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δοὺς τὸ κατ' αὐτὸν Εὐαγγέλιον κ. τ. λ.)” (H. E. iii. c. 24, p. 116). Here comes in the important testimony of S. Papias (A); which, as Thiersch shows, directs us to the author of the Greek Gospel, and which he translates as follows: "Matthew had composed the sacred traditions in the Hebrew language, and each interpreted them as best he could,” ["if we thus," writes Thiersch, "translate his words (the aorist as pluperfect), they point if they are not to be considered as fragmentary to the extent of being unintelligible-to the following thought as their completion"]-until Matthew himself published the Greek document, which is read in the whole Church as his Gospel." If mere natural capabilities be looked for, who more competent to undertake such a translation than "Matthew the Publican," who, from his office, was necessarily acquainted with the Greek language, so generally spoken in Palestine? And as to the solicitude of the Apostles for the Hellenistic Jews, we have a sufficient proof in the case where "there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews," in a matter of ordinary detail (Acts, vi. 1). We cannot doubt, therefore, that, as soon as the want was felt of a Greek translation of the Hebrew Gospel, means were taken to supply it: to which the additional motive was added of providing a work profitable for the Church universal, which day after day was taking deeper root aihong the Gentiles as it was spurned by the Jews. The Hebrew Gospel, therefore, was at once supplanted by its Greek successor, which from the earliest times has occupied the first place in the New Testament Canon. On no other hypothesis, indeed, than that of S. Matthew himself having supplied the present form of his earlier work, can we account either for the profound silence of ancient writers respecting the translator whose version, as we

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1 "Versuch der Herstell.," s. 193. Thiersch explains the meaning of the word "interpreted" (punvevoɛ) in this place, by assuming that in this Christian community of native-born Jews, the established custom of the Synagogue worship (see, supra, Lecture vii. p. 325, note 2) had been adopted; and that the reading of the Hebrew document was followed by an "interpretation" for the benefit of those who understood only Greek. He refers to Neander "Kirchen-Geschichte," B. i. s. 522) who states that "in many Egyptian and Syrian towns, there were ecclesiastics, as in the Jewish Synagogues, who forthwith translated what was publicly read into the vernacular tongue, in order that it might be generally intelligible,-quoting the words of S. Epiphanius when enumerating the different ecclesiastical offices: 'Epμnvε vrai γλώσσης εἰς γλῶσσαν, ἢ ἐν ταῖς ἀναγνώσεσιν, ἢ ἐν ταῖς προσομιλίαις. Expos. Fid. Cathol., c. xxi. (" Adv. Hær." lib. iii., t. i. p. 1104).

2 That the publication of such a translation by the author himself was nothing unusual, Townson proves by the evidence of Josephus; who states, in the preface to his narrative of the Jewish War, that his Greek work is but the translation of an earlier composition in Hebrew; which he translates from motives nearly the same as those that have been suggested in the text as likely to have given rise to the Greek form of our Gospel.

3 When I say that we have no early information as to the translator, of course I do not mean to ignore the existence of the following hypotheses, which have been started by later writers:-E. g. In the "Synopsis Scripturæ Sacræ," to be found among the works of S. Athanasius (t. ii. p. 202), (but which Credner "Zur Geschichte des Kanons," s. 127 ff., proves to be, at the earliest, a work of the tenth century), the ingenious conjecture is offered that it was translated by S. James, "the Lord's brother, and first Bishop of Jerusalem." (Cf. what has been said in the text as to the solicitude of the Church for the Hellenizing Christians at Jerusalem.) In the "Chronicon" of S. Isidore of Seville, S. Barnabas is named (p. 272): Theophylact. ("Comment in Matt." Præf., t. i. p. 2) is followed by Euthymius Zigabenus ("Comm. in. Evang. Matth.,” t. i. p. 15, ed. Matthæi Lips. 1792) in representing S. John as the translator.

have seen (p. 469), was everywhere received and quoted as if it actually proceeded from S. Matthew himself; or for the absence of the least trace of any other Greek translation of the Hebrew original. John the Presbyter (to whom unquestionably the statement of S. Papias (A) must be traced) clearly represents the time as past, when each used to interpret for himself the Hebrew Gospel. He evidently implies that our present Greek Gospel was the element of the Canon contributed by S. Matthew; and he states the fact of its original form merely as a piece of casual information, likely to interest those who inquired respecting the origin of the Gospels. The same may be said of all succeeding writers, who repeat that information; but who quote, as we have seen, the Greek Gospel as an original work of S. Matthew.

