Supernatural Religion Volume I Part 6

point out that Neander's inability to accept the Ignatian epistles largely rests on his disbelief of the whole tradition of this sentence and martyr-journey. "We do not recognize the Emperor Trajan in this narrative," (the martyrology) he says, "therefore cannot but doubt every thing which is related by this doc.u.ment, as well as that, during this reign, Christians can have been cast to the wild beasts."(1)

If, for a moment, we suppose that, instead of being condemned by Trajan himself, Ignatius received his sentence from a provincial governor, the story does not gain greater probability. It is not credible that such an official would have ventured to act so much in opposition to the spirit of the Emperor's government Besides, if such a governor did p.r.o.nounce so severe a sentence, why did he not execute it in Antioch? Why send the prisoner to Rome? By doing so he made all the more conspicuous a severity which was not likely to be pleasing to the clement Trajan. The cruelty which dictated a condemnation _ad bestias_ would have been more gratified by execution on the spot, and there is besides no instance known, even during the following general persecution, of Christians being sent for execution in Rome. The transport to Rome is in no case credible, and the utmost that can be admitted is, that Ignatius, like Simeon of Jerusalem, may have been condemned to death during this reign, more especially if the event be a.s.sociated with some sudden outbreak of superst.i.tious fury against the Christians, to which the martyr may at once have fallen a victim. We are not without indications of such a cause operating in the case of Ignatius.

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It is generally admitted that the date of Trajan's visit to Antioch is a.d. 115, when he wintered there during the Parthian War. An earthquake occurred on the 13th December of that year, which was well calculated to excite popular superst.i.tion. It may not be out of place to quote here the account of the earthquake given by Dean Milmau, who, although he mentions a different date, and adheres to the martyrdom in Rome, still a.s.sociates the condemnation of Ignatius with the earthquake. He says: "Nevertheless, at that time there were circ.u.mstances which account with singular likelihood for that sudden outburst of persecution in Antioch.... At this very time an earthquake, more than usually terrible and destructive, shook the cities of the East. Antioch suffered its most appalling ravages--Antioch, crowded with the legionaries prepared for the Emperor's invasion of the East, with amba.s.sadors and tributary kings from all parts of the East. The city shook through all its streets; houses, palaces, theatres, temples fell cras.h.i.+ng down. Many were killed: the Consul Pedo died of his hurts. The Emperor himself hardly escaped through a window, and took refuge in the Circus, where he pa.s.sed some days in the open air. Whence this terrible blow but from the wrath of the G.o.ds, who must be appeased by unusual sacrifices? This was towards the end of January; early in February the Christian Bishop, Ignatius, was arrested. We know how, during this century, at every period of public calamity, whatever that calamity might be, the cry of the panic-stricken Heathens was, 'The Christians to the lions!' It may be that, in Trajan's humanity, in order to prevent a general ma.s.sacre by the infuriated populace, or to give greater solemnity to the sacrifice, the execution was ordered to

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take place, not in Antioch, but in Rome."(1) I contend that these reasons, on the contrary, render execution in Antioch infinitely more probable. To continue, however: the earthquake occurred on the 13th, and the martyrdom of Ignatius took place on the 20th December, just a week after the earthquake. His remains, as we know from Chrysostom and others, were, as an actual fact, interred at Antioch. The natural inference is that the martyrdom, the only part of the Ignatian story which is credible, occurred not in Rome but in Antioch itself, in consequence of the superst.i.tious fury against the [--Greek--] aroused by the earthquake.

I will now go more into the details of the brief statements I have just made, and here we come for the first time to John Malalas. In the first place he mentions the occurrence of the earthquake on the 13 th December. I will quote Dr. Lightfoot's own rendering of his further important statement. He says:

"The words of John Malalas are:

'The same king Trajan was residing in the same city (Antioch) when the visitation of G.o.d (i.e. the earthquake) occurred. And at that time the holy Ignatius, the bishop of the city of Antioch, was martyred (or bore testimony), [--Greek--] before him [--Greek--]; for he was exasperated against him, because he reviled him.'"(2)

Dr. Lightfoot endeavours in every way to discredit this statement. He argues that Malalas tells foolish stories about other matters, and, therefore, is not to be believed here; but so simple a piece of information may well be correctly conveyed by a writer who elsewhere may record stupid traditions.(3) If the narrative of foolish stories and fabulous traditions is to exclude belief in everything else stated by those who relate them, the

