THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE ABOUT JESUS
OF NAZARETH

1. The need for historical evidence in Apologetics.

There can be no such thing as a rational demonstration of credibility for the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth unless we have at our disposal his­torical sources which are obviously reliable.

Since He lived and died two thousand years ago, the only naturally and his­torically acceptable testimony about Him and about His activity is ultimately to be sought in genuine and incorrupt volumes, written during the lifetime of His contemporaries by men who intended to tell the truth and who actually had at their disposal means for ascertaining the matters about which they wrote.

Ac­tually we do possess such historically reliable testimony. It is the business of Apologetics to point out the existence of these writings and their evidence of reliability.

The writings pertinent to the life and the teaching of our Lord are both Christian and non-Christian. Among these latter books are some of pagan, and others of Jewish origin. The extant pagan sources tell us very little about the activity of our Lord, although even in themselves they show that He existed and exercised an incomparably powerful religious influence during the first cen­tury of our era. In spite of their many imperfections, they con­stitute valuable sources for the science of Apologetics, testifying to the knowledge about Christ and His work of con­temporary pagan writers.

2. The Pagan sources.

(1) Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, the Roman historian who flourished around the end of the first century of our era, wrote in his life of the emperor Claudius:

 “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he (Claudius) expelled them from Rome.” [1]

The event he describes is one which took place in either the year 51 or 52 of our era.

It is interesting to note that this same event is mentioned by St. Luke:

“After these things departing from Athens, he came to Corinth. And finding a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with Priscilla his wife (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome), he came to them.” (Acts 18:1-2)

The arrival of St. Paul in Corinth, after his Athenian preaching, was in the year 52.

The fact that Suetonius referred to Jesus of Nazareth as “Chrestus” is patent from another excerpt from his own work. In his Life of Nero he lists among the accomplishments of this emperor his punishment of the Christians:

“Punishment was inflicted upon the Christians, a class of men given to a novel and pernicious superstition.” [2]

Writing at the time he did, Suetonius (Vita Neronis, No. 16) was fully aware that the “Chrestus” to whom he referred was the founder of the hated society of the Christians. Christians were still under the ban of the empire, and it was known by all that they had been founded by One who was a Jew and had been condemned by the Roman authorities at the instigation of His own people.

Furthermore, at the end of the year 197, when the matchless Tertullian wrote his “Apologeticus,” the pagans still mispronounced the name of Christiani as “Chrestiani:”

“There is no good great enough to overcome the hatred of the Christians. Now, therefore, if this be the hatred of a name, what is the fault of a name? What accusation can be raised against words save that the very sound of a certain name is barbarous or unlucky or ac­cursed or shameful ? But 'Christian' as far as its interpretation goes, is derived from 'anointing.' But even when you mispro­nounce it `Chrestian' (for you have not even a sure knowledge of the name), it is composed of sweetness and benignity.” [3]

(2) Tacitus, an older contemporary of Suetonius, gives much clearer and more correct teaching about our Lord, even though his prejudice against the Christian name was no less apparent.

This is his account of the persecution of the Christians which took place under Nero, the first emperor to proscribe the followers of our Lord.

“Neither human aid, nor imperial munificence, nor all the modes of placating heaven, could stifle scandal or dispel the belief that the fire had been started by order. Therefore, to scotch the rumor, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd called Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty during the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator, Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but also in the capital itself, where all things horrible or disgrace­ful in the world collect and find a vogue. First, then, the Con­fessed members of the sect were arrested; next, on their disclosures, vast numbers were convicted, not so much on account of arson as for hatred of the human race. And derision accompanied their end: they were covered with the skins of wild beasts and torn to pieces by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed, were burned to serve as torches by night. Nero had offered his gardens for the spectacle, and gave an exhibition in his circus, mixing with the crowd in the attire of a charioteer, or mounted on his car. Hence in spite of a guilt which had earned the most exemplary punishment, there arose a sentiment of pity, due to the impression that they were being sacrificed not for the welfare of the state but to the ferocity of a single man.” [4]

(3) The correspondence between Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, and his superior the emperor Trajan while the former was prefect of Bithynia gives valuable information about the followers of Christ and shows that even a pagan knew that Christians considered Him as divine. This correspondence was carried on between the years 111 and 113.

The younger Pliny reported on his treatment of the Christians.

“I have conducted myself in this manner with regard to those who were brought before me as Christians. I have asked them if they were Christians. When they confessed I interrogated them a second and a third time, threatening punishment. I have ordered those who persevered to be put to death. Nor did I doubt (whatever it was that they might have admitted), that this stubborn and certainly inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished.— But they affirmed that this was the extent of their fault or error: that it was their custom on a stated day to gather together before dawn to sing in concert a hymn to Christ as to a God; and to bind themselves by oath, not to any crime but rather not to commit robbery, thievery, or adultery, not to break faith nor to refuse to return goods deposited with them when they were called upon to do so. Having done these things, it was their habit to disperse and then again to gather to take food, which however is common and harmless. They have however ceased to do this after my edict in which I forbade secret meetings as you ordered. For so much greater reason, I believed it necessary to seek what is true by torture from two servant women who were called deaconesses, but I found nothing other than an evil and extravagant superstition. And so, having adjourned the inquiry, I have had recourse to your advice. It seemed to me a matter worth consulting about, especially because of the number of those endangered. For many persons of every age, of every order, and of both sexes are called and will be called into peril. For the con­tagion of this superstition has spread, not only through the cities but also through the villages and the country, yet still it seems possible to check and correct it.” [5]

The emperor Trajan replied to this letter of Pliny's with another epistle which is still extant:

“You have followed the proper pro­cedure, my dear Secundus, in dealing with the cases of those who had been brought to you as Christians. Nothing however can be decided as a universal rule which would have any definite form. They are not to be sought out. If they are brought to court and convicted, they are to be punished, but in such a way that he who denies that he is a Christian, and who makes this most evident by the deed itself, that is by supplicating our gods, may obtain acquittal through his recantation, even though he was suspect in the past.

