Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/838

Tue earliest l [nota- 1 ions i'rom the Gospels 814 Iicternul 15':-icleicce. The composite nature of the synoptic Gospels will affect the inferences we shall draw from early quotations of passages found in them, where the authors of the Gospels are not expressly mentioned. If, for example, ve find in Justin a passage (quoted as a saying of the Lord) which is found both in Matthew and Luke, Justin may indeed have quoted it from Matthew or from Luke; but it is also possible that he may have quoted it neither from Matthew nor from Luke, but either (a) from the common source whence .Iatthew and Luke derived the passage, or ((2) from some other book or tradition, which, like Matthew and Luke, included the passage in its collection or compilation. The same applies to a quotation from the Triple Tradition. It may be quoted from .Iatthew or from Mark or from Luke ; but it is also possible that it may be drawn from none of these, but from the common tradition itself, or from some other treatise based on the Triple Tradition. Taking the evidence chronologically, we come first to the testi- mony of Paul, who, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, says (1 Cor. xi. 23), ‘‘I received from the Lord that which also I de- livcred to you ;" and then follows a description of the institution of the Lord's Supper, differing materially from Matthew and Mark, and agreeing iii the main with Luke, except that Paul repeats twice the command, “ Do this in remembrance of Me.” It would seem unreasonable and scarcely reverent to suppose that a special revelation revealed to Paul the exact words of the institution; but comparing the passage with Gal. i. 9, 12, we see that Paul merely says here about this part of his teaching what in Cal. i. 9, 12 he says about the whole of it, viz. , that he received it from the Lord and not from man. From Ananias, or from other elders of the church, he may have received the words of oral tradition of the church; but for the meaning and spiritual force of it, and the application of each part of it to the work of redemption, he was indebted, not to the elders of the church in Damascus, but to the revelations given to him in the solitude of Arabia. The words of Paul, therefore, do not exclude (and the facts render probable) the use of oral tradition in this passage. This being so, it may seem remarkable that Paul follows the tradition contained in the latest of the three Gospels. It can hardly be that Luke has here preserved the earliest tradition. The insertion of “new” before “testament" (not inserted in the correct text of Matthew and Mark), and the ampler narrative of Luke indicate a later, not an earlier, shape of the tradition. The word “ testament ” appears to have been used by our Lord in the ordinary sense of “will" and ‘‘testament,'’ indicating that in that funeral feast He was be- queathing Himself to His disciples for ever.‘ The insertion of “ new,” by a sort of play upon the double meaning of the word “ testament,” introduces the sense of “ covenant," and therewith a contrast between the old and the new covenants. But this sug- gestive thought (highly characteristic of Paul) seems more likely to have been added to the original in process of explanation, than to have been dropped by Matthew and Mark through neglect, or discarded owing to difficulty. The probable solution therefore would seem to be that Luke has embodied, not the earliest tradi- tion, but the later Pauline shape of the tradition. Ve have here therefore not Paul supporting the tradition of Luke, but Luke (in all probability) borrowing from Paul.” The only other pas- saae in which Paul (in the Acts) quotes a saying of Jesus con- tains (Acts xx. 35) words not found in any of om‘ Gospels, “ It is more blessed to give than to receive.” The Second Epistle of Peter (2 Pet. i. 17) contains a reference (apparently) to the transfiguration, of which the writer speaks as an eye-witness. _ But this testimony, most important if genuine, is almost certainly spurious. The mention of the mount of transfiguration as “the Holy Mount," and of Panl’s epistles as “ scriptures,” would _in itself suggest a late date; and Canon West- eott (Gospels, p. 175) justly says that “ the comparative elaborateness _ " Similarly it is used in.the Epistle to the Ilebrews (ix 17), dtafirixn -ydp an vetrpois Beflala ' é1rec ,u.1i1ro—re iaxfiez 376 6 6La0é,u.euos. This use of the word is also found in the title of the early apocryphal work, The Tata- ments of the Twelve Patriarchs. It is said by Mr Sinker, in his edition of that work (p. 32), that probably, by the time of the composition of the Testaments (1'.e , before 135 ..n ), “the word 6ta9p§m; itself had been taken into Hebrew in the sense of "will” (Buxtorf. Ler. Rabb. s.v.). It would seem to follow that long before that date. the word 6(a0r'1Iu1 was in regular use, in ilebraic Greek, to render the meaning “ will” or “ testament,"although of course it also represents (and very much more frequently, owing to the more frequent repetition of the thought in the New Testament) the meaning “covennnt." 2 If the similarity between Luke xxii. 20 and 1 Cor. xi. 25 arises from an interpolation in the former, in that case the negative conclusion remains the same, that we have not here Paul supporting the tradition of Luke. GOSPELS [SYNC l’Tl it L. of the description (of the transfiguration) seems to offer an instruct- ive contrast to the simplicity of the earlier Gospel.” External evidence is also against the genuiucness oi' this epistlc. Up to the timcs of Clement of Alexandria “ no trace has been found" of its existence ('esteott, Chnozz, p. 349); and neither Origcn nor linse- bins accepts it as canonical. 