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whole of the Fathers are disposed of at one fell swoop, for they all do so. Dr. Lightfoot also a.s.serts that the theory of the cause of the martyrdom advanced by Volkmar "receives no countenance from the story of Malalas, who gives a wholly different reason--the irritating language used to the emperor."(l) On the other hand, it in no way contradicts it, for Ignatius can only have "reviled" Trajan when brought before him, and his being taken before him may well have been caused by the fury excited by the earthquake, even if the language of the Bishop influenced his condemnation; the whole statement of Malalas is in perfect harmony with the theory in its details, and in the main, of course, directly supports it. Then Dr. Lightfoot actually makes use of the following extraordinary argument:

"But it may be worth while adding that the error of Malalas is capable of easy explanation. He has probably misinterpreted some earlier authority, whose language lent itself to misinterpretation. The words [--Greek--], which were afterwards used especially of martyrdom, had in the earlier ages a wider sense, including other modes of witnessing to the faith: the expression [--Greek--] again is ambiguous and might denote either 'during the reign of Trajan,' or 'in the presence of Trajan.'

A blundering writer like Malalas might have stumbled over either expression."(2)

This is a favourite device. In case his abuse of poor Malalas should not sufficiently discredit him, Dr. Lightfoot attempts to explain away his language. It would be difficult indeed to show that the words [--Greek--],

already used in that sense in the New Testament, were not, at the date at which any record of the martyrdom of Ignatius which Malalas could have had before him was written, employed to express martyrdom, when applied to such a case, as Dr. Lightfoot indeed has in the

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first instance rendered the phrase. Even Zahn, whom Dr. Lightfoot so implicitly follows, emphatically decides against him on both points.

"The [--Greek--] together with [--Greek--] can only signify 'coram Trajano'

('in the presence of Trajan'), and [--Greek--] only the execution."(1) Let any one simply read over Dr. Lightfoot's own rendering, which I have quoted above, and he will see that such quibbles are excluded, and that, on the contrary, Malalas seems excellently well and directly to have interpreted his earlier authority.

That the statement of Malalas does not agree with the reports of the Fathers is no real objection, for we have good reason to believe that none of them had information from any other source than the Ignatian Epistles themselves, or tradition. Eusebius evidently had not. Irenaeus, Origen, and some later Fathers tell us nothing about him. Jerome and Chrysostom clearly take their accounts from these sources. Malalas is the first who, by his variation, proves that he had another and different authority before him, and in abandoning the martyr-journey to Rome, his account has infinitely greater apparent probability. Malalas lived at Antioch, which adds some weight to his statement. It is objected that so also did Chrysostom, and at an earlier period, and yet he repeats the Roman story. This, however, is no valid argument against Malalas. Chrysostom was too good a churchman to doubt the story of Epistles so much tending to edification, which were in wide circulation, and had been quoted by earlier Fathers. It is in no way surprising that, some two centuries and a half after the martyrdom, he should quietly have accepted the representations of the Epistles purporting to have been

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written by the martyr himself, and that their story should have shaped the prevailing tradition.

The remains of Ignatius, as we are informed by Chrysostom and Jerome, long remained interred in the cemetery of Antioch, but finally,--in the time of Theodosius, it is said,--were translated with great pomp and ceremony to a building which,--such is the irony of events,--had previously been a Temple of Fortune. The story told, of course, is that the relics of the martyr had been carefully collected in the Coliseum and carried from Rome to Antioch. After reposing there for some centuries, the relics, which are said to have been transported from Rome to Antioch, were, about the seventh century, carried back from Antioch to Rome.(1) The natural and more simple conclusion is that, instead of this double translation, the bones of Ignatius had always remained in Antioch, where he had suffered martyrdom, and the tradition that they had been brought back from Rome was merely the explanation which reconciled the fact of their actually being in Antioch with the legend of the Ignatian Epistles.