Anonymous accusations must not be used in any process, for this procedure is of the very worst example, and does not belong to our age.” [6]

A few years later, around 125, the emperor Hadrian sent a similar letter to the proconsul of Asia, Minucius Fundanus. This letter is cited by St. Justin Martyr at the end of his First Apology. [7]

These pagan sources about the life of Christ tell us very little. They give evidence of the confusion existing in the comfortable and self-sufficient fashionable pagan world with reference to those men who had been condemned by the law of the empire.

But there is no confusion whatsoever on certain fundamental points:

- The pagans knew very well that Jesus of Nazareth was by no means a mythical person;

- They knew very well that He had lived, and that He had suffered the death of a condemned malefactor in Judea during the reign of their own prefect, Pontius Pilate;

- They were very well aware that the empire was quickly filling up with men who worshiped this Jesus of Nazareth as God, and who were sincere and firm enough in their belief to prefer death itself to a denial of Jesus.

3. The Jewish sources.

We have also certain Jewish teachings about the life of Christ, although even the Jewish Encyclopedia is honest enough to classify some of these writings as myths and legends about our Lord, rather than as truly historical data about His life and teaching. [8]

The stories thus criticized are develop­ments of those insults the Pharisees directed against Jesus during His own lifetime.

(1) The first Jewish source is the paragraph from the Antiquities of Flavius Josephus, a writer who was born in A.D. 37 and died in the year 94.

This has obviously no connection with the fabulous stories to which we have just referred:

“At that time there existed Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is proper to call Him a man at all. For He was a worker of wonderful deeds, the Master of those men who receive the true with pleasure: and He attracted many Jews and also many gentiles to Himself. He was the Christ. Those who had first loved Him did not cease to love Him when Pilate condemned Him to the punishment of the cross after He had been accused by the leaders of our men. He appeared to them again on the third day, revivified, the divine prophets having told these and a thousand other wonderful things about Him. And the nation of the Christians, named for Him, endures even until this day.” [9]

Although the preponderance of evidence is in favor of the genuineness of this passage, there are still serious reasons for doubt­ing that it was in the work as Josephus actually wrote it. The first Christian apologists who disputed against the Jews never cited this work, and it would seem likely that they would have cited it had they known of its existence.

Eusebius of Caesarea mentions it in his Ecclesiastical History, [10] and although he was an eminent scholar, far beyond most of his contemporaries in critical powers, he has admitted as genuine certain documents which later writers came to recognize as spurious.

Origen, however, expressly states that Flavius Josephus denied that Christ is the Messiah, a statement obviously contained in the passage under discussion.  [11] The statement of Origen is by far the most serious objection which can be brought to bear against the authenticity of this passage.

On the other hand, all of the early codices of the Antiquities which exist in the world carry this passage. It would be at least surprising if all of the manuscripts of this Jewish author had fallen into the hands of the Christians, who had taken the trouble to insert into the text an approbation of Christ, attributing this to an author for whom they obviously cared very little. Furthermore, the paragraph occurs in Latin translations as well as in manuscript versions of the Greek original. Thus, from a point of view of docu­mentary evidence, the passage is at least as well attested as any other portion of the works of Josephus.

As far as merely internal evidence is concerned, there can be no question of any serious decision against the authenticity of these words. Josephus was a Jew, but one who wrote for and among the Romans, the bitter enemies of his own people. The man who favored the cause and the arms of Rome could hardly have been expected to contradict the written proclamation of the Roman procurator who had condemned Jesus of Nazareth to the death of the cross. This procurator had written in the three languages that Jesus of Nazareth was the King of the Jews, the true Messiah. That inscription was visible above the head of the dying Christ. It is hardly to be wondered that the pro-Roman Jewish writer should insert into his text a notice which after all did nothing more or less than sum up the judgment of a Roman governor. Pilate who first wrote that message did not accept the faith of Jesus Christ. Then there is no reason for surprise in the fact that Josephus who set down the same statement should have remained outside of the society of those who followed the Master.

However, by reason of the objections which are raised against its authenticity, the passage of Josephus Flavius has very little moment in the proofs of Catholic apologetics. It is, however, some­thing far more worthy and credible than the other notices about Jesus contained in Jewish writings.

(2) For there are remarks about Jesus of Nazareth contained in the Talmud, stories evidently colored by the hatred with which the leaders of the Jewish people never ceased to follow the most illustrious member of their nation.

These stories were gathered together in a certain “Toledot Ieschu” (the Generations or the Life of Jesus), which appeared during the early middle ages. These stories which attribute every sort of infamy and wickedness to our Lord are rejected now even by Jewish scholars as sources for real historical knowledge about Jesus of Nazareth. They constitute one of the most grotesque and abominable exhibits in all of the line of literary perversity.

