that contained such a remark upon the character of Zacharias.

This instance of a Synoptic quotation may, I think, safely be depended upon.

Another allusion, a little lower down in the Epistle, which speaks of the same Vettius Epagathus as 'having in himself the Paraclete [there is a play on the use of the word [Greek: paraklaetos] just before], the Spirit, more abundantly than Zacharias,' though in exaggerated and bad taste, probably has reference to Luke i. 67, 'And Zacharias his father was filled with the Holy Ghost,' &c.

[Footnote: Mr. Mason calls my attention to [Greek: enduma numphikon] in -- 13, and also to the misleading statement in _S.R._ ii. p. 201 that 'no writing of the New Testament is directly referred to.' I should perhaps have more fault to find with the sentence on p. 204, 'It follows clearly and few venture to doubt,' &c. I have a.s.sumed however for some time that the reader will be on his guard against expressions such as these.]

CHAPTER XI.

PTOLEMAEUS AND HERACLEON--CELSUS--THE MURATORIAN FRAGMENT.

We are now very near emerging into open daylight; but there are three items in the evidence which lie upon the border of the debateable ground, and as questions have been raised about these it may be well for us to discuss them.

We have already had occasion to speak of the two Gnostics Ptolemaeus and Heracleon. It is necessary, in the first place, to define the date of their evidence with greater precision, and, in the second, to consider its bearing.

Let us then, in attempting to do this, dismiss all secondary and precarious matter; such as (1) the argument drawn by Tischendorf [Endnote 254:1] from the order in which the names of the disciples of Valentinus are mentioned and from an impossible statement of Epiphanius which seems to make Heracleon older than Cerdon, and (2) the argument that we find in Volkmar and 'Supernatural Religion' [Endnote 254:2] from the use of the present tense by Hippolytus, as if the two writers, Ptolemaeus and Heracleon, were contemporaries of his own in 225-235 A.D. Hippolytus does indeed say, speaking of a division in the school of Valentinus, 'Those who are of Italy, of whom is Heracleon and Ptolemaeus, say' &c.

But there is no reason why there should not be a kind of historic present, just as we might say, 'The Atomists, of whom are Leucippus and Democritus, hold' &c., or 'St. Peter says this, St.

Paul says that.' The account of such presents would seem to be that the writer speaks as if quoting from a book that he has actually before him. It is not impossible that Heracleon and Ptolemaeus may have been still living at the time when Hippolytus wrote, but this cannot be inferred simply from the tense of the verb. Surer data are supplied by Irenaeus.

Irenaeus mentions Ptolemaeus several times in his first and second books, and on one occasion he couples with his the name of Heracleon. But to what date does this evidence of Irenaeus refer?

At what time was Irenaeus himself writing. We have seen that the _terminus ad quem_, at least for the first three books, is supplied by the death of Eleutherus (c. A.D. 190). On the other hand, the third book at least was written after the publication of the Greek version of the Old Testament by Theodotion, which Epiphanius tells us appeared in the reign of Commodus (180-190 A.D.). A still more precise date is given to Theodotion's work in the Paschal Chronicle, which places it under the Consuls Marcellus (Ma.s.suet would read 'Marullus') and Aelian in the year 184 A.D.

[Endnote 255:1] This last statement is worth very little, and it is indeed disputed whether Theodotion's version can have appeared so late as this. At any rate we must a.s.sume that it was in the hands of Irenaeus about 185 A.D., and it will be not before this that the third book of the work 'Against Heresies' was written. It will perhaps sufficiently satisfy all parties if we suppose that Irenaeus was engaged in writing his first three books between the years 182-188 A.D. But the name of Ptolemaeus is mentioned very near the beginning of the Preface; so that Irenaeus would be committing to paper the statement of his acquaintance with Ptolemaeus as early as 182 A.D.

This is however the last link in the chain. Let us trace it a little further backwards. Irenaeus' acquaintance with Ptolemaeus can hardly have been a fact of yesterday at the time when he wrote. Ptolemaeus represented the 'Italian' branch of the Valentinian school, and therefore it seems a fair supposition that Irenaeus would come in contact with him during his visit to Rome in 178 A.D.; and the four years from that date to 182 A.D. can hardly be otherwise than a short period to allow for the necessary intimacy with his teaching to have been formed.

But we are carried back one step further still. It is not only Ptolemaeus but Ptolemaeus _and his party_ ([Greek: hoi peri Ptolemaion]) [Endnote 256:1]. There has been time for Ptolemaeus to found a school within a school of his own; and his school has already begun to express its opinions, either collectively or through its individual members.

In this way the real date of Ptolemaeus seems still to recede, but I will not endeavour any further to put a numerical value upon it which might be thought to be prejudiced. It will be best for the reader to fill up the blank according to his own judgment.

Heracleon will to a certain extent go with Ptolemaeus, with whom he is persistently coupled, though, as he is only mentioned once by Irenaeus, the data concerning him are less precise. They are however supplemented by an allusion in the fourth book of the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria (which appears to have been written in the last decade of the century) to Heracleon as one of the chief of the school of Valentinus [Endnote 257:1], and perhaps also by a statement of Origen to the effect that Heracleon was said to be a [Greek: gnorimos] of Valentinus himself [Endnote 257:2].

The meaning of the latter term is questioned, and it is certainly true that it may stand for pupil or scholar, as Elisha was to Elijah or as the Apostles were to their Master; but that it could possibly be applied to two persons who never came into personal contact must be, I cannot but think, very doubtful. This then, if true, would throw back Heracleon some little way even beyond 160 A.D.

From the pa.s.sage in the Stromateis we gather that Heracleon, if he did not (as is usually inferred) write a commentary, yet wrote an isolated exposition of a portion of St. Luke's Gospel. In the same way we learn from Origen that he wrote a commentary upon St. John.

We shall probably not be wrong in referring many of the Valentinian quotations given by Irenaeus to Ptolemaeus and Heracleon. By the first writer we also have extant an Epistle to a disciple called Flora, which has been preserved by Epiphanius.

This Epistle, which there is no reason to doubt, contains unequivocal references to our first Gospel.

_Epistle to Flora. Epiph. Haer._ 217 A.