The Author of Supernatural Religion Refuted by Himself - The Lost Gospel and Its Contents

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Irenaeus, it is to be remembered, died at the end of the second century,
and his birth is placed within the first quarter of it, so that, in all
probability, he had known numbers of Christians who had conversed with
Clement.

According to the author of "Supernatural Religion," the great mass of
critics assign the Epistle of Clement to between the years A.D. 95-100.

In dealing with this Epistle I shall, for argument's sake, assume that
Clement quoted from an earlier Gospel than any one of our present ones,
and that the one he quoted might be the Gospel according to the Hebrews,
and I shall ask the same question that I asked respecting Justin
Martyr--What views of Christ's Person and work and doctrine did he
derive from this Gospel of his?

The Epistle of Clement is one in which we should scarcely expect to find
much reference to the Supernatural, for it is written throughout for the
one practical purpose of healing the divisions in the Church of Corinth.
These the writer ascribes to envy, and cites a number of Scripture
examples of the evil effects of this disposition and the good effects of
the contrary one. He adheres to this purpose throughout, and every word
he writes bears more or less directly on his subject. Yet in this
document, from which, by its design, the subject of the supernatural
seems excluded, we have all the leading features of supernatural
Christianity. We have the Father sending the Son (ch. xlii.); we have
the Son coming of the seed of Jacob according to the Flesh (ch. xxxii.);
we have the words, "Our Lord Jesus Christ, the sceptre of the Majesty of
God, did not come in the pomp of pride and arrogance, although He might
have done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy Spirit had declared
regarding Him" (ch. xvi.); and at the end of the same we have:--

"If the Lord thus humbled Himself, what shall we do who have through
Him come under the yoke of His grace?"

Clement describes Him in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews as
One--

"Who, being the brightness of His [God's] Majesty, is by so much
greater than the angels as He hath by inheritance obtained a more
excellent name than they." (Ch. xxxvi.)

We have Clement speaking continually of the Death of Jesus as taking
place for the highest of supernatural purposes,--the reconciliation of
all men to God. "Let us look," he writes, "steadfastly to the Blood of
Christ, and see how precious that Blood is to God, which, having been
shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole
world." (Ch. vii.) Again, "And thus they made it manifest that
Redemption should flow through the Blood of the Lord to all them that
believe and hope in God." (Ch. xii.) Again, "On account of the love He
bore us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His Blood for us by the will of God,
His Flesh for our flesh, and His Soul for our souls." (Ch. xlix.) His
sufferings are apparently said by Clement to be the sufferings of God.
(Ch. ii.) But, above all, the statement of the truth of our Lord's
Resurrection, and of ours through His, is as explicit as possible:--

"Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord continually proves to us
that there shall be a future resurrection, of which He has rendered
the Lord Jesus the first fruits by raising Him from the dead." (Ch.
xxiv.)

"[The Apostles] having therefore received their orders, and being
fully assured by the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
established in the Word of God, with full assurance of the Holy
Ghost, they went forth proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at
hand." (Ch. xlii.)

When we look to Clement's theology, we find it to have been what would
now be called, in the truest and best sense of the word, "Evangelical,"
thus:--

"We too, being called by His Will in Christ Jesus, are not justified
by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness,
or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that
faith through which from the beginning Almighty God has justified
all men." (Ch. xxxii.)

Again:--

"All these the Great Creator and Lord of all has appointed to exist
in peace and harmony; while He does good to all, but most abundantly
to us who have fled for refuge to His compassion through Jesus
Christ our Lord."

And he ends his Epistle with the following prayer:--

"May God, who seeth all things, and Who is the Ruler of all Spirits
and the Lord of all Flesh--Who chose our Lord Jesus, and us through
Him to be a peculiar people--grant to every soul that calleth upon
His glorious and holy Name, faith, fear, peace, patience, long
suffering, self-control, purity and sobriety, to the well pleasing
of His Name through our High Priest and Protector Jesus Christ."
(Ch. lviii.)

But with all this his Christianity seems to have been Ecclesiastical, in
the technical sense of the word. He seems to have had a much clearer and
firmer hold than Justin had of the truth that Christ instituted, not
merely a philosophy or system of teaching, but a mystical body or
visible Church, having its gradations of officers corresponding to the
officers of the Jewish Ecclesiastical system, and its orderly
arrangements of worship. (Ch. xl-xlii.)