However, these same stories are of ancient origin. The writings of the Talmud were not brought together until long after the death of our Lord, but the teaching expressed in these writings was something handed down from rabbi to rabbi over a period of many generations. [12]

Basically the stories about Christ contained in Talmudic literature are those which the Pharisees, the enemies of Jesus, circulated in order to interfere with the success of His mission. However, in spite of their blasphemous and scandalous character, they stand as indications of the reality and of the im­portance of Christ and His teaching.

It is another example of that "unfortunate astuteness" [13] mentioned by St. Augustine, that the very stories which were spread abroad to defame Jesus, actually show forth the strength and the importance of His claims. It would be more than miraculous if the sort of person [Jesus] described in the Jewish legends could win adherents and found a society which actually covers the world. They picture a Man who is said to be weak, vacillating, uncertain, vicious, and stupid. Yet they testify that this Man was strong enough to win away thousands of ad­herents of the mosaic law, and to be adored as God by countless throngs of men.

Furthermore these stories imitate the actual facts in the life of Christ, as these are described in authentic and reliable historical documents. [14] In so doing they show very clearly the basic outlines of His work:

-                   They show Him as One who was born in a village of their own country, and to a woman of royal blood;

-                   Their very charge of illegitimacy constitutes a recognition of the fact that their original teachers were aware of the story that He had been conceived apart from the activity of any human father;

-                   They de­scribe a long sojourn in Egypt, and thus testify that the men who originated the stories were quite cognizant of the flight into Egypt;

-                   They speak of Jesus as a magician who went about performing. wonders, and thereby they indicate the reality of His miracles;

-                   Finally, the gross and fantastic legends of His death mirror and ape, with unspeakable malevolence, the true recountal of the passion and the crucifixion.

The men who composed the stories about Jesus in the Talmud and in the Toledot Ieschu [15] saw Him with all the clarity of hatred, which, after all, is only a little less vivid than love itself. They hated Him and His works far too fiercely to be content with the obviously ridiculous charge that He was only a myth. It remained for the clouded minds and the weak wills of men in later times to attempt the historically absurd hypothesis that there had never been a man named Jesus of Nazareth.

4. The Christian sources and their reliability.

The most impor­tant sources of historical knowledge about Jesus of Nazareth and His teaching are, of course, the books which were written by His own followers.

Some of these books are actually received by the Church as divinely inspired, that is, as books which have been written by God Himself through the agency or the instrumentality of certain human authors. These constitute the canonical books of the New Testament.

Naturally, in the science of Apologetics we are not concerned with these books precisely in so far as they are inspired by God. To believe that they are so inspired, and this statement that they have been written by God Himself con­stitutes one of the propositions to which we assent on the authority of God revealing, one of the truths which enter into that body of doctrine which we explain and demonstrate as rationally credible in the science of Apologetics.

Thus it would be wildly illogical to utilize a priori these documents as divinely revealed in attempting to show that the very belief is reasonable. It so happens, however, that these books were written by definite and ascertainable human authors, at times and in places which have been recorded.

Thus it is possible for us to examine these books, as we would examine other writings, only for evidence of their historical reliability.

There are certain definite criteria, in the light of which we can ascertain with perfect cer­tainty that this or that document is trustworthy in an historical sense. We can certainly apply these criteria to the canonical writ­ings of the New Testament. If they conform to the standards of historical reliability, there is absolutely no reason why we should not accept what is contained in them as historically accurate, in the same way as we receive for example the doctrine contained in the works of Julius Caesar.

However, not all of the teaching about the life and the works of Jesus Christ which has come to us from Christian sources of one sort or another is contained in the books of the New Testa­ment. There are certain writings which are called apocryphal gospels. These are far more numerous than the canonical books themselves, and certainly they claim to give information about the conduct and the teaching of Jesus Christ.

Furthermore there are certain sayings attributed to Him, and set down in the com­positions of early ecclesiastical writers. These statements, not con­tained in the canonical books of the New Testament, are known as the Agrapha, or as the Logia or the Antilegomena of Jesus. [16]

5. The Agrapha.

In the first place, as far as these Agrapha are concerned, we must admit that they throw no light whatsoever upon the problem of the credibility of that teaching which is proposed by Jesus Christ.

They are interesting because of the tremendous importance of our Lord and of His message. But they contain no doctrine nor manifest any evidence of credibility not already expressed in the existing monuments of Sacred Scrip­ture and of apostolic Tradition.

6. The Apocrypha.

The Apocrypha, on the other hand, are docu­ments written as counterfeits to existing and recognized canonical books.

Most of them imitate the four authentic gospels. [17]

The most important new testament apocryphal writings which have been mentioned in the course of history or which are still extant include The Gospel according to the Hebrews, that according to the Egyptians, the gospel of Peter, and that of Thomas as well as the Protoevangelium of James as spurious gospel accounts.

There were also spurious Acts published under the names of Peter, of John, and of Paul, as well as a tiresome number of false Epistles which claimed to have apostolic origin.

These books were termed apocryphal or hidden because they were considered first as belonging to certain esoteric sects which claimed to be in possession of a teaching which Christ had never deigned to reveal to the common run of men. Some of them, however, are works written in a spirit of misguided pietism by men who were trying to edify the Christian public. Most of them, however, had a distinctively heretical orientation.

These documents have absolutely no historical authority. They cast no light whatsoever upon the life and the teachings of Jesus Christ. As they appeared, they were rejected by the universal Church, even though some individual churches were inclined for a short time to regard them as authentic. Even a cursory examina­tion of these documents will manifest their extravagant character, and their obvious unreliability.