Should this conclusion not be received, no one, at least, can refuse to accept the conclusion of Ebrard, "that the translation was prepared during the lifetime of the Apostles; unquestionably, too, under their inspection, and by their commission" (loc. cit. s. 786). It is only by means of these facts-viz. the early composition, and Apostolic recognition of our Greek Gospel-that we can account for the disappearance of the Hebrew original, or explain the absence of any satisfactory information respecting it. And this is all that is required, in order to remove every difficulty as to the Inspiration of the Greek form of S. Matthew's Gospel.

APPENDIX N.

"INSPIRED REASONING."

(LECTURE VIII.-PAGE 372.)

I HAVE selected Mr. Morell as the exponent of this opinion, merely because his statement of it is characterized by considerable ability, and is advocated with more than usual force. In general the character of Inspiration has been denied to the Reasoning of the sacred writers for the sole purpose of evading the force of certain passages in Scripture, which could not be reconciled with some favorite theory. Thus Bishop Burnet, in his remarks on the sixth Article of the Church of England, observes : "When Divine writers argue upon any point, we are always bound to believe the conclusions that their reasonings end in, as parts of Divine Revelation: but we are not bound to be able to make out, or even to assent to, all the premises made use of by them." Paley, who quotes and adopts this statement, adds:"In reading the Apostolic writings, we distinguish between their doctrines and their arguments. Their doctrines came to them by Revelation, properly so called; yet in propounding these doctrines in their writings or discourses, they were wont to illustrate, support, and enforce them, by such analogies, arguments, and considerations, as their own thoughts suggested. * The doctrine [of the call of the Gentiles] itself must be received; but it is not necessary in order to defend Christianity to defend the propriety of every comparison, or the validity of every argument, which the Apostle has brought into the discussion.

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The same observation applies to some other instances." 1-Evidences of Christianity, part iii. ch. 2.

The form in which Mr. Morell has stated this objection is plainly founded upon that particular view of syllogistic Reasoning according to which, when you admit the major premiss, you assert the conclusion either directly, or by implication;-in other words, the view which represents the conclusion as an inference from the major premiss.3 If this doctrine

of the syllogism be received, the reply to the objection may be briefly stated. The major premiss being allowed (as by Mr. Morell) to be some truth divinely revealed, the objector argues that, as the human mind by its own powers can proceed according to the rules of Logic, no Inspiration was required to draw the conclusion; which, according to the doctrine assumed, is but an inference from the one admitted truth. Is it, however, so very obvious a fact, that human Reasoning proceeds in such an orderly and undeviating a course as to require no guidance? Do the opinions of mankind, deduced from facts universally received, or from principles which the understanding, of necessity, acknowledges,-present a unanimity so striking as to justify the assertion that an inspired development of that Truth which God has revealed is either superfluous, or unnecessary? Of course no one will maintain such an assertion for a moment: and, accordingly, the objection, as I have already observed (see, supra, p. 371, note 2), is at once removed by referring to the distinction between Inspiration and Revelation; as well as to the importance of the former in relation to the

1 Bishop Hinds justly points out that to suppose the writers of the New Testament 'left liable to any false reasoning or to any mistaken application of old prophecy," is simply to theorize gratuitously: "because the question is not really one of fact, as the Bible may be confidently defended against the charge of actual error of either kind.” --Inspiration, p. 162.