Now this is the Christianity of a man who lived at least sixty or
seventy years nearer to the fountain head of Christian truth than did
Justin Martyr, whose witness to dogmatical or supernatural Christianity
we have shown at some length.

It is also gathered out of a comparatively short book, not one sixth of
the length of the writings of Justin, and composed solely for an
undogmatic purpose.

His views of Christ and His work are precisely the same as those of
Justin. By all rule of rationalistic analogy they ought to have been
less "ecclesiastical," but in some respects they are more so.

Clement certainly seems to bring out more fully our Lord's Resurrection
(taking into consideration, that is, the scope of his one remaining book
and its brevity), and the Resurrection of Christ is the crowning miracle
which stamps the whole dispensation as supernatural.

So far, then, as the Supernatural is concerned, it makes no difference
whatsoever whether Clement used the Gospel according to St. Matthew or
the Gospel according to the Hebrews. His Gospel, whatever it was, not
only filled his heart with an intense and absorbing love of Christ, and
a desire that all men should imitate Him, but it filled his mind with
that view of the religion of Christ which we call supernatural and
evangelical, but which the author of "Supernatural Religion" calls
ecclesiastical.

The question now arises, not so much from whom, but when, did he receive
this view of Christ and His system. I do not mean, of course, the more
minute features, but the substance. To what period must his
reminiscences as a Christian extend? What time must his experiences
cover? Irenaeus, in the place I have quoted, speaks of him as the
companion of Apostles, Clement of Alexandria as an Apostle, Eusebius and
Origen as the fellow-labourer of St. Paul. Now, I will not at present
insist upon the more than likelihood that such was the fact. I will, for
argument's sake, assume that he was some other Clement; but, whoever he
was, one thing respecting him is certain--that the knowledge of
Christianity was not poured into him at the moment when he wrote his
Epistle, nor did he receive it ten--twenty--thirty years before. St.
Peter and St. Paul were martyred in A.D. 68; the rest of the Apostolic
College were dispersed long before. This Epistle shows little or no
trace of the peculiar Johannean teaching or tradition of the Apostle who
survived all the others; so, unless he had received his Christian
teaching some years before the Martyrdom of the two Apostles Peter and
Paul, that is, some time before A.D. 68, probably many years, I do not
see that there can have been the smallest ground even for the tradition
of the very next generation after his own that he knew the Apostles.
Such a tradition could not possibly have been connected with the name of
a man who became a Christian late in the century.

Now, supposing that he was sixty-five years old when he wrote his
Epistle, he was born about the time of our Lord's Death: he was
consequently a contemporary of the generation that had witnessed the
Death and Resurrection of Christ and the founding of the Church. If he
had ever been in Jerusalem before its destruction, he must have fallen
in with multitudes of surviving Christians of the 5,000 who were
converted on and just after the day of Pentecost.

His Christian reminiscences, then, must have extended far into the age
of the contemporaries of Christ. A man who was twenty-five years old at
the time of the Resurrection of Christ would scarcely be reckoned an old
man at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Clement consequently
might have spent twenty of the best years of his life in the company of
persons who were old enough to have seen the Lord in the Flesh. [193:1]

So that his knowledge of the Death and Resurrection of Christ, and the
founding of the Church, even if he had never seen St. Paul or any other
Apostle, must have been derived from a generation of men, all the older
members of which wore Christians of the Pentecostal period.

Now when we come to compare the Epistle of Clement with the only
remaining Christian literature of the earliest period, _i.e._ the
earlier Epistles of St. Paul, we find both the account of Christ and the
Theology built upon that account, to be the same in the one and in the
other.

The supernatural fact respecting Christ to which the earliest Epistles
of St. Paul most prominently refer, was His Resurrection as the pledge
of ours, and this is the fact respecting Christ which is put most
prominently forward by Clement, and for the same purpose. The First
Epistle to the Corinthians is referred to by Clement in the words:--

"Take up the Epistle of the Blessed Apostle Paul. What did he write
to you at the time when the Gospel first began to be preached?
Truly, under the inspiration of the Spirit ([Greek: pneumatikos]) he
wrote to you concerning himself and Cephas and Apollos, because even
then parties had been formed among you." (Ch. xlvii.)

