every Sunday in the Christian assemblies throughout the Roman empire, were displaced by another set of gospels--our four-about twenty or thirty years later, without the slightest notice being taken of it, without any controversy upon the subject, and without the action of an ecumenical council? Do not men stick stubbornly to the old? It takes a long time to bring into general use a revised and improved translation of the Scriptures. How, then, could one set of gospels be quietly substituted for another set in so short a time, without leaving in history a vestige of such a change? The gospels of the last part of the second century were the same as those of the middle of the century; and those of the middle the same as those of the first part of the century. Old Christians of the last half of the second century knew what gospels they had had in the first half; those of the first half knew what gospels they had had in the last half of the first century. The gospel torch was transmitted without interruption from the last half of the first century to the last half of the second. And the very copies of the gospels made and read in the last part of the first century would be read in the churches in the second and third centuries. But the question still remains to be considered, Did Justin use in addition to our canonical gospels some other gospels or histories or traditions of Christ? We can decide this only by an examination of the passages supposed to be extra-canonical found in his writings. The first of these which we shall consider is that found in § 47 of Justin's Dialogue with Trypho. "Wherefore," says Justin, "our Lord Jesus Christ said: In what condition I find you, in this I will judge you.'" Justin had been speaking of God's mercy to the returning sinner and of his knowing a backsliding saint only as a sinner. He then asserts that Christ taught the same doctrine as had been set forth in Ezekiel. We cannot find Justin's words in our gospels; but the substance of them is certainly implied in all the teachings of Christ respecting the divine judgment. We see it in the case of the man who was not robed in a wedding garment. Not very different from Justin's manner of quoting, Paul says (Eph. v, 14): "Wherefore it [the Scripture] saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." There is no such passage as this in the Old Testament; but it appears to be based upon Isa. lx, 1; xxix, 10.

We have found in Clement of Alexandria (about A. D. 191202) a passage similar to the one in Justin: "For he says [that is, God, as the whole context shows] in whatever condition [or things] I find you, in this [or these] I will judge you."* Thus, it is possible that Justin made a mistake in thinking that Christ had used the language. And Justin certainly has blundered in matters of this kind. About thirty years ago one of the most eminent ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who had been president of one of our oldest colleges, said in a public discourse delivered in Baltimore, "Our blessed Saviour says that all that a man hath he will give for his life!" Did he quote an apocryphal gospel, or did he make a mistake?

In his Dialogue with Trypho, § 88, Justin says that when Christ was among men he performed the works of a carpenter, namely, "he made ploughs and yokes." There is no need of hunting up an apocryphal gospel for the foundation of this statement. The question asked in Mark vi, 3: "Is not this the carpenter?" furnished Justin with a sufficient basis. for his statement. Justin's remark that Christ was born in a cave at Bethlehem † was most probably founded on a tradition, as he himself lived in Palestine. In § 88 of the Dialogue with Trypho, speaking of the baptism of Christ, he says, "When he had descended to the waters a fire was kindled in the Jordan." This is certainly not found in our gospels, nor has it a basis in them; and it is uncertain from what source it was taken. But why may not Justin have derived it from tradition? Born probably not more than seventy or eighty years after Christ's ministry and but a few years after the death of the apostle John, there must have been many traditions respecting Christ still fresh among the people of Palestine among whom Justin lived. And it is remarkable that he has given us apparently only two instances in which he has used tradition, so closely does he adhere to apostolic authority. But Justin discriminates the statement that "a fire was kindled in the Jordan" from the statements of the evangelists, for he adds, "And the apostles of this Christ of ours have written that the Holy Spirit as a dove lit upon him."

There remains one other passage to be considered, found in Justin's First Apology (§ 35): “ For as the prophet said, 'Revil

* Liber Quis Dives Salvetur, § 346.

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+ Dialogue with Trypho, § 78.

