SECTION II.

TESTIMONIES FROM THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD.

THE only works of this period of which we can avail ourselves, are, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistles of Ignatius, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, and the Syriac version of the New Testament. The Epistles of Clement and of Polycarp contain nothing which bears directly on our subject. Nor is it to be expected in compositions almost exclusively practical, such as those from which we are about to quote, that we shall discover numerous and direct doctrinal notices. All that we can rationally anticipate are such incidental allusions as may serve indirectly to illustrate the settled faith of the writers. Throughout this and the following sections the chronology generally adopted is that of Lardner.

BARNABAS. A. D. 72.

The genuineness of the epistle which goes under the name of this father has been strongly contested. External evidence is admitted to be in its favour; internal is scarcely equally satisfactory. The scholars and competent judges who have undertaken its vindication, are perhaps more numerous, and certainly not less respectable, than those who have questioned or rejected it; but the settlement of a controversy which has existed for fourteen centuries, is scarcely at present to be expected. If the work be genuine, it must be placed, in order of time, first of all the writings of Christian antiquity, and before several of the canonical books of the New Testament. If otherwise, it will still belong to an early age,

since it is quoted as the work of Barnabas by Clemens Alexandrinus, who wrote towards the close of the second century; and this is the more worthy of remark from the Alexandrian character of the epistle itself. Whatever therefore may be our conclusion respecting its genuineness, if we venture to place it some fifty years before the time at which it was cited by Clement, a period by no means improbable, it will still fall within the Apostolic age.

1. "For this cause, the Lord submitted to suffer for our souls, although he is the Lord of the whole earth, to whom [God] said in the day before the completion of the world, Let us make man after our image and likeness.He submitted to appear in the flesh, as was necessary, that he might fulfil the promise given unto the fathers. -Then he made manifest that he was the Son of God. For had he not come in the flesh, how could the men who beheld him have been preserved [from destruction]? since those who see the sun, which is the work of his hands, and which must shortly cease to be, have not the power to gaze upon its radiance. Wherefore the Son of God came in the flesh, that he might consummate the iniquity of those who persecuted his Prophets unto death." (Epist. Barnabæ, c. v., Patres Apostol. Coteler., T. ii., pp. 16, 60. See Matt. xxi. 37.)

2. "Since therefore he has renewed us by the remission of sins, he has given us another form, that our soul should be as a little child, as also he has remoulded us. For the Scripture saith concerning us, as he saith unto the Son, Let us make man after our image and similitude, &c. And the Lord beholding man, his fair workmanship, said, Increase and multiply and replenish the earth. These things he spake unto the Son." (C. vi., T. ii., p. 18.)

3. "If therefore the Son of God, who is the Lord, and who hereafter shall judge the quick and the dead,

suffered, that his stripes might give us life, let us believe that the Son of God could not have suffered except for us." (C. vii., T. ii., p. 20.)

4. "In that day, they (the Jews) shall see Christ, having a scarlet garment about his body; and they shall ask, Is not this he whom we formerly crucified, having set him at nought, and pierced, and mocked him? Certainly this is he who then said that he was the Son of God." (C. vii., T. ii., p. 24.)

5. "What saith Moses to Jesus the son of Nun, (Navñ,) when he placed that name upon him, in respect of his being a Prophet, that all the people might hear him alone, because the Father made manifest all things concerning his Son in Jesus the son of Nun? And having put this name upon him, when he sent him to spy out the land, he said, Take the book into thine hands, and write that which the Lord saith, that Jesus the Son of God, in the last days, will cut off by the roots all the house of Amalek. Behold again Jesus, not the son of man, but the Son of God, made manifest in a type and in the flesh. But, seeing that it would be said that Christ was the son of David, therefore [David], fearing and knowing the error of sinners, saith, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I place thine enemies for thy footstool.-Behold how David calls him Lord, even Son of God." (C. xii., T. ii., p. 40.)

HERMAS. A.D. 100.

The book entitled The Shepherd, which goes under the name of this writer, is undoubtedly of great antiquity. By Irenæus it is cited as Scripture; and according to the testimony of Jerome it was considered canonical by some Grecian churches. Its author is supposed to be the person named by St. Paul, Rom. xvi. 14.

6. "The Lord hath sworn by his Son, that whoso

denieth his Son and him, being afraid of his life, he will also deny him in the world that is to come." (Past. Hermæ, lib. i., vis. ii., sect. ii., Pat. Apost., T. ii., p. 77. Wake's rendering.)

7. "First of all, Sir, said I, declare this unto me. This Rock and this Gate, what are they? Hearken, said he, This Rock and this Gate is the Son of God. Sir, said I, how can that be, seeing that the Rock is old, and the Gate new? Hear, said he, foolish man, and understand. The Son of God is indeed more ancient than any creature; so that in the council of his Father, for the performance of the creation, he was present. But the gate therefore is new, because that in the consummation, in recent times, he hath appeared, that they who shall attain unto salvation might through it enter into the kingdom of God. No one will enter into the kingdom of God except him who receives the name of the Son of God." (Lib. iii., Similit. ix., sect. xii., T. ii., p. 115.)

8. "The name of the Son of God is great and immeasurable; and by it is the whole world upheld." (Ib., sect. xiv., T. ii., p. 116.)

In these passages, (Nos. 1-8,) the Son of God is represented as the former of the solar luminary; as in the council of the Father for the creation of man and of the universe; as being infinite; as possessing a glory so transcendent, that none could see it and live, and thence being obliged to become incarnate, in order to our beholding him with safety; as the subject of the divine oath; and as otherwise partaking of the sovereign and exclusive attributes of the Deity.

IGNATIUS. A.D. 107.

Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, is said to have conversed with the Apostles, and, like Polycarp, to have been the disciple of St. John. He suffered under Trajan at Rome;

and in his journey thither wrote the seven smaller epistles now extant under his name. The reader who wishes to be satisfied as to their genuineness, will find all that he can desire in Bp. Pearson's Vindiciae Epistolarum Sti. Ignatii.

9. "There are certain persons who with wicked fraud bear about the name [of Christ], but do such things as are unworthy of God; whom it behoves you to avoid, as [you would] wild beasts. For they are destroying dogs, who bite secretly, against whom it is your duty to watch, as persons whom it is difficult to cure. There is one Physician, fleshly and spiritual, made and not made, God existing in flesh, true life in death, both of Mary and of God; first passible, then impassible, [even] Jesus Christ our Lord." (Epist. ad Ephes., c. vii., Pat. Apost., T. i., p. 13.)

10. "I glorify Jesus Christ, [our] God, who hath so enriched you with wisdom. For I understand that you are perfected in immoveable faith, and established in love, in the blood of Christ, being fully confirmed unto our Lord, who was truly of the race of David, according to the flesh; and Son of God, according to the will and power of God; truly begotten of the virgin, and baptized by John, that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him." (Ad Smyrn., c. i., T. i., p. 34. With this may be compared Epist. ad Ephes., c. xviii—xx., pp. 16, 17.)

*

These passages are cited as illustrations of that antithetical mode of representing the two natures of Christ, which we have already remarked as common in the New Testament, and which was extensively adopted by Christian antiquity. In the former citation, it will be remarked, that an antithesis of this kind is carried on through several particulars; the attributes of the humanity being ranged under the epithet σapkikòs, fleshly; those of the Godhead, under the epithet TvEvμatikos,

* See above, CHAP. III., sect. ii., p. 200, &c.