(b) Copies of ancient documents, made by those most interested in their faithfulness, are presumed to correspond with the originals, even although those originals no longer exist. Since it was the church's interest to have faithful copies, the burden of proof rests upon the objector to the Christian documents.

Upon the evidence of a copy of its own records, the originals having been lost, the House of Lords decided a claim to the peerage; see Starkie on Evidence, 51. There is no manuscript of Sophocles earlier than the tenth century, while at least two manuscripts of the N. T. go back to the fourth century.

(c) In determining matters of fact, after the lapse of considerable time, documentary evidence is to be allowed greater weight than oral testimony. Neither memory nor tradition can long be trusted to give absolutely correct accounts of particular facts. The New Testament documents, therefore, are of greater weight in evidence than tradition would be, even if only thirty years had elapsed since the death of the actors in the scenes they relate.

See Starkie on Evidence, 51, 730. The Roman Catholic Church, in its legends of the saints, shows how quickly mere tradition can become corrupt.

2. As to testimony in general.

(a) In questions as to matters of fact, the proper inquiry is not whether it is possible that the testimony may be false, but whether there is sufficient probability that it is true. It is unfair, therefore, to allow our examination of the Scripture witnesses to be prejudiced by suspicion, merely because their story is a sacred one.

(b) A proposition of fact is proved when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence.. By competent evidence is meant such evidence as the nature of the thing to be proved admits. By satisfactory evidence is meant that amount of proof which ordinarily satisfies an unprejudiced mind beyond a reasonable doubt. Scripture facts are therefore proved, when they are established by that kind and degree of evidence which would in the affairs of ordinary life satisfy the mind and conscience of a common man. When we have this kind and degree of evidence it is unreasonable to require more.

(c) In the absence of circumstances which generate suspicion, every witness is to be presumed credible, until the contrary is shown; the burden of impeaching his testimony lying upon the objector. The principle which leads men to give true witness to facts is stronger than that which leads them to give false witness. It is therefore unjust to compel the Christian to establish the credibility of his witnesses before proceeding to adduce their testimony, and it is equally unjust to allow the uncorroborated testimony of a profane writer to outweigh that of a Christian writer. Christian witnesses should not be considered interested, and therefore untrustworthy; for they became Christians against their worldly interests, and because they could not resist the force of testimony. Varying accounts among them should be estimated as we estimate the varying accounts of profane writers. John's account of Jesus differs from that of the synoptic gospels; but, in a very similar manner, and probably for a very similar reason, Plato's account of Socrates differs from that of Xenophon. Each saw and described that side of his subject which he was by nature best fitted to comprehend.

(d) A slight amount of positive testimony, so long as it is uncontradicted, outweighs a very great amount of testimony that is merely negative. The silence of a second witness, or his testimony that he did not see a certain alleged occurrence, cannot counterbalance the positive testimony of a first witness that he did see it. We should therefore estimate the silence of profane writers with regard to facts narrated in Scripture precisely as we should estimate it if the facts about which they are silent were narrated by other profane writers, instead of being narrated by the writers of Scripture.

Egyptian monuments make no mention of the destruction of Pharaoh and his army; but then, Napoleon's dispatches also make no mention of his defeat at Trafalgar. Even though we should grant that Josephus does not mention Jesus, we should have a parallel in Thucydides, who never once mentions Socrates, the most important character of the thirty years embraced in his history. Wieseler, however, in Jahrbuch f. d. Theologie, 23: 98, maintains the essential genuineness of the commonly rejected passage with regard to Jesus in Josephus, Antiq., 18: 3: 3, omitting, however, as interpolations, the phrases: "if it be right to call him man"; "this was the Christ"; "he appeared alive the third day according to prophecy"; for these, if genuine, would prove Josephus a Christian, which he, by all ancient accounts, was not.

(e) "The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon : first, their ability; secondly, their honesty; thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances. We confidently submit the New Testament witnesses to each and all of these tests.

See Starkie on Evidence, 726.

CHAPTER II.

POSITIVE PROOFS THAT THE SCRIPTURES ARE A DIVINE

REVELATION.

I. THE GENUINENESS OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS, or proof that the books of the Old and New Testaments were written at the age to which they are assigned and by the men or class of men to whom they are ascribed.