The other reproductions of the language of St. Paul's Epistles are
numerous, and I give them in a note. [194:1] The reader will see at a
glance that the Theology or Christology of Clement was that of the
earliest writings of the Church of which we have any remains, and to
these he himself frequently and unmistakably refers.

The earlier Epistles of St. Paul, as those to the Thessalonians,
Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, are acknowledged on all hands, even
by advanced German Rationalists, to be the genuine works of the Apostle
Paul; indeed one might as well deny that such a man ever existed as
question their authenticity. The First Epistle to the Corinthians, which
is the longest and most dogmatic of the earlier ones, cannot have been
written after the year 58. In a considerable number of chronological
tables to which I have referred, the earliest date is the year 52, and
the latest 58.

To the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, which is undoubtedly the
earliest of all, the earliest date assigned is 47, and the latest 53.

Now it is ever to be remembered that in each of these--the First to the
Thessalonians and the First to the Corinthians--we have enunciations of
the great crowning supernatural event of Scripture--the Resurrection of
Christ and our Resurrection as depending upon it, which are unsurpassed
in the rest of Scripture.

So that in the first Christian writing which has come down to us, we
have the great fact of Supernatural Religion, which carries with it all
the rest.

The fullest enunciation of the evidences of the Resurrection is in a
writing whose date cannot be later than 58, and runs thus:--

"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached
unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by
which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto
you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first
of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He
rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And that He
was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that [196:1] He was
seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater
part remain unto this present [twenty-five years after the event]
but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen of James, then of
all the Apostles, and last of all He was seen of me also." (1 Cor.
xv. 1.)

If the reader compares this with the accounts in any one of the Four,
he will find that it gives the fullest list of our Lord's appearances
which has come down to us, and this, be it remembered, forming part of
the most categorical declaration of what the Gospel is, to be found in
the New Testament. [196:1]

A man, then, writes in A.D. 57 or earlier, that another, Who had died in
A.D. 32 had been seen by a number of persons, and among these, by 500
persons at once, of whom the greater part were alive when he wrote, and
implying that the story had been believed ever since, and received by
him (the writer) from those who had seen this Jesus, and that the fact
was so essential to the religion that it was itself called "the Gospel,"
a name continually given to the whole system of Christianity, and
moreover that he himself, when in company with others, had seen this
Jesus at noon-day, and, the history asserts, had been blinded by the
sight. Now let the reader recall to his mind any public man who died
twenty-five years ago, that is, in 1850, and imagine this man appearing,
not as a disembodied spirit, but in his resuscitated body to first one
of his friends, then to eleven or twelve, then to another, then to five
hundred persons at one time, and a flourishing and aggressive
institution founded upon this his appearance, and numbers of persons
giving up their property, and breaking with all their friends, and
adopting a new religion, and a new course of life of great self-denial,
and even encountering bitter persecution and death, simply because they
believed this man to be alive from the dead, and moreover some
professing to do miracles, and to confer the power of doing miracles in
the name and by the power of this risen man.

Let the reader, I say, try to imagine all this, and then he will be able
to judge of the credulity with which the author credits his readers when
he writes:--

"All history shows how rapidly pious memory exaggerates and
idealizes the traditions of the past, and simple actions might
readily be transformed into miracles as the narrative circulated, in
a period so prone to superstition, and so characterized by love of
the marvellous." (Vol. ii. p. 209.)

"All history," the author says; but why does he not give us a few
instances out of "all history," that we might compare them with this
Gospel account, and see if there was anything like it?

Such a story, if false, is not a myth. A myth is the slow growth of
falsehood through long ages, and this story of the Resurrection was
written circumstantially within twenty years of its promulgation, by one
who had been an unbeliever, and who had conferred with those who must
have been the original promoters of the falsehood, if it be one.

To call such a story a myth, is simply to shirk the odium of calling it
by its right name, or more probably to avoid having to meet the
astounding historical difficulty of supposing that men endured what the
Apostles endured for what they must have known to have been a falsehood,
and the still more astounding difficulty that One Whom the author of
"Supernatural Religion" allows to have been a Teacher Who "carried
morality to the sublimest point attained or even attainable by
humanity," and Whose "life, as far as we can estimate it, was uniformly
noble and consistent with his lofty principles," should have impressed a
character of such deep-rooted fraud and falsehood on His most intimate
friends.