'l'o obtain a complete idea of th.- judgment of the church upon the canon, we must combine (West- cott, Canon, p. 264) the two canons of the East and West; by doing this “ we obtain, 1cillL_ om: c.rcq;l¢'o.I, a perfect Xtw Testament without the admixture of any foreign clement.” That ‘ ‘ exception " i.-. the Second Epistle of Peter. The only importance to be attached therefore to the testimony of an epistle thus rejected by the general consent of the early church is that which attaches itself to an early literary fabrication composed so early as to have found a place in our canon. _Such a composition (mentioning l‘aul’s lt'lltl'2~‘a as “ scriptures ') cannot have been written before the beginning of the seeond century; yet we find that, even at that (late, the common tradition is quoted most inexactly. The voice from heaven, as given by the author of the spurious epistle, is, ‘O yids you 6 &.'ya.1r'n'ni9 you oi:-rtis e'a"rw eis by €73» ei':5¢5m7a'a' But in Illattln-w (xvii. In it is oirrés 6'0’-rm 6 uitis ,u.ov 6 &'ya1r-n'r6s 39 «[3 efz56K'na'a.' drcoiiere ai/'ror7. Mark and Luke differ still more from the Epistle, for they both omit ebfiéxnaa. The inaccuracy is the more serious because, in dc:-;«-ribing the baptism of J csus, Matthew (iii. 17) speaks of a voice f 1 om heaven which almost exactly agrees with the words in the Epistle, omitting the words &Kor5€'r¢ at‘:-ro:7. ln these circumstances it is impossible to say that the author of this spurious Epistle had Matthew l:('f0l'(- him. Much more probably he was quoting from memory, or fi'ui. some document differing from any of our synoptic Gospels. The next witness is Clement of liome, whose Epistle to the (‘It-mt-u Corinthians, probably written in or soon after 95 _-.D. (Lightfoot’s Clcmcnt of Rome, Appendix, p. 267), contains three passages which may indicate a use of our Gospels. (1) in chap. xiii. he blends together (Sunday, The Gospels 1:: the Stcoml Ccnlm'y, p. 9:21) pas- sages common to Matthew (v. 7; vi. 14; vii. 12; vii. 2), Mark (iv. 24; xi, 25), and Luke (vi. 36, 37, 31, 38, 37) in a terse, antithetical, and uniform style, inserting the words, ‘.0: xp-no-rerfieafle oi/"nos xp1)a"IEu91'7a'e'rai u';p.Iv. Dr Lightfoot has pointed out that the loose- ness of this quotation does not exceed the looseness with which (Chap. 12) the same author quotes the narrative of llahab, and therefore it is quite possible that here, as there, Clement maybe simply quoting from memory with no other documents than Matthew and Luke in his mind; but to many the “ roundness, c,ompactncss, and balance of style" which Dr Sunday notices in the quotation will make it probable that Clement was quoting, not perhaps from any other document (for else how is it that no trace remains of a docu- mentary vcrsion of the word of the Lord so “rounded and compact" in style, a.nd used 95 A. D. by so eminent a man as C lcment of Rome in writing to the church of Corinth '1), but with some tradition in his memory (which had perhaps served the purpose of preachers, teachers, and catechists in the lioman Church), blending and con- densing the versions of Matthew and Luke into a form adapted for the oral instruction of converts. ('2) ln another passage (chap. xxvi.) Clement combines Mat. xviii. 6 (Mk. ix. 42.; L11. xvii. 1, 2) aml Matt. xxvi. 24 (Mk. xiv. 21 ; Lu. xxii. 22) in a mamicr which sug- gests quoting from memory. (3) A third passage (Sunday, p. 7“) contains a quotation from Isaiah (xxix. 13) differing i'ro1n the Hebrew and from the similar LXX. (which is, £7-yig'ci ‘M01 6 Au?»- oirros 37 'r@ 016/.La'n ail-rofi, Ital 6'7 707: x¢L'A¢a'.v ab-ray npuloiv ,u.e, 1'7 8% xapfila ab-nay rréfifaw i1r¢'xu drr’ e'p.ui3), and substituting a con- dcnsed and antithetical form, o5-ros 6 M12»: 10?; XeiAea'iu ,u.e -rquci, 7'; 52- Icapoia airriixy rréflfiw &1r€o-nu Eur‘ e‘p.oi}, which is also found in Matt. xv. 8 and Mk. vii. 6 (except that they read dwréxu for &1ré¢1'nv). The inference has been drawn that Clement is quoting frc>.::e our Gospels. But this is not the only passage where quota- tions from the Old Testament in the New appear to have been influ- enced by an “ ecclesiastical use," arising in some cases from a desire to make the application closer (compare J o. xix. 37 with the LXZZ. version of Zech. xii. 10, and note that this version is exactly quoieu by Justin, and allusiveiy by the author of the Apocalypse, i. 7), in part from abridmncnt or other causes (compare Mat. iii. 3; Mk. i. 3; Lu. iii. 4 with Isa. x1. 3). Therefore, even though the citation in Clement exactly coincided with the citation in Mark and Matthew, it would not follow that Clement cited it from them; and as the quotation is not identical, the probability is that it is quoted by Clement, with a slight alteration, from memory of “ecclesiastical use.” There is also in chap ii. (“more gladly giving than receiving") an allusion to the saying of Jesus men- tioned in Acts xx. 35. Our conclusion is—(a) that Clement of Rome, about 95 A.D., is proved to have a knowledge of the several scattered sentences in our common tradition which he quotes as “words of the Lord," but very loosely and freely; (b) that his quotation of the Old Testament appears on one occasion to be influ- enced by Christian “ecclesiastical use"; (c) that he uses (but. whether as a quotation or not we have no means of determining) some words n-ot found in our Gospels, which words are attributed to Jesus by

the author of the Acts of the Apostles.