However, the apocryphal writings of the New Testament con­tribute to the work of Catholic Apologetics only in so far as they show the existence and the authority of the existing gospels.

These apocrypha are obviously counterfeits, and just as the existence and nature of counterfeit money is an indication of the existence and the form of an authorized currency, these false books may be utilized to show the reliability of the accepted gospels.

Men would not have taken the trouble to set forth even such obvious sub­stitutes as the apocryphal books unless they had been perfectly aware that the people recognized the real Gospels as authentic and reliable accounts of Christ and His teaching.

7. The Canonical sources.

The only complete and authentic books which can offer historically reliable information about the life and the activity of Jesus of Nazareth are the books of the New Testament, recognized as authentic and canonical by the Church.

Naturally the books which give the most direct teaching on these points are the four Gospels, written by SS. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. [18]

The first of these gospels was written by St. Matthew in Palestine itself, and probably in the city of Capharnaum, between the years 40 and 45 of our era. It was originally written in Aramaic, the mother tongue of Jesus Himself. [19] However, in apostolic times it was translated into Greek, the common language of the entire Mediterranean basin. There were originally many of these transla­tions, but at a very early date one Greek text took precedence over the rest. This gospel was written for Christians of Hebrew origin.

The gospel according to St. Mark [20] was written by this evangelist at Rome about the year 53. St. Mark had first been the companion of St. Paul. Afterward he attached himself to the service of St. Peter. His gospel, written like all the other books of the New Testament with the exception of St. Matthew's gospel, in Greek was actually his rendition of the message of St. Peter, as this had been preached to the Romans.

St. Luke wrote his gospel during the captivity of St. Paul, [21] either at Caesarea or at Rome. This first captivity is described in the closing chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, the book which St. Luke wrote as a sequel to his gospel. Thus the gospel was written during the year 61 or 62. St. Luke was the inseparable companion of St. Paul, and it was his intention to set down the events of our Lord's life, as these had been recorded in the other gospels, according to a more complete chronological plan.

These first three gospels are frequently called the synoptics [22] (from the Greek synoptikos, agreeing), because they narrate prac­tically the same series of facts and of sayings of our Lord. Each one of these three gospels recounts at least some incidents not mentioned by the other two, and each has its own peculiar style of narration. Nevertheless the striking resemblance among these justifies the common name of synoptic.

St. John the Apostle, the beloved disciple of Jesus, wrote the fourth gospel most probably at Ephesus, about the year I00. [23] He set down incidents and sayings which had not been recorded by the other three evangelists, and brought out that portion of the teaching of our Lord which was most effectively contrary to the doctrine advanced by the heretics at the end of the first century.

Besides the four gospels, there is one other historical book in the canon of the New Testament. This is the Acts of the Apostles, written at Rome during the year 63 by St. Luke himself. [24] The first nine chapters deal with the first propagation of the Church among the Jews and the Samaritans in Palestine. The remaining nineteen chapters deal with the spreading of the Church and its teaching among the gentiles, especially through- the efforts of St. Paul.

There are also in the authentic canon of the New Testament twenty-one didactic books, written in the form of letters either to individual Christians or individual churches, or to the body of believers as a whole. Fourteen of these letters were written by St. Paul, three by St. John, two by St. Peter, while St. James the Lesser, and St. Jude produced one each. The one prophetical book, the Apocalypse, was written by St. John.

The letters of St. Paul asserted the universality of that salvation which had been procured through the Passion and the death of Jesus and thus fought the Judaizing tendencies of the early here­tics. [25] The first written were the two epistles to the Thessalonians, in 51 and 52. From 55 to 57 there appeared the two letters to the Corinthians, the epistle to the Galatians, and that to the Romans. The epistle to the Colossians and that addressed to the Ephesians, the little note to Philemon and the epistle to the Philippians were all written from 61 to 63. During the last four years of his life St. Paul wrote the epistle to the Hebrews and the three pastoral epistles. These last included one letter to Titus and two to Timothy.

The Catholic epistle of St. James was written sometime between the years 50 and 6o.

The two epistles of St. Peter and that of St. Jude were composed between the years 60 and 65, while the three letters of St. John the Apostle were composed around the end of the first century. The first of these epistles stands as an epilogue to the fourth gospel. [26]

The Apocalypse, the last of the canonical books of the New Testament, dates from the same period. [27]

Now it is the business of the apologist to utilize these books, and in particular the four gospels, which deal directly with the life and the accomplishments of Jesus of Nazareth, in demon­strating the rational credibility of Catholic dogma. For this dogma is set forth as the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, as a doctrine which He showed very convincingly to be credible through the testimony of those divine works which are obviously valid criteria of divine revelation.

Obviously then we could never hope to show that Catholic dogma as such is rationally credible, unless we are able, to advance some definite and naturally acceptable evidence that Jesus Christ really existed, that He claimed to be a divine messenger, and that He really advanced, as divinely revealed, a system of truth which is actually that now presented by the Cath­olic Church.

Once we have ascertained these facts, we can logically inquire into the evidences of credibility which have appeared to authenticate the claims set forth in favor of the Christian message.

Obviously then the apologist must consider the reliability of the books of the New Testament, and in particular that of the four gospels, as historical documents. In the event that they are such as to offer historical evidence equal to that given by other authentic and recognized works, we can know through them what our Lord did, and what He said and claimed to be.

But, should they prove to be other than scientifically acceptable, then we shall have no means of knowing with anything like historical exactness, the very truth which we must understand in order to prove the credi­bility of Catholic dogma.