Our present discussion comprises the first part, and only the first part, of the doctrine of the Canon (κavúv, a measuring-reed; hence, a rule, a standard). It is important to observe that the determination of the Canon, or list of the books of sacred Scripture, is not the work of the church as an organized body. We do not receive these books upon the authority of Fathers or Councils. We receive them, only as the Fathers and Councils received them, because we have evidence that they are the writings of the men, or class of men, whose names they bear, and that they are also credible and inspired.

We reserve to a point somewhat later the proof of the credibility and the inspiration of the Scriptures. We now show their genuineness, as we would show the genuineness of other religious books, like the Koran, or of secular documents, like Cicero's Orations against Catiline. Genuineness, in the sense which we use the term, does not necessarily imply authenticity . e., truthfulness and authority); see Blunt, Dict. Doct. and Hist. Theol., art.: Authenticity.

Documents may be genuine which are written in whole or in part by persons other than they whose names they bear, provided these persons belong to the same class. The Epistle to the Hebrews, though not written by Paul, is genuine, because it proceeds from one of the apostolic class. The addition of Deut. 34, after Moses' death, does not invalidate the genuineness of the Pentateuch; nor would the theory of a later Isaiah, even if it were established, disprove the genuineness of that prophecy; provided, in both cases, that the additions were made by men of the prophetic class. On the general subject of the genuineness of the Scripture documents, see Alexander, McIlvaine, Chalmers, Dodge, and Peabody, on the Evidences of Christianity.

1.

Genuineness of the Books of the New Testament.

We do not need to adduce proof of the existence of the books of the New Testament as far back as the third century, for we possess manuscripts of them which are at least fourteen hundred years old, and, since the third century, references to them have been inwoven into all history and literature. We begin our proof, therefore, by showing that these documents not only existed, but were generally accepted as genuine, before the close of the second century.

A. All the books of the New Testament, with the single exception 'of 2 Peter, were not only received as genuine, but were used in more or less collected form, in the latter half of the second century. These collections of writings, so slowly transcribed and distributed, imply the long continued previous existence of the separate books, and forbid us to fix their origin later than the first half of the second century,

(a) Tertullian (160-230) appeals to the New Testament' as made up of the Gospels' and 'Apostles.' He vouches for the genuineness of the four gospels, the Acts, 1 Peter, 1 John, thirteen epistles of Paul, and the Apocalypse; in short, to twenty-one of the twenty-seven books of our Canon.

(b) The Muratorian Canon in the West and the Peshito Version in the East (having a common date of about 160) in their catalogues of the New Testament writings mutually complement each other's slight deficiencies, and together witness to the fact that at that time every book of our present New Testament, with the exception of 2 Peter, was received as genuine. (c) The Canon of Marcion (140), though rejecting all the gospels but that of Luke, and all the epistles but ten of Paul's, shows, nevertheless, that at that early day "apostolic writings were regarded as a complete original rule of doctrine." Even Marcion, moreover, does not deny the genuineness of those writings which for doctrinal reasons he rejects.

Marcion, the Gnostic, was the enemy of all Judaism, and regarded the God of the O. T. as a restricted divinity, entirely different from the God of the N. T. On the Muratorian Canon, see Tregelles, Muratorian Canon. On the Peshito, see Schaff, Introd. to Rev. Gk.-Eng. N. T., xxxvii.; Smith's Bible Dict., pp. 3388, 3389. On the whole subject, see Westcott, History of the N. T. Canon, and art.: Canon, in Smith's Bible Dictionary. Also, Reuss, History of the Canon; Mitchell, Crit. Handbook, Part I.

B. The Christian and Apostolic Fathers who lived in the first half of the second century not only quote from these books and allude to them, but testify that they were written by the apostles themselves. We are therefore compelled to refer their origin still further back, namely, to the first century, when the apostles lived.

(a) Irenæus (120-200) mentions and quotes the four gospels by name, and among them the gospel according to John-" Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast, he likewise published a gospel, while he dwelt in Ephesus in Asia." And Irenæus was the disciple and friend of Polycarp (80-155), who was himself a personal acquaintance of the Apostle John. The testimony of Irenæus is virtually the evidence of Polycarp, the contemporary and friend of the Apostle, that each of the gospels was written by the person whose name it bears.

To this testimony it is objected that Irenæus says there are four gospels because there are four quarters of the world and four living creatures in the cherubim. But we reply that Irenæus is here stating, not his own reason for accepting four and only four gospels, but what he conceives to be God's reason for ordaining that there should be four. We are not warranted in supposing that he had accepted the four gospels on any other ground than that of testimony that they were the productions of apostolic men.