ing him, they set [him] upon the judgment seat [ẞiμa], and said, Judge for us.'" Professor Drummond suggested that Justin took the verb as transitive in the sentence, "And he [Pilate] sat [ékáviσev] upon the judgment seat [ua]," supposing it to mean, "And they set him [Jesus] upon the judgment seat." Professor Thayer holds this view, but thinks that Justin did nothing more than follow the same idea as found in the fragments of the recently discovered gospel of Peter: "And they set him [Christ] upon the seat of judgment, saying, Judge rightly, King of Israel." This gospel of Peter is mentioned by Serapion, Bishop of Antioch (about A. D. 190). It was used by some in the ecclesiastical district of Rhossus, not far from Antioch. He states that he obtained a copy of it from those who studied it, who were the successors of those followers of the heretical Marcianus "whom we call Docetæ."* This gospel, which certainly belongs to the Docetæ, may not be as old as Justin's First Apology, and it is very doubtful that Justin ever saw it. It is more likely that the author of the so-called gospel may have seen Justin's work. Westcott thinks that Justin had in mind Isa. lviii, 2, "They ask of me just judgment." Justin seems to have read John xix, 13, thus: "Pilate brought out Jesus, and set him on the judgment seat, and said, in mockery, Judge for us." For, of course, Christ was set upon the judgment seat for some purpose, which Justin's imagination could easily supply. He has given us excellent specimens of what he could do in this line in his additions and explanations respecting the brazen serpent in Numbers. Justin has the same words, ènì ẞíuaтos, upon (the) bema, or judgment seat, as John, while the gospel of Peter has two different words— kavédρav kρioɛws, seat of judgment. The passage in Justin furnishes an additional probable proof of his use of John's gospel. The character of the fragments of the gospel of Peter shows one thing most clearly-that it could never have been one of Justin's authorities.

*Eusebius, Hist. Ec., lib. vi, cap. xii.

Henry M. Harman

ART. VII. DIVINE REVELATION.

THE fact of a divine revelation we ought to be able to assume. We posit that when we postulate an Intelligence in this universe. other than our own. For if the universe have a maker it cannot but be that he shall stand revealed in what he has made. The miracle, then, is not in the fact of revelation, for it would, indeed, be a miracle if there were none. If the heavens are the "work of his fingers," and if he has "ordained the moon and the stars," that is sufficient to "declare his glory," which in itself is a revelation. God is truly seen in what he does. There is no speech or language where that voice is not heard. The sage and the savage alike hear it, though, it may be, not equally. But God is not limited to revelation through his works. "He that formed the eye, shall he not see?" He that gave to man speech, shall he not speak? Mind infinite in contact with mind finite, the Spirit of God in communication with the spirit of man, is indeed a reasonable assumption. Without so much, at least, a moral government would be impossible. For the Being "not ourselves" could not make for righteousness if he could not write his law on the hearts and consciences of men.

The

moral nature of man demands such a law, and that in itself is the highest proof that the demand has been met. The want is normal, and the supply is natural; and the natural supply should never be put in the category of the miraculous.

The miracle should rather be in the fact that, the want once having been met, its supply should ever cease. In point of fact, it never has ceased, for God's revelation of himself is not confined to any one day or age. It does not mark an epoch. It is not limited to any speech or writing or book. Its gift or manifestation does not imply favoritism in one direction or neglect in another; neither does it imply activity on the part of God up to a certain moment, and ever after that a suspension of revelation. Revelation is not so much a consummation as it is a movement or process. God is infinite; therefore the last word concerning him can never be uttered. Whether we find the word of God in nature, in a book, or in a person, nature must be investigated, the book interpreted, and the person apprehended. Nature is yielding up her secrets, the book is

being better interpreted, and we are coming to know more of the Christ. Revelation is always conditioned by the limitations of the finite. It is never, therefore, so much a question as to what God has given as it is as to how much we have been able to receive. Men in a way are everywhere seeking after God if haply they may find him. The quest is the same; the difference is in the results. It is neither God's partiality nor his fault that all are not equally successful, for there is what may be called fortune even in the matter of seeking after God. The conditions are not always equally favorable, and the seekers are not alike earnest, honest, and successful.

The manifoldness of the verbum Dei, revealer of truth, and the universality of its manifestations are not sufficiently understood. It is not limited to one book, but is found in many books; it is not the utterance of a few prophets in some particular age, but of God's teachers in all the ages; it is not the exclusive possession of any one nation, but is in some measure the heritage of all nations; it is not the basis of any one religion alone to the exclusion of all others, for God hath not left himself without witnesses in any nation. God is in all the ages, among all the peoples, in all things, and manifesting himself every hour. Let us, if we may, avoid even the pantheism which is implied in Emerson's "over-soul;" but let us not fail to find glimpses of God and his truth everywhere and in all things -in all art and science, in all poetry and philosophy, in all history and in all religion, above all, through all, and in alltranscendent, yet immanent, and, therefore, a continuous, progressive revelation, manifold and universal.

By "universal" is not meant that God and truth have been equally known in all the ages, nor among all the nations, any more than they are equally known by all persons now in the same nation; nor by "manifold," that God is equally in all events or equally revealed in all books and persons. But they do mean that no nation or tribe has been overlooked or neglected; for fatherhood implies universal care. So long as the gods were simply national deities so long were the religions but ethnic; but when Jesus revealed God as Father and Lord of all the foundation was laid for a cosmopolitan religion. "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature' had a broad foundation on which to stand, nothing less, indeed,