8. The canonical books are used in Apologetics merely as reliable historical documents, and not in their capacity as inspired writings.

As Catholics, of course, we know that these books are divinely inspired. [28] They are books which have been written by God in the same sense that any book has been written by the man who is its author. What is contained in them is precisely the message which God intended to communicate to the human race.

How­ever, not all of that message which constitutes public revelation is actually contained in these inspired works. Moreover, these works had human authors, who were the writers of these books just as fully and perfectly as any other men have ever been the authors of works which have been ascribed to them. The human authors of these inspired works have been the instruments used by God in the production of books of which He is the Author.

With a power beyond that of any creature, actual or possible, God has utilized the entire power and spontaneity of a human being in order to have that human being cooperate toward the accomplish­ment of an end which obviously surpasses the capabilities of merely created nature, a book which is the expression of the teaching of the living God.

However, it would be worse than idle to attempt to utilize these books as inspired in accomplishing the task of Apologetics. The inspiration of Holy Scripture is one of these truths which we accept as divinely revealed, consequently it belongs to that body of teaching which, as a whole, we show to be rationally credible as divine revelation through the process of apologetics.

Thus we cannot and do not know the inspiration of the canonical books in a merely natural way. If it cannot be known in the light of natural reason, then it can obviously never enter into a demonstration which is meant to be cogent precisely in this same light. And the demonstration of credibility is meant to be something which can be grasped and seen by any person who is willing to recognize naturally observable truth.

It is quite evident, from a critical point of view, that the four gospels and the other canonical books of the New Testament can be used in the demonstration of Apologetics as documents naturally acceptable from the historical point of view.

We speak of a docu­ment as historically reliable when it gives us definite and accurate information concerning the deeds and the sayings of ancient times.

We can distinguish such a document when we ascertain that it has been written (1) by those who were competent to describe the scenes and the discourses about which they wrote, and when it is evident that (2) the writers intended to tell the truth rather than merely to attempt to arouse emotions.

When such a book has manifestly come down to our own times substantially as it was written by its author, we know that this book now before us is historically reliable as an historical source. Such is demonstrably the case with the four gospels.

9. The Genuineness of the four Gospels.

In order to prove this point, we must first point out the evidence that these books were actually written by the authors to whom they are ascribed.

The evidence which can be adduced in support of this conclusion is either extrinsic or intrinsic.

(1) The extrinsic evidence is formed from the testimony of reliable early writers, to the effect that these four books were actually written by SS. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

(2) The intrinsic evidence consists in the manifest indica­tion in the text itself that it was produced during the first century by men who were cognizant of conditions in Palestine before the destruction of Jerusalem and were anxious to tell the truth about the life and the sayings of Jesus.

Obviously the extrinsic evidence is of prime importance. The four gospels were not written secretly, to be distributed among the initiates of some esoteric sect.

They were the public books of the Christians, and as such they have been recognized in the earliest Christian writings as authentic and truthful documents, actually produced by the men to whom they are commonly ascribed. We have written and recognizably reliable testimony about the human authorship of the four gospels from apostolic times themselves.

10. The testimony of Papias.

The first of the writers who testify to the human authors of the gospels is Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia during the first half of the second century.

He left as a literary legacy five books The Interpretations of the Lord's Sayings, which have long since been lost. In fragments of these which have been preserved in the five books Against the Heresies, by St. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in France (202), and in the Ecclesiastical History, of Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine (circa 340), he testified about the writing of two of the four gospels.

About the gospel according to St Mark, he says:

“Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote whatever he remembered accurately, but still not in that order in which the things had been said and done by the Lord. For he had not heard the Lord, nor had he followed Him, but afterward, as it has been said, he was the companion of Peter, who did not teach the sermons and the precepts of the Lord, in that order which the Lord Himself had followed in teaching them, but followed that arrangement in preaching which he judged opportune and best fitted to aid the minds of his hearers. Hence Mark has not erred in any thing when he wrote things as he remembered them. For he had this one intention seriously in his mind and in his thought, not to leave out any of those things which he had heard nor to interpose anything false.” [29]

Papias has this to say about the writing of the gospel according to St. Matthew, in a passage which follows immediately after that which refers to St. Mark in the text of Eusebius:

“Matthew wrote a gospel in the Hebrew tongue about the sayings and the deeds of Christ, which every man interpreted according as he was able.

This Papias was known both to St. Irenaeus and to Eusebius as “the hearer of John and the companion of Polycarp.” The John he had heard would seem to have been a disciple of the Lord, dis­tinct from St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, since Papias ex­pressly declared that he had neither heard nor seen the holy Apostles themselves. However, it had been his pleasure and his custom to travel about and to seek out the elders who had actually been in company of the Apostles. [30]

From these men he asked about the sayings or the explanations of the Apostles themselves, and of the most illustrious among the disciples who lived in the churches of Asia. Hence his testimony has unique value. Tenacious of tradition, as was every orthodox Christian teacher, he testified that the first two gospels had been written by Matthew and Mark. Furthermore, on the authority of his friend and master, “John the Presbyter,” he cites the circumstances attendant upon the writing of the second gospel and the plan of composition which governed its production.

11. The Catechist Pantaenus.

The tradition of the Church in Alexandria, with which Eusebius was very well acquainted, was explicit about the missionary career of its first notable catechist, Pantaenus.

This president of the famous Didiscalion, predecessor of Clement and Origen, flourished as a teacher in that city from around the year 180 until after 190.