(b) Justin Martyr (died 148) speaks of 'memoirs (aлouvпpovećμaτa) of Jesus Christ,' and his quotations, though sometimes made from memory, are evidently cited from our gospels.

To this testimony it is objected (1) That Justin Martyr uses the term 'memoirs' instead of gospels.' We reply that he elsewhere uses the term 'gospels' and identifies the 'memoirs' with them (Apol., 1:66). In writing his apology to the heathen Emperors, Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Antoninus, he chooses the term 'memoirs' or 'memorabilia,' which Xenophon had used as the title of his account of Socrates, simply in order that he may avoid ecclesiastical expressions unfamiliar to his readers. In a similar manner he always uses the term "Sunday" instead of "Sabbath." (2) That in quoting the words spoken from heaven at the Saviour's baptism, he makes them to be: "My Son, this day have I begotten thee." We reply that this was probably a slip of memory,

natural in a day when the gospels existed only in the cumbrous form of manuscript rolls. Justin also refers to the Pentateuch for two facts which it does not contain; but we should not argue from this that he did not possess our present Pentateuch. See Abbot, Genuineness of the Fourth Gospel, 49, note.

(c) Papias (80–164), whom Irenæus calls a 'hearer of John,' testifies that Matthew" wrote in the Hebrew dialect the sacred oracles (rà λóyɩa),” and that "Mark, the interpreter of Peter, wrote after Peter(vørεpov Пérpw) [or under Peter's direction], an unsystematic account (où rážɛ)" of the same events and discourses.

To this testimony it is objected (1) That Papias could not have had our gospel of Matthew, for the reason that this is Greek. We reply, either with Bleek, that Papias erroneously supposed a Hebrew translation of Matthew, which he possessed, to be the original; or, with Weiss, that the original Matthew was in Hebrew, while our present Matthew is an enlarged version of the same. (2) That Mark is the most systematic of all the evangelists, presenting events as a true annalist, in chronological order. We reply that while, so far as chronological order is concerned, Mark is systematic, so far as logical order is concerned he is the most unsystematic of the evangelists, showing little of the power of historical grouping which is so discernible in Matthew. See Bleek, Introduction to N. T., 1: 108, 126; Weiss, Life of Jesus, 1: 25–39.

(d) The Apostolic Fathers,-Clement of Rome (died 101), Ignatius of Antioch (martyred 115), and Polycarp (80-165),—companions and friends of the apostles, have left us in their writings over one hundred quotations from or allusions to the New Testament writings, and among these every book, except four minor epistles (2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John), is represented.

Although these are single testimonies, we must remember that they are the testimonies of the chief men of the churches of their day, and that they express the opinion of the churches themselves. "Like banners of a hidden army, or peaks of a distant mountain range, they represent and are sustained by compact, continuous bodies below." See Ante-Nicene Library of T. and T. Clark; also, art.: Apostolic Fathers, in McClintock and Strong's Encyclopædia, 1: 315-317; Boston Lectures for 1871, essay by Prof. Thayer, 324.

(e) In the Synoptic Gospels, the omission of all mention of the fulfilment of Christ's prophecies with regard to the destruction of Jerusalem is evidence that these gospels were written before the occurrence of that event. In the Acts of the Apostles, universally attributed to Luke, we have an allusion to the former treatise,' or the gospel by the same author, which must, therefore, have been written before the end of Paul's first imprisonment at Rome, and probably with the help and sanction of that apostle.

Acts 1:1-"The former treatise I made, 0 Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach." If the Acts were written two years after Paul's arrival at Rome (A. D. 63), "the former treatise," the gospel according to Luke, can hardly be dated later than 58; and since the destruction of Jerusalem took place in 70, Matthew and Mark must have published their gospels at least as early as the year 68, when multitudes of men were still living who were familiar with the events of Jesus' life. See Norton, Genuineness of the Gospels; Alford, Greek Testament, Prolegomena, 30, 31, 36, 45-47.

C. It is to be presumed that this acceptance of the New Testament documents as genuine, on the part of the fathers of the churches, was for good and sufficient reasons, both internal and external, and this presumption is corroborated by the following considerations:

(a) There is evidence that the early churches took every care to assure themselves of the genuineness of these writings before they accepted them. Evidences of care are the following:-Paul, in 2 Thess. 2: 2, urged the churches to use care; Melito (169), Bishop of Sardis, who wrote a treatise on the Revelation of John,