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Thus Archbishop Whately ("Logic," 9th ed, p. 239), states that "the object of all Reasoning is merely to expand and unfold the assertions wrapt up, as it were, and implied in those with which we set out, and to bring a person to perceive and acknowledge the full force of that which he has admitted." Mr. J. S. Mill illustrates as follows, the nature of his objections to this theory: "I do not say that a person who affirmed, before the Duke of Wellington was born, that all men are mortal, knew that the Duke of Wellington was mortal; but I do say, that he asserted it: and I ask for an explanation of the apparent logical fallacy of adducing, in proof of the Duke of Wellington's mortality, a general statement which presupposes it. Finding no sufficient resolution of this difficulty in any of the writers on logic, I have attempted to supply one.”—A System of Logic, vol. i. ch. iii., 3d ed., p. 207, note.

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3 Under this aspect the subject is discussed by S. Th. Aquinas, when considering the question, "Utrum Sacra Doctrina sit argumentativa :”"—" Sicut aliæ scientiæ non argumentantur ad sua principia probanda, sed ex principiis argumentantur ad ostendendum alia in ipsis scientiis; ita hæc doctrina non argumentatur ad sua principia probanda, quæ sunt articuli Fidei; sed ex iis procedit ad aliquid ostendendum: sicut Apostolus 1 ad Cor. xv. ex Resurrectione Christi argumentatur ad resurrectionem communem probandam. * Utitur Sacra Doctrina etiam ratione humana, non quidem ad probandam Fidem sed ad manifestandum aliqua alia quæ traduntur in hac Doctrina. Cum igitur gratia non tollat naturam, sed perficiat, oportet quod naturalis ratio subserviat Fidei, sicut et naturalis inclinatio voluntatis obsequitur caritati. Unde et Apostolus dicit 2 ad Cor. x. 5: 'In captivitatem redigentes omnem intellectum in obsequium Christi.' Et inde est quod etiam auctoritatibus Philosophorum sacra doctrina utitur, ubi per rationem naturalem veritatem cognoscere potuerunt, sicut Paulus, Act. xvii. 28, inducit verbum Arati, dicens: 'Sicut et quidam poetarum vestrorum dixerunt: Genus Dei sumus.' "-Summ. Theol., pars 1 ma, qu. i. art. viii., t. xx. p. 7.

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latter (see, supra, p. 145). Of the neglect of this distinction no clearer illustration can be given than the remark of Paley just quoted: what I have already said, therefore (p. 371), is of itself sufficient to meet this aspect of the question.

A still more complete answer, however, is supplied, and this whole subject has been placed in its true light, by the profound theory of syllogistic Reasoning lately put forward by Mr. J. S. Mill; of which the following is a rapid sketch:

Ordinarily the major premiss of a syllogism may be regarded as a general proposition or formula which records or registers the inferences already made from particular cases; and "the conclusion is not an inference drawn from the formula, but an inference drawn according to the formula: the real logical antecedent, or premisses. being the particular facts from which the general proposition was collection by induction." According to the indications of this record we draw our conclusion: and the rules of the syllogism are a set of precautions to ensure our reading the record correctly. In this view of the question we assume that our knowledge has been derived from observation; but there are other sources from which we may also suppose it tɔ come. It may present itself as coming from testimony, and it may present itself as coming from Revelation; and this latter species of knowledge, "thus supernaturally communicated, may be conceived to comprise not only particular facts but general propositions, such as occur so abundantly in the writings of Solomon and in the Apostolic Epistles. Or the generalization may not be, in the ordinary sense, an assertion at all, but a command; a law, not in the philosophical, but in the moral and political sense of the term: an expression of the desire of a superior, that we, or any number of persons, shall conform our conduct to certain general instructions. So far as this asserts a fact, namely, a volition of the legislator, that fact is an individual fact, and the proposition, therefore, is not a general proposition. But the description therein contained of the conduct which it is the will of the legislator that his subjects should observe, is general. The proposition asserts not that all men are anything, but that all men shall do something." "These two cases, of a truth re