The author of "Supernatural Religion" has, however, added another to the
many proofs of the truth of the Gospel. In his elaborate book of 1,000
pages of attack on the authenticity of the Evangelists he has shown,
with a clearness which, I think, has never been before realized, the
great fact that from the first there has been but one account of Jesus
Christ. In the writings of heathens, of Jews, of heretics, [199:1] in
lost gospels, in contemporary accounts, in the earliest traditions of
the Church, there appears but one account, the account called by its
first proclaimers the Gospel; and the only explanation of the existence
of this Gospel is its truth.

THE END.

[FOOTNOTES]

[3:1] Papias, for instance, actually mentions St. Mark by name as
writing a gospel under the influence of St. Peter. The author of
"Supernatural Religion" devotes ten pages to an attempt to prove that
this St. Mark's Gospel could not be ours. (Vol. i. pp. 448-459.)

[6:1] I need hardly say that I myself hold the genuineness of the Greek
recension. The reader who desires to see the false reasonings and
groundless assumptions of the author of "Supernatural Religion"
respecting the Ignatian epistles thoroughly exposed should read
Professor Lightfoot's article in the "Contemporary Review" of February,
1875. In pages 341-345 of this article there is an examination of the
nature and trustworthiness of the learning displayed in the footnotes of
this pretentious book, which is particularly valuable. I am glad to see
that the professor has modified, in this article, the expression of his
former opinion that the excerpta called the Curetonian recension is to
be regarded as the only genuine one. "Elsewhere," the professor writes
(referring to an essay in his commentary on the Philippians), "I had
acquiesced in the earlier opinion of Lipsius, who ascribed them (_i.e._,
the Greek or Vossian recension) to an interpolator writing about A.D.
140. Now, however, I am obliged to confess that I have grave and
increasing doubts whether, after all, they are not the genuine
utterances of Ignatius himself."

[10:1] [Greek: Ou gar monon en Hellesi dia Sokratous hypo logou elenchthe
tauta, alla kai en Barbarois hyp' autou tou Logou morphothentos kai
anthropou genomenou kai Iesou Christou klethentous.]

[10:2] Such is a perfectly allowable translation of [Greek: kai ton par'
autou hyion elthonta kai didaxanta hemas tauta, kai ton ton allon
hepomenon kai exomoioumenon agathon angelon straton, pneuma te to
prophetikon sebometha kai proskynoumen.] As there is nothing approaching
to angel worship in Justin, such a rendering seems absolutely necessary.

[15:1] "For the law promulgated in Horeb is now old, and belongs to you
alone; but this is for all universally. Now law placed against law has
abrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in
like manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal and final
law--namely, Christ--has been given to us." (Heb. viii. 6-13; Dial. ch.
xi.)

[15:2] "For the true spiritual Israel and descendants of Judah, Jacob,
Isaac, and Abraham (who in uncircumcision was approved of and blessed by
God on account of his faith, and called the father of many nations) are
we who have been led to God through this crucified Christ, as shall be
demonstrated while we proceed." (Phil. iii. 3, compared with Romans, iv.
12-18; Dial. ch. xi.)

[17:1] This, of course, was a Jewish adversary's view of the Christian
doctrine of the Godhead of Christ, which Justin elsewhere modifies by
showing the subordination of the Son to the Father in all things.

[19:1] [Greek: En gar tois apomnemoneumasi, ha phemi hypo ton apostolon
autou kai ton ekeinois parakolouthesanton syntetachthai, hoti hidros
hosei thromboi katecheito autou euchomenou.] (Dial. ch. ciii.)

[20:1] [Greek: Kai to eipein metonomakenai auton Petron hena ton
apostolon, kai gegraphthai en tois apomnemoneumasin autou gegenemenon
kai touto, k.t.l.]

On this question the author of "Supernatural Religion" remarks,
"According to the usual language of Justin, and upon strictly critical
grounds, the [Greek: autou] in this passage must be ascribed to Peter;
and Justin therefore seems to ascribe the Memoirs to that Apostle, and
to speak consequently of a Gospel of Peter." (Vol. i. p. 417.)

[28:1] That of our Lord being born in a cave.

[29:1] [Greek: Ioannou gar kathezomenou.]

