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SCARCITY OF TRUSTWORTHY TRADITIONS.

135

Apostles or by their contemporary fellow-labourers, and I will receive it. But, the fact is, the evidence on which we believe that the Epistle to the Galatians was written by St. Paul is far stronger than that on which we believe the Eneid to have been the work of Virgil; but, for any saying, or action, or doctrine of our Lord, not contained in the Bible, there really is not as much evidence as the editor of a respectable newspaper requires before he admits an announcement into his columns. Indeed, when we search for the early history of the Christian Church it is remarkable what a break occurs after the New Testament history, and before we come to other trustworthy records of much historical value. In the age which immediately succeeded the Apostles there were but few writers, and what remains to us of their compositions adds, I may say, nothing to what the New Testament has told us. When we come lower down the remains of antiquity increase, but there is a singular absence of trustworthy traditional information. I am disposed to account for this break by the rapid diffusion of the Gospel over distant countries; for distance of place is as great an obstacle to the propagation of a tradition as distance of time. But certain it is that the early Christian writers appear to have drawn their knowledge of the facts of the Gospel history solely from the New Testament, like ourselves, and to have been as much at a loss as we, when difficulties occurred, such as tradition might have been expected to explain.

For instance, as to a fact so little likely to be forgotten as the number of years our Saviour lived on earth, and the duration of His ministry, we find very opposite statements in early Christian writers, who we should have supposed had the means of being better informed. Clement of Alexandria makes the whole duration of our Lord's ministry but one year;* and so some early writers understood the words 'the acceptable year of the Lord'; while Irenæus (11. xxii.) states, on the authority not merely of John viii. 57, but of persons who claimed to have received St. John's oral teaching, that

Strom. 1. 21, p. 407. See also v. 6, p. 658. Clement is followed by Origen (De Princ. iv. 5).

our Saviour passed through all the stages of human life from infancy to old age. There is a like discrepancy as to a fact which one would think tradition might have preserved-the personal appearance of our Saviour.* Opposite opinions were held, but plainly I think, held not on the evidence of traditional testimony, but on no better grounds than those on which we might ourselves discuss the question; the one side understanding literally the prophetical texts, He hath no form or comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him; His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men'; the other side, yielding to that natural feeling which still leads painters to give to the features of our Blessed Lord all of dignity and grace that they are capable of expressing. There are difficulties in the New Testament on which tradition might be expected to throw light, such as the double genealogies of St. Matthew and St. Luke, and yet, it gives no information worthy of reliance. Such a question as whether St. Matthew wrote in Hebrew or Greek appears to be not absolutely settled by tradition. Again, some difficulties of textual criticism would be solved if we could assume that more editions of the Gospel than one were published. But no uninspired writer is early enough to know anything about the first publication of the Gospels.

Hermas appears to

Many like examples can be given. have been recognized as a prophet at Rome, and his book, called 'The Shepherd,' was admitted to the public reading of many Churches. Yet even in Rome itself in less than a hundred years it was quite forgotten who this Hermas was, while in foreign Churches the wildest guesses were made on the subject. The Roman Church does not even give a unanimous account as to the names and order of its first bishops. The Epistle of Clement gained much celebrity; but

*On this subject see the interesting essay appended to Rigault's Cyprian, De Pulchritudine Corporis D. N. Jesu Christi.

At the beginning of the third century Africanus endeavoured to collect in Palestine traditions on the subject. Few traditions have stronger external claims to respect than his account of the matter (see Routh, Rell. Sac. 11. 228), but I cannot feel that any confidence can be placed in it. See my Introduction to the New Testament, Lect. x.

vin.]

WHY NOT APPEAL TO TRADITIONS.

137

what order this Clement held in the series of Roman bishops is disputed to this day. The subscriptions to St. Paul's epistles are not earlier than the fourth century; but we might naturally think that Euthalius, to whom they are ascribed, would embody in them all the earlier traditions which he could collect; yet these subscriptions are, in one or two cases, quite erroneous, and are in no case regarded as of any authority. In the third century learned men appear to have been in the same position as ourselves when called on to reconcile the prevalent tradition, that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews with the absence of his name and the difference of style from his acknowledged letters. They appear to have tried to solve the question by sagacious conjecture, but to have been quite without historical testimony. The curiosity of Christians eagerly thirsted for more information about the deeds and sayings of our Lord than the New Testament supplies; and the want so generally felt compilers of Apocryphal Gospels tried to satisfy. Some of them are very early, and, if there had been any additional facts available, they would, no doubt, have worked them into their productions. But the fictitious character of these Gospels is betrayed by their entire unlikeness to the genuine histories of our Saviour; nor do I suppose that there is now any learned man who attaches the least credence to the legends which they contain. There is no saying of our Lord, outside of the New Testament, for which there is more respectable testimony, than for that saying about the Millennium which I quoted from Papias last Term, and which is calculated to destroy all faith in uninspired tradition.

The simple answer, then, to the question, why we do not use traditions as well as Scripture in the proof of Christian doctrine, is that we do not know of any trustworthy enough; and what we have seen of the failure of tradition proves to us that there were good reasons why God should have granted us in Scripture a more secure channel for conveying Christian truth. But if it is alleged that it can be established by uninspired testimony that any doctrine not contained in Scripture

• Irenæus, v. 33. See my Introduction to the New Testament, p. 226.

is part of the Christian scheme, let the evidence be produced, and we are willing to consider it. I need not discuss the abstract probability whether it is reasonable to expect that such testimony can be forthcoming, because I believe, as a matter of fact, that in no case, has any such been produced.

THE

THE RULE OF FAITH.

'HE subject on which I lectured on the last day would very commonly be stated in the form, What is the rule of faith? Scripture alone, or Scripture and tradition? There are some ambiguities in the words used in this mode of statement to which I ought to call your attention. First, as to the words, 'rule of faith,' I ought to mention that two or three very early Fathers* give the name 'regula fidei' or ' regula veritatis' to a profession of faith nearly identical with our Apostles' Creed, as forming the rule according to which Christians ought to shape their belief. Our Church, in the Eighth Article, does not ascribe to the Creeds any independent authority, but receives them merely because they can be proved from Scripture. Of course that does not mean that the Bible is our only source of knowledge for the truth of all the things stated in the Creeds. I suppose that, if a single book of the New Testament had never been written, it would still have been possible for us to know that the doctrine in attestation of which the first preachers of Christianity hazarded their lives was, that the Founder of their religion had died and was buried, and rose again the third day. No one who contends for the sufficiency of Scripture is concerned to deny that many of the things stated in the Bible are capable of historical proof independently of the Bible. Nor are we at all concerned to determine the historical question whether, in the earliest age of the Church, the doctrines contained in that profession of faith which converts made at their baptism

Irenæus, Haer. 1. ix., xxi.; Tertullian, De Praescrip. 13, De Virgg. veland. 1, &c.