Before settling in Alexandria he had performed missionary service in foreign lands, and had gone as far as India where “he found his own arrival anticipated by some who there were acquainted with the gospel of Matthew, to whom Bartholo­mew, one of the Apostles, had preached, and to whom he had left the gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, which was also preserved until this time.” [31]

Like Papias, from whose tradition incidentally he is quite independent, Pantaenus had visited many of the churches of Christendom. He labored “to increase and to build up the word of God” which he knew very well was the doctrine which was believed on the authority of God by the Church scattered throughout the world. When he testified about the first gospel as the work of St. Matthew, and as a document which had been written in Hebrew, he was simply taking cognizance of an un­questionable and universal conviction that this gospel was genuine.

12. The Muratorian fragment.

The Muratorian fragment, a manuscript statement of the canon of Sacred Scripture which was most probably written during the second half of the second century attributes the "fourth gospel" to the disciple John. [32] Since the first three, according to the ordering which was universal in the Church, were most certainly those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this manuscript stands as a clear indication from an offi­cially recognized source, of the genuineness of all the four gospels.

13. The Apologist St. Justin Martyr.

St. Justin Martyr (circa 165) cites all of the four gospels in the three authentic works of his which have come down to our own time.

In his First Apology, (Ch. 66) when he comes to describe the Eucharistic sacrifice, he states: “For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called gospels, have thus delivered to us what was enjoined upon them.”

In the Dialogue with the Jew Tryphon, he cites a statement taken from St. Matthew as being “written in the gospel,” (Ch. 100) and again in the same work, (Ch. 103.) he speaks of “the memoirs which I say were composed by the apostles and by those who followed them.”

Al­though he does not ascribe any passage to an individual evangelist, he uses many of the passages which are obviously taken out of the texts of the four gospels, particularly those of SS. Matthew and Luke.

It is clear then that the “memoirs or gospels” to which he refers are actually the four gospels which we know today.

14. Tatian.

However, the most valuable indication of St. Justin Martyr's teaching on the genuineness of the four canonical gos­pels is to be found in the procedure of his disciple, the unfortunate Tatian.

This brilliant but violent scholar was converted to Chris­tianity and became a disciple of St. Justin at Rome. Some time after his great teacher's death, he left the Church and, according to Eusebius [33] and to St. Irenaeus, [34] founded the heresy of the En­cratites.

Tatian, about the time of his separation from the Church, composed a certain Diatesseron, written originally in Syriac. It was a sort of harmony of the four gospels, or rather one account which utilized the statements of all the evangelists in bringing out the life and the teachings of our Lord.

Eusebius speaks of it [35] as “the gospel of the four or a gospel formed of the four, which is in the possession of some even now.” As a matter of fact the Diatesseron remained the received gospel text among the Syrians, both Catholic and dissident, until the fourth century. The exegeti­cal works on the gospels by St. Ephraem, who died about the year 373, as well as his discourses on the mysteries of our Lord, are all based on the text of this work of Tatian. [36]

And the four writings out of which Tatian had drawn the material for his works were the gospels of SS. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

15. St. Irenaens.

Another outstanding witness to the genuineness of the four gospels is St. Irenaeus.

Like Papias, he was a disciple of St. Polycarp. He had visited the various churches situated within the Roman empire both as a missionary and as a delegate of his predecessor in the see of Lyons, St. Pothinus. Like St. Justin, he composed books against the heretics who attempted to change the belief of the Christians in the second century.

However, while the controversial works of Justin have been lost to history, those of Irenaeus, the famous Adversus Haereses, have remained. The dominating motive of his life, expressed in his writings, was an enthusiasm for the purity of the Christian faith. It was insufferable to him that anyone, on any pretext whatsoever, should presume to alter one word or statement in that doctrine which the Church received as the divine teaching from the hands of the apostles themselves. He valued his friendship with St. Polycarp as one of the truly consoling memories of his life. By reason of his travel, and his extraordinary erudition, he was in a position to know, with unique accuracy, what was taught as Christian truth, and attested by the words of the Apostles, throughout the Christian world.

His words about the human authorship of the four gospels deserve to be cited at some length:

“From none others have we learned the plan of our salvation than from those through whom there came down to us the gos­pel, which they at one time manifested in public and then later, by the will of God, gave to us in the scriptures, to be the pillar and the ground of our faith. For it is wicked to say that they taught before they had perfect knowledge, as some are arrogant enough to claim, while they boast that they have improved upon the Apostles. For, after our Lord rose from the dead, they (the Apostles), were filled with power from above and possessed per­fect knowledge. They went to the ends of the earth, preaching the gospel of God's benefits to us and announcing the peace of heaven to men who possess God's gospel equally and individually. Matthew also composed a written gospel among the Hebrews, in their own tongue, while at Rome Peter and Paul preached and laid the foundations of the Church. After they had gone away, Mark the disciple and the interpreter of Peter also gave to us in writing that which had been preached by Peter. Also Luke, the companion of Paul, set down in a book the gospel he had preached. Afterward John, the disciple of the Lord, who had also leaned upon His breast, himself published a gospel during his sojourn at Ephesus in Asia.” [37]

16. Origen.

The tradition of the Alexandrian Didiscalion reached its epitome in the writings of the peerless Origen (circa 254).

His account of the writing of the four gospels is found in his com­mentary on the gospel according to St. Matthew.