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1 Compare also Spinoza's representation of this objection:-"Si ad modum etiam attendamus, quo in his Epistolis Apostoli doctrinam Evangelicam tradunt, eum etiam a modo Prophetarum valde discedere videbimus. Apostoli namque ubique ratiocinantur, ita ut non prophetare sed disputare videantur. Prophetiæ vero contra mera tantum dogmata et decreta continent, quia in iis Deus quasi loquens introducitur, qui non ratiocinatur, sed ex absoluto suæ naturæ imperio decernit. Et etiam quia Prophetæ auctoritas ratiocinari non patitur; quisquis enim vult sua dogmata ratione confirmare, eo ipso ea arbitrali uniuscujusque judicio submittit. * * Itaque tam modi loquendi quam disserendi Apostolorum in Epistolis clarissime indicant easdem non ex revelatione et divino mandato, sed tantum ex ipsorum naturali judicio scriptas fuisse." -Tract. Theol. Polit., cap. xi.

2 Loc. cit. 216, &c.

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3 These latter words are taken from the first edition of Mr. Mill's work (vol. i. p. 260). In the third edition the passage stands thus, more generally expressed, but equally conveying the same sense:-"It may present itself as coming from testimony, which on the occasion and for the purpose in hand, is accepted as of an authoritative character: and the information thus communicated may be conceived to comprise not only particular facts, but general propositions, as when a scientific doctrine is accepted without examination on the authority of writers."-p. 217.

4 This statement is omitted in the third edition: cf. the first ed. vol. i. p. 260.

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vealed in general terms, and a command intimated in the like manner, might be exchanged for the more extensive cases of any general statement received upon testimony1 and any general practical precept. But the more limited illustrations suit us better, being drawn from subjects where long and complicated trains of ratiocination have actually been grounded upon premisses which came to mankind from the first in a general form, the subjects of Scriptural Theology, and of positive Law."""In both these cases the generalities are the original data, and the particulars are elicited from them by a process which correctly resolves itself into a series of syllogisms. * The only point to be determined is whether the authority which declared the general proposition intended to include this case in it :"—and this "operation is not a process of inference, but a process of interpretation." "When the premisses are given by authority, the function of Reasoning is to ascertain the testimony of a witness, or the will of a legislator, by interpreting the signs in which the one has intimated his assertion, and the other his command. In like manner, when the premisses are derived from observation, the function of Reasoning is to ascertain what we (or our predecessors) formerly thought might be inferred from the observed facts, and to do this by interpreting a memorandum of ours or of theirs."

Now, were we to pause here, it would of itself be obvious how essential it was that the sacred writer, when interpreting the divinely revealed Truth from which his Reasoning flows, should have been himself divinely guided, in order to ensure certainty, or even to obtain an insight into the applicability of the Divine command to any particular instance: but we must go a step farther. There are cases, it is true, in which the minor premiss (which "always affirms a resemblance between a new case, and some cases previously known") is obvious to the senses, or at once ascertainable by direct observation: it may not, however, be thus intuitively evident, but may itself be known only by inference. It may itself be the conclusion of another argument; and must, therefore, be inferred from some other general proposition, which presents the record of a class of observations that may be totally different. This clearly may take place many times in succession; and hence arises a train of Reasoning.

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Under this form almost every instance of Reasoning in Scripture presents itself. The sacred writer, desiring to apply some one proposition that

1 See note 3 page 476.

2 On this theory of Mr. Mill, Dr. Whewell observes:-"I say, then, that Mr. Mill appears to me especially instructive in his discussion of the nature of the proof which is conveyed by the syllogism; and that his doctrine, that the form of the syllogism consists in an inductive assertion, with an interpretation added to it, solves very happily the difficulties which baffle the other theories of this subject. I think that this doctrine of his is made still more instructive by his excepting from it the cases of Scriptural Theology and of Positive Law, as cases in which general propositions, not particular facts, are our original data."Of Induction, p. 85.

3 See Mr. Mill's remarks, loc. cit. ch. iv. p. 233, &c.

Mr. Mill gives the follow example:- All arsenic is poisonous; the substance which is before me is arsenic; therefore it is poisonous." Here to prove the minor, viz., "the substance which is before me is arsenic," we proceed thus:-" Whatever forms a compound with hydrogen, which yields a black precipitate with nitrate c silver, is arsenic: the substance before me conforms to this condition; therefore it i arsenic."-Ibid p. 234.

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