The 20th of December is the date a.s.signed to the death of Ignatius in the Martyrology,(2) and Zahn admits that this interpretation is undeniable.(3) Moreover, the anniversary of his death was celebrated on that day in the Greek Churches and throughout the East. In the Latin Church it is kept on the 1st of February. There can be little doubt that this was the day of the translation of the relics to Rome, and this was evidently the

1 I need not refer to the statement of Nicephorus that these relics were first brought from Rome to Constantinople and afterwards translated to Antioch.

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view of Ruinart, who, although he could not positively contradict the views of his own Church, says: "Ignatii festum Graeci vigesima die mensis Decembris celebrant, quo ipsum pa.s.sum fuisse Acta testantur; Latini vero die prima Februarii, an ob aliquam sacrarum ejus reli-quiarum translationem? plures enim fuisse constat."(1) Zahn(2) states that the Feast of the translation in later calendars was celebrated on the 29th January, and he points out the evident ignorance which prevailed in the West regarding Ignatius.(3)

On the one hand, therefore, all the historical data which we possess regarding the reign and character of Trajan discredit the story that Ignatius was sent to Rme to be exposed to beasts in the Coliseum; and all the positive evidence which exists, independent of the Epistles themselves, tends to establish the fact that he suffered martyrdom in Antioch itself. On the other hand, all the evidence which is offered for the statement that Ignatius was sent to Rme is more or less directly based upon the representations of the letters, the authenticity of which is in discussion, and it is surrounded with improbabilities of every kind. And what is the value of any evidence emanating from the Ignatian Epistles and martyrologies? There are three martyrologies which, as Ewald says, are "the one more fabulous than the other." There are fifteen Epistles all equally purporting to be by

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Ignatius, and most of them handed down together in MSS., without any distinction. Three of these, in Latin only, are universally rejected, as are also other five Epistles, of which there are Greek, Latin, and other versions. Of the remaining seven there are two forms, one called the Long Recension and another shorter, known as the Vossian Epistles. The former is almost unanimously rejected as shamefully interpolated and falsified; and a majority of critics a.s.sert that the text of the Vossian Epistles is likewise very impure. Besides these there is a still shorter version of three Epistles only, the Cure-tonian, which many able critics declare to be the only genuine letters of Ignatius, whilst a still greater number, both from internal and external reasons, deny the authenticity of the Epistles in any form. The second and third centuries teem with pseudonymic literature, but I venture to say that pious fraud has never been more busy and conspicuous than in dealing with the Martyr of Antioch. The mere statement of the simple and acknowledged facts regarding the Ignatian Epistles is ample justification of the a.s.sertion, which so mightily offends Dr. Lightfoot, that "the whole of the Ignatian literature is a ma.s.s of falsification and fraud." Even my indignant critic himself has not ventured to use as genuine more than the three short Syriac letters(1) out of this ma.s.s of forgery which he rebukes me for holding so cheap. Doc.u.ments which lie under such grave and permanent suspicion cannot prove anything. As I have shown, however, the Vossian Epistles, whatever the value of their testimony, so far from supporting the claims advanced in favour of our Gospels, rather discredit them.

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I have now minutely followed Professor Lightfoot and Dr. Westcott in their attacks upon me in connection with Eusebius and the Ignatian Epistles, and I trust that I have shown once for all that the charges of "misrepresentation" and "misstatement" so lightly and liberally advanced, far from being well-founded, recoil upon themselves. It is impossible in a work like this, dealing with such voluminous materials, to escape errors of detail, as both of these gentlemen bear witness, but I have at least conscientiously endeavoured to be fair, and I venture to think that few writers have ever more fully laid before readers the actual means of judging of the accuracy of every statement which has been made.

Before closing, I must say a few words regarding another of my critics, who is, however, of a very different order. My system of criticism is naturally uncongenial to Mr. Matthew Arnold, but while he says so with characteristic vigour, he likewise speaks of this work with equally characteristic generosity, and I cordially thank him. I could only be cla.s.sed by mistake amongst the "objectors" to "Literature and Dogma,"

and however different may be the procedure in "Supernatural Religion,"

there is fundamental agreement between the two works, and the one may be considered the complement of the other. Some one must do the "pounding,"

if religion is to be a matter of belief and not of mere s.h.i.+fty opinion.