It is cited in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius:

“I have learned from tradition about the four gospels, which alone are undisputed in the whole Church of God throughout the world. The first is written accord­ing to Matthew, the same who was once a publican, but latter an apostle of Jesus Christ, who, having written it for Jewish converts, set it down in the Hebrew. The second is according to Mark, who composed it as Peter explained it to him. Peter acknowledges him as his son in his general epistle, saying, 'the elect Church in Babylon salutes you, as also Mark, my son,' And the third is according to Luke, the gospel commended by Paul, which was written for the converts from the Gentiles: and last of all the gospel according to John.” [38]

17. Tertullian.

Finally Tertullian (*240) the most forceful of the Latin Apologists declared expressly that John and Matthew, from among the Apostles themselves have manifested the faith to us while Mark and Luke from among the apostolic men have re­peated their teaching.  [39]

His testimony, manifesting the traditions of the Latin church of Africa completes the evidence offered by the Christian writers to the effect that the four gospels were actually composed by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

18. The value of Patristic testimony about the authorship and historical nature of the Gospels.

The value of this testimony be­comes apparent when we begin to consider the mentality of those men among whom this teaching existed.

So impressed were these early Christians with the value of their teaching that they were absolutely unwilling that there should be even the slightest modi­fication introduced into their doctrine. If anyone had attempted to retail the four gospels, which we know as canonical as the works of these four men, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John while they had actually been written by other men, the Church which prides itself on its unwavering and absolute fidelity to the apostolic teaching would never have accepted them.

We know very well that during apostolic times apocryphal gospels were in circulation, documents falsely ascribed to some of the most important per­sonalities within the infant Church. Such was the intelligent criti­cal appraisal of the contemporary Christians that these documents were universally rejected as spurious. The same fate would have undoubtedly befallen the four canonical gospels, were it not for the fact that these Christians of the apostolic age had ample evi­dence that they really had been produced by the human authors to whom they are assigned.

These Christians of the apostolic age were men who took seri­ously that command which came to them from St. Jude: “But you, my dearly beloved, be mindful of the words which have been spoken before by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Jude 1:27)

St. Paul had warned them to “stand fast and hold the traditions which you have learned, wheiher by word or by our epistle.” (2 Thess. 2:14)

The un­wavering tradition of the Christians was that these four gospels, and these alone, were genuine apostolic documents.

Naturally this tradition and constant testimony of the Christians is indirectly enhanced in the consent of those men who opposed the true teaching of Jesus Christ. The men who were enemies of the Christian Church and its teaching, the heretics, pagans, and Jews never denied the authorship of these documents. Their task of denying the Christian position would, of course, have been rendered much easier, if they could have asserted that the books which the Catholics utilized in expressing their knowledge of Jesus and His teaching were not genuine. The fact that the authorship of these books was never questioned, even by the most painstaking ad­versary like Celsus, against whom Origen wrote so brilliantly, is ample indication that even the most serious opponents of the Catholic position could find no possible ground for denying that the four gospels had actually been written by SS. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

We must not forget that contemporaries of Jesus and of the Apostles were living throughout the world during the early years of the second century. Many of these men had known the Lord and His chosen witnesses. It would have been impossible for all of these men throughout the world to have been deceived into accepting as authentic apostolic documents, writings which were merely forgeries.

19. The question of Veracity.

The next point which we must consider in determining the actual historical reliability of the gospels, and of the New Testament writings in general, is the question of their veracity.

Granting that the four gospels were actually written by the authors to whom they have been tradi­tionally ascribed, we must further inquire if these books were actually written as historical narratives, or merely as religious romances, intended only to set down legends which had gathered around the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

At the present time, even the enemies of the faith are impelled to admit the substantially historical character of the three synoptic gospels. However, it can easily be shown that not only these, but also the fourth gospel, are real historical documents, which contain a record of the actual teaching and the accomplishments of our Lord.

We possess both internal and external evidence to this effect.

(1) As far as the internal evidence is concerned, the four gospels evi­dently set forth the brief public career of a Man who lived and taught in Palestine about two thousand years ago. Written as they were during the first century, and in the lifetime of many people who remembered the conditions and the events in Jeru­salem prior to the wars of Vespasian and Titus, these documents describe places and conditions in a matter of fact and entirely historical way. There is neither inconsistency nor incoherence in the presentation of facts. There is no straining for effect, no at­tempt to increase the prestige of the writers by ascribing any outstanding goodness to themselves. On the contrary, the faults and the imperfections within the apostolic college are noted, and even the betrayal of the Master by one of the twelve is set down. A comparison of the texts of the four gospels with those of the apocryphal imitations can best bring out the sober and scientifi­cally accurate character of the former.

As far as the fourth gospel itself is concerned, it bears within itself evident marks of historical accuracy no less obvious than those manifested by the three synoptics. The events in the gospel according to St. John are even better localized than those described in the other documents. The fact that the style of the discourses of our Lord, as recounted by St. John, differs somewhat. from the style set forth in the synoptics is obviously accounted for by the fact that John was the privileged disciple, the Apostle privileged above all the others to hear the intimate statements of Jesus of Nazareth. As a matter of fact the so-called antilogies of the four gospels constitute one of the best guarantees of their historical veracity. They do not contradict the statements found in reliable contemporary historians, and, moreover, the statements of the various evangelists are not opposed one to the other. However, the evangelists frequently, as in the recountal of the resurrection, describe the same event in the capacity of obviously independent witnesses, as falsifiers would certainly never have done.