[34:1] Justin has [Greek: hidros hosei thromboi]; St. Luke, [Greek: ho
hidros autou hosei thromboi haimatos]. The author of "Supernatural
Religion" lays great stress upon the omission of [Greek: haimatos], as
indicating that Justin did not know anything about St. Luke; but we have
to remember, first, that St. Luke alone mentions _any_ sweat of our Lord
in His agony; secondly, that the account in Justin is said to be taken
from "Memoirs drawn up by Apostles and _those who followed them_," _St.
Luke being only one of those who followed_; thirdly, Justin and St. Luke
both use a very scarce word, [Greek: thromboi]; fourthly, Justin and St.
Luke both qualify this word by [Greek: hosei]. If we add to this the
fact that [Greek: thromboi] seems naturally associated with blood in
several authors, the probability seems almost to reach certainty, that
Justin had St. Luke's account in his mind. The single omission is far
more easy to be accounted for than the four coincidences.

[37:1] And He said unto them, "These are the words which I spake unto
you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which
were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms
concerning me." (Luke xxiii. 44.)

[48:1] It is the reading of Codices B and C of the Codex Sinaiticus of
the Syriac, and of a number of Fathers and Versions.

[51:1] [Greek: Hekastos gar tis apo merous tou spermatikou theiou logou
to syngenes horon kalos ephthenxato.]

[63:1] For instance, in vol. ii. p. 42, &c., he speaks of one
of Tischendorf's assertions as "a conclusion the audacity of
which can scarcely be exceeded."--Then, "This is, however, almost
surpassed by the treatment of Canon Westcott."--Then, "The unwarranted
inference of Tischendorf."--"There is no ground for Tischendorf's
assumption."--"Tischendorf, the self-constituted modern Defensor Fidei,
asserts with an assurance which can scarcely be characterized otherwise
than as an unpardonable calculation upon the ignorance of his
readers."--"Canon Westcott says, with an assurance which, considering
the nature of the evidence, is singular."--"Even Dr. Westcott states,"
&c.--For Tertullian his contempt seems unbounded: indeed we way say the
same of all the Fathers. Numberless times does he speak of their
"uncritical spirit." The only person for whom he seems to have a respect
is the heretic Marcion. Even rationalists, such as Credner and Ewald,
are handled severely when they differ from him. The above are culled
from a few pages.

[69:1] [Greek: Hoti Theos hypemeine gennethenai kai anthropos
genesthai.]

[69:2] [Greek: Ex hon diarrheden outous autos ho staurotheis hoti Theos
kai anthropos, kai stauroumenos kai apothneskon kekerygmenos
apodeiknytai.]

[70:1] The reader must remember that Justin puts this expression, which
seems to imply a duality of Godhead, into the mouth of an adversary. In
other places, as I shall show, he very distinctly guards against such a
notion, by asserting the true and proper Sonship of the Word and his
perfect subordination to His Father. There is a passage precisely
similar in ch. lv.

[71:1] "I continued: Moreover, I consider it necessary to repeat to you
the words which narrate how He is both Angel and God and Lord, and Who
appeared as a Man to Abraham." (Dial. ch. lviii.)

"Permit me, further, to show you from the Book of Exodus, how this same
One, Who is both Angel, and God, and Lord, and Man." (Dial. ch. lix.)

"God begat before all creatures, a Beginning, a certain rational Power
from Himself, Who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the
Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord
and Logos." (Dial. ch. lxi.)

"The Word of Wisdom, Who is Himself this God, begotten of the Father of
all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the
Begetter, will bear evidence to me," &c. (Dial. lxi.)

"Therefore these words testify explicitly that He is witnessed to by Him
Who established these things [_i.e._ the Father] as deserving to be
worshipped, as God and as Christ." (Dial. lxiii.)

The reader will find other declarations, most of which are equally
explicit, in Dial. ch. lvi. (at the end), ch. lvii. (at the end), lxii.
(middle), lxviii. (at middle and end), lxxiv. (middle), lxxv., lxxvi.
(made Him known, being Christ, as God strong and to be worshipped),
lxxxv. (twice called the Lord of Hosts), lxxxvii. (where Christ is
declared to be pre-existent God), cxiii. (he [Joshua] was neither
Christ, Who is God, nor the Son of God), cxv. (our Priest, Who is God,
and Christ, the Son of God, the Father of all), cxxiv. (Now I have
proved at length that Christ is called God), cxxv. (He ministered to the
will of the Father, yet nevertheless is God), cxxvi. (thrice in this
chapter), cxxvii., cxxviii., cxxix.

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