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Page 80
So far Mr. Dodwell, and (excepting the genuineness of the writings
of Barnabas and the rest, for they are incontestably ancient,) it is
certain that the matters of fact with regard to the New Testament
are all true. Whoever has an inclination to write on this subject, is
furnished from this passage with a great many curious disquisitions
wherein to show his penetration and his judgment, as--how the
immediate successors and disciples of the apostles could so grossly
confound the genuine writings of their masters with such as were
falsely attributed to them; or since they were in the dark about
these matters so early, how come such as followed them, by a
better light; why all those books which are cited by the earliest
fathers with the same respect as those now received, should not be
accounted equally authentic by them; and what stress should be
laid on the testimony of those fathers, who not only contradict one
another, but are often inconsistent with themselves, in relating the
very same facts; with a great many other difficulties, which
deserve a clear solution from any capable person.
I have said the ancient heretics asserted that the present gospels
were forgeries. As an example of this, take the following, from the
works of Faustus, quoted by Augustine, contra Faustum Lib. 32, c.
2. �You think, (says Faustus to his adversaries,) that of all the
books in the world the Testament of the Son only, could not be
corrupted; that it alone contains nothing which ought to be
disallowed; especially when it appears, that it was not written by
the apostles, but a long time after them, by certain obscure persons,
who, lest no credit should be given to the stories they told of what
they could not know, did prefix, to their writings, the names of the
apostles, and partly of those who succeeded the apostles, affirming,
that what they wrote themselves, was written by these. Wherein
they seem to me to have been the more heinously injurious to the
disciples of Christ, by attributing to them what they wrote
themselves so dissonant and repugnant; and that they pretended to
write those gospels under their names, which are so full of
mistakes, of contradictory relations and opinions, that they are
neither coherent with themselves, nor consistent with one another.
What is this, therefore, but to throw a calumny on good men, and
to fix the accusation of discord on the unanimous society of
Christ�s disciples.�
ADDENDA.
There is, in the Gospel ascribed to John, a passage, quoted as a
prophecy, which, as it has been looked on as a proof text, ought to have
been mentioned in the 7th chapter. It is this. The evangelist (John xix.
23) says, �Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his
garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his
coat--now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They
said, therefore, among themselves, � Let us not rend it, but cast lots
for it�; that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, �They
parted my raiment among them and for my vesture they did cast lots.�
�Now, however plausible this prophesy may appear, it is one of the most
impudent applications of passages from the Old Testament that occurs in
the New. It is taken from the 18th verse of the 22d Psalm, which Psalm
was probably made by David, in reference to his humiliating and wretched
expulsion from Jerusalem by his son Absalom, and what was done in
consequence, viz., that he was hunted by ferocious enemies, whom he
compares to furious bulls, and roaring lions, gaping upon him to devour
him; that his palace was plundered, and that they divided his treasured
garments, (in the East, where the fashions never change, every great man
has constantly presses full of hundreds and thousands of garments, many
of them very costly: they are considered as a valuable part of his
riches), and cast lots for his robes. This is the real meaning of this
passage quoted as a prophecy. In the same Psalm, there is another verse,
which has been from time immemorial quoted as a prophecy of the
crucifixion, (v. 16,) �They pierced my hands and my feet.� In the
original, there seems to have been a word dropped importing �they
tear,� or something like it, for it is literally, �Like a lion--my hands
and my feet,� and there is there no word answering to �pierced.� The
meaning, however, of the verse is not difficult to be discerned, �dogs
have compassed me; the assembly of wicked men have enclosed me; like a
lion--(they tear) my hands and my feet.� The meaning may be discovered
from the context, where David represents himself as in the utmost
distress, helpless, and abandoned amidst his enemies, raging like wild
beasts around him; then, by a strong, but striking Oriental figure, he
represents himself like a carcass surrounded by dogs, who are busied in
tearing the flesh from his bones; their teeth fixed in his hands and
feet, and pulling him asunder. This is the import of the place, and this
interpretation is at last adopted, for the first time, I believe, by
Christians, in the new version of the Psalms used by the Unitarian
Church in London.
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