(2) However, the most important evidence for the veracity of the four gospels is to be found in the extrinsic acceptance of these books as reliable documents both by the Christians of early times and by their adversaries. The evangelists described events which had taken place, not in some unknown corner of the world, but in the province of Judea, regularly administered by the forces of the Roman empire. A tremendous number of people had witnessed these events. The followers of Christ, who knew of these hap­penings, and who were scattered throughout the entire Roman world toward the end of the first century, received these books as expressions of the truth about Jesus, and unanimously rejected other writings which pretended to offer the same information. Moreover even enemies of Christ, like Celsus and the heretics, attempted to base their reasonings on facts which had been re­corded in the writings of the four evangelists. Thus the historicity of the four gospels is at least as well attested as that of any other documents which have ever been presented to mankind.

20. The authenticity of available texts.

Finally the apologist has absolutely convincing evidence that these documents which ac­curately described the life and the teaching of Jesus have been preserved for mankind in a substantially incorrupt condition.

The text of the gospels and of the other inspired books which convey information about our Lord is manifestly that which was origi­nally set down by the human authors of these documents, ac­cording to incontestable evidence.

There exist in the world today upward of 2700 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. There are moreover aboill 1600 lesson books in which the greater portion of the gospel text is contained in the form of readings arranged for the various seasons of the year. There are three important series of translations of the gospels made in ancient times into languages other than Greek, all of them testifying to the wording of the manuscripts utilized by the churchmen who made these translations. [40]

With this overwhelming mass of evidence, we can be perfectly certain that the text reproduced in the critical editions of today is practically identical down to the least detail, with that order of words set down by the apostolic authors themselves.

The variants in the wording of the important manuscripts reduce themselves almost entirely to questions of arrangements of words. There is no substantial change manifest in the versions. [41]

21. The historical value of New Testament literature.

In the light of this evidence, we can be sure that here and now we possess a series of documents which will inform us correctly about the life and the accomplishments of Jesus of Nazareth.

(1) We can examine the content of these documents and from this examination we shall be able to see if this Man really claimed to be a divine messenger, the bearer of a doctrine which was communicated by God to men and which men are expected to receive on the divine authority itself.

(2) We can ascertain his presentation of a definite doctrine and not merely an exhortation to spiritual improvement among the men of Judea and of Galilee.

(3) Finally we can find, through the reading of these sources, the motives of credibility or signs of revelation which confirmed the claim of Jesus that His teaching was actually of divine origin, and as such destined to be accepted by all men.

22. Some opponents.

Those men who have rejected, and who still reject the historical authority of the Gospels may be grouped, for the sake of convenience, under the headings of certain schools or hypotheses in scriptural criticism.

The proponents of these hypotheses are by no means in complete agreement among them­selves, but there are definite claims, which, though utterly false, should be known by the student of Catholic Apologetics.

(1) Hermann Reitnarus, a German professor (d. 1768), claimed that the four Gospels were written by the Christian leaders of the first century with the simple object of deceiving their followers.

It was his contention that our Lord had attempted to foment a political revolution. After the failure of this move, according to Reimarus, the Apostles simply presented their crucified leader as a savior of humanity.

Critic: This claim had absolutely no scientific standing, and it has only served to give Reimarus the unfortunate distinction of being the first among western Europeans to have alleged the deliberate untruthfulness of the gospel narratives.

(2) Gottlieb Paulus, another professor (d. 1851), is known as the father of the "Naturalistic" interpretation of the gospel narratives.

According to his teachings, the authors of the four Gospels simply gave an erroneous interpretation to the reporting of purely natural facts.

In the light of the "superstition" common in apostolic times, a story like that of the feeding of the four thousand was developed from a recountal of a prosaic event in which Jesus of Nazareth, by the example of his own generosity, induced a tremendous number of His followers to share their repasts with those who were in need to an account of a miracle. The "naturalism" of Paulus was the dominating influence in the famous "Life of Christ" by Renan.

Critic: It has long since been aban­doned by the great mass of critics who are aware that the accom­plishments of One whom even His enemies regarded as a wonder- worker could never have been as banal as those proposed by the naturalists.

(3) David Strauss (d. 1874) attempted to explain the gospel ac­counts of our Lord's activities and teachings as the results of mythological predication.

According to his teaching, the early Christians, living as they did in a world which abounded in pagan myths, simply took some of the stories which had been circulated about the heathen gods and attributed them to their hero. He was logical enough to see that such a proceeding would take a con­siderable time, and consequently he denied that the gospels were written until late in the second century.

Critic: His teaching constituted a gross and obvious misinterpretation of facts, easily ascertainable to students of literary history.

(4) Christian Baur, distinguished himself by sponsoring the claim that the four Gospels were in reality a sort of irenic literature, intended to termi­nate, by compromise, a strife which had grown up in the ranks of the Christians between the followers of Peter and those of Paul.

Critic: The fact that there was no evidence whatsoever to support this assertion did not in any way lessen its popularity among the nineteenth-century anti-Christian critics.

(5) Still more bizarre was the doctrine of Bruno Bauer (d. 1882), who carried the principles of destructive and unscientific criti­cism to their logical term, and denied the actual existence of Jesus.

Critic: This weird teaching was, of course, never taken seriously in en­lightened circles. It has, however, had a certain vogue among the followers of various sorts of free thought.

(6) Finally, there is the Liberal or Evolutionary hypothesis, which is generally attributed to Albrecht Ritschl (d. 1889).

He and his followers, chief among whom we must number Adolph Harnack, consider that the evangelists actