The Gospels in the Second Century

The Gospels in the Second
Century - An Examination of the
Critical Part of a Work Entitled
'Supernatural Religion'

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Title: The Gospels in the Second Century An Examination of the
Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'
Author: William Sanday
Release Date: February 6, 2004 [EBook #10955]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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GOSPELS IN THE SECOND CENTURY ***

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THE GOSPELS IN THE SECOND CENTURY
_AN EXAMINATION OF THE CRITICAL PART OF A WORK
ENTITLED 'SUPERNATURAL RELIGION'_
BY
W. SANDAY, M.A.
_Rector of Barton-on-the-Heath, Warwickshire; and late Fellow of
Trinity College, Oxford. Author of a Work on the Fourth Gospel._

LONDON: 1876.

_I had hoped to inscribe in this book the revered and cherished name of
my old head master, DR. PEARS of Repton. His consent had been very
kindly and warmly given, and I was just on the point of sending the
dedication to the printers when I received a telegram naming the day
and hour of his funeral. His health had for some time since his
resignation of Repton been seriously failing, but I had not anticipated
that the end was so near. All who knew him will deplore his too early
loss, and their regret will be shared by the wider circle of those who can
appreciate a life in which there was nothing ignoble, nothing
ungenerous, nothing unreal. I had long wished that he should receive
some tribute of regard from one whom he had done his best by precept,
and still more by example, to fit and train for his place and duty in the
world. This pleasure and this honour have been denied me. I cannot
place my book, as I had hoped, in his hand, but I may still lay it
reverently upon his tomb._

CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. INTRODUCTORY
II. ON QUOTATIONS GENERALLY IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN
WRITERS
III. THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS
IV. JUSTIN MARTYR
V. HEGESIPPUS--PAPIAS
VI. THE CLEMENTINE HOMILIES
VII. BASILIDES AND VALENTINUS
VIII. MARCION

IX. TATIAN--DIONYSIUS OF CORINTH
X. MELITO--APOLLINARIS--ATHENAGORAS--THE EPISTLE OF
VIENNE AND LYONS
XI. PTOLOMAEUS AND HERACLEON--CELSUS--THE
MURATORIAN FRAGMENT
XII. THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE FOR THE FOURTH GOSPEL
XIII. ON THE STATE OF THE CANON IN THE LAST QUARTER
OF THE SECOND CENTURY
XIV. CONCLUSION
[ENDNOTES]
APPENDIX. SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE ON THE
RECONSTRUCTION OF MARCION'S GOSPEL
INDICES

PREFACE.
It will be well to explain at once that the following work has been
written at the request and is published at the cost of the Christian
Evidence Society, and that it may therefore be classed under the head
of Apologetics. I am aware that this will be a drawback to it in the eyes
of some, and I confess that it is not altogether a recommendation in my
own.
Ideally speaking, Apologetics ought to have no existence distinct from
the general and unanimous search for truth, and in so far as they tend to
put any other consideration, no matter how high or pure in itself, in the
place of truth, they must needs stand aside from the path of science.
But, on the other hand, the question of true belief itself is immensely
wide. It is impossible to approach what is merely a branch of a vast
subject without some general conclusions already formed as to the
whole. The mind cannot, if it would, become a sheet of blank paper on
which the writing is inscribed by an external process alone. It must
needs have its _praejudicia_-- i.e. judgments formed on grounds
extrinsic to the special matter of enquiry--of one sort or another.
Accordingly we find that an absolutely and strictly impartial temper
never has existed and never will. If it did, its verdict would still be false,
because it would represent an incomplete or half-suppressed humanity.
There is no question that touches, directly or indirectly, on the moral
and spiritual nature of man that can be settled by the bare reason. A

certain amount of sympathy is necessary in order to estimate the weight
of the forces that are to be analysed: yet that very sympathy itself
becomes an extraneous influence, and the perfect balance and
adjustment of the reason is disturbed.
But though impartiality, in the strict sense, is not to be had, there is
another condition that way be rightly demanded--resolute honesty. This
I hope may be attained as well from one point of view as from another,
at least that there is no very