The Gospels in the Second Century | Page 2

great antecedent reason to the contrary. In
past generations indeed there was such a reason. Strongly negative
views could only be expressed at considerable personal risk and loss.
But now, public opinion is so tolerant, especially among the reading
and thinking classes, that both parties are practically upon much the
same footing. Indeed for bold and strong and less sensitive minds
negative views will have an attraction and will find support that will go
far to neutralise any counterbalancing disadvantage.
On either side the remedy for the effects of bias must be found in a
rigorous and searching criticism. If misleading statements and unsound
arguments are allowed to pass unchallenged the fault will not lie only
with their author.
It will be hardly necessary for me to say that the Christian Evidence
Society is not responsible for the contents of this work, except in so far
as may be involved in the original request that I should write it. I
undertook the task at first with some hesitation, and I could not have
undertaken it at all without stipulating for entire freedom. The Society
very kindly and liberally granted me this, and I am conscious of having
to some extent availed myself of it. I have not always stayed to
consider whether the opinions expressed were in exact accordance with
those of the majority of Christians. It will be enough if they should find
points of contact in some minds, and the tentative element in them will
perhaps be the more indulgently judged now that the reconciliation of
the different branches of knowledge and belief is being so anxiously
sought for.
The instrument of the enquiry had to be fashioned as the enquiry itself
went on, and I suspect that the consequences of this will be apparent in
some inequality and incompleteness in the earlier portions. For instance,
I am afraid that the textual analysis of the quotations in Justin may
seem somewhat less satisfactory than that of those in the Clementine

Homilies, though Justin's quotations are the more important of the two.
Still I hope that the treatment of the first may be, for the scale of the
book, sufficiently adequate. There seemed to be a certain advantage in
presenting the results of the enquiry in the order in which it was
conducted. If time and strength are allowed me, I hope to be able to
carry several of the investigations that are begun in this book some
stages further.
I ought perhaps to explain that I was prevented by other engagements
from beginning seriously to work upon the subject until the latter end
of December in last year. The first of Dr. Lightfoot's articles in the
Contemporary Review had then appeared. The next two articles (on the
Silence of Eusebius and the Ignatian Epistles) were also in advance of
my own treatment of the same topics. From this point onwards I was
usually the first to finish, and I have been compelled merely to allude to
the progress of the controversy in notes. Seeing the turn that Dr.
Lightfoot's review was taking, and knowing how utterly vain it would
be for any one else to go over the same ground, I felt myself more at
liberty to follow a natural bent in confining myself pretty closely to the
internal aspect of the enquiry. My object has been chiefly to test in
detail the alleged quotations from our Gospels, while Dr. Lightfoot has
taken a wider sweep in collecting and bringing to bear the collateral
matter of which his unrivalled knowledge of the early Christian
literature gave him such command. It will be seen that in some cases,
as notably in regard to the evidence of Papias, the external and the
internal methods have led to an opposite result; and I shall look forward
with much interest to the further discussion of this subject.
I should be sorry to ignore the debt I am under to the author of
'Supernatural Religion' for the copious materials he has supplied to
criticism. I have also to thank him for his courtesy in sending me a
copy of the sixth edition of his work. My obligations to other writers I
hope will be found duly acknowledged. If I were to single out the one
book to which I owed most, it would probably be Credner's 'Beitrage
zur Einleitung in die Biblischen Schriften,' of which I have spoken
somewhat fully in an early chapter. I have used a certain amount of
discretion and economy in avoiding as a rule the works of previous
apologists (such as Semisch, Riggenbach, Norton, Hofstede de Groot)
and consulting rather those of an opposite school in such

representatives as Hilgenfeld and Volkmar. In this way, though I may
very possibly have omitted some arguments which may be sound, I
hope