We really address two distinct cla.s.ses of readers. The reader who "has read _and accepted_" Mr. Matthew Arnold's "half dozen lines about the composition of the Gospels," and his "half dozen pages about miracles,"

may in one sense be "just in the same position as when he has read "the whole of this work,(1) but

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I have written for those who do not accept them, and who,--as I think rightly,--distrust the conclusions merely forced upon them by ordinary "reflection and experience," and in such important matters demand evidence of a much more tangible kind. I would put it to Mr. Arnold whether, in seeming to depreciate any attempt to systematize and carry to logical conclusions the whole argument regarding the reality of Miracles and Divine Revelation, he does not do himself injustice, and enunciate a dangerous doctrine. No doubt his own clear insight and wide culture have enabled him to discern truth more surely, and with less apparent effort, than most of those whom he addresses, but in encouraging, as he thus practically does, the adoption by others of religious views with very little trouble or thought, which have certainly cost himself years of training and study, he both cheapens his own intellectual labour, and advocates a superficiality which already has too many attractions. Whether he address readers whose belief is already established, or those who are ready to accept it second hand from himself, it seems to me that no work should be unwelcome which supplies evidence of the results, which it has suited his own immediate purpose merely to a.s.sume.

Mr. Matthew Arnold objects that my book leaves the reader "with the feeling that the Bible stands before him like a fair tree all stripped, torn and defaced, not at all like a tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations,"(1) but if this be the case, I submit that it is a necessary process through which the Bible must go, before it can be successfully transplanted into that healthy soil, in which alone its leaves can truly be for the 44 Contemporary Boviow," October, 1874, p.

798.

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healing of any one. Under such circ.u.mstances, destructive must precede constructive criticism. It is only when we clearly recognize that the Bible is not the "word of G.o.d" that we can worthily honour and "enjoy"

it as the word of Man. Mr. Matthew Arnold finely says, with regard to what Jesus said and did, that: "his reporters were incapable of rendering it, he was so much above them"; and he rightly considers that the governing idea of our criticism of the four Evangelists should be "to make out what in their report of Jesus, is Jesus, and what is the reporters." I hold, however, that it is only after such an examination as I have endeavoured to carry out, and which for the time must seem hard and wanting in sympathetic appreciation, that most persons educated in Christendom can rightly put any such governing idea into practice. It is only when we are ent.i.tled to reject the theory of miraculous Divine Revelation that the Bible attains its full beauty, losing the blots and anomalies which it presented in its former character, and acquiring wondrous significance as the expression of the hopes and aspirations of humanity, from which every man may learn wisdom and derive inspiration.

The value of such a Book seems to me indestructible. I heartily sympathise with Mr. Arnold's desire to secure due appreciation for the venerable volume, of the beauty of which he has so fine and delicate a perception. A truer insight into its meaning may certainly be imparted by such eloquent and appreciating criticism, and no one is a better judge than Mr. Matthew Arnold of the necessity to plead for the Book, with those who are inclined thoughtlessly to reject it along with the errors which have grown with and been based upon it. But, in the end, every man who

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has a mind and a heart must love and honour the Bible, and he who has neither is beyond the reach of persuasion.

This work has been revised throughout.(1) It was, as I stated at the time, originally carried through the press under very great difficulties, and the revision of details, upon which I had counted, was not only prevented, but, beyond a careful revision of the First Part for the second edition, circ.u.mstances have until now even prevented my seriously reading through the work since it has been in print. To those who have been good enough to call my attention to errors, or to suggest improvements, I return very sincere thanks. In making this revision I have endeavoured to modify unimportant points, in some of which I have been misunderstood, so as to avoid as far as possible raising difficulties, or inviting discussion without real bearing upon the main argument. As I know the alacrity with which some critics seize upon such points as serious concessions, I beg leave to say that I have not altered anything from change of opinion. I trust that greater clearness and accuracy may have been secured.

March 15th, 1875.

1 It is right to mention that, whilst I have examined a great many of the references, I have not had time to verify them all.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

The present work is the result of many years of earnest and serious investigation, undertaken in the first instance for the regulation of personal belief, and now published as a contribution towards the establishment of Truth in the minds of others who are seeking for it.

The author's main object has been conscientiously and fully to state the facts of the case, to make no a.s.sertions the grounds for which are not clearly given, and as far as possible to place before the reader the materials from which a judgment may be intelligently formed regarding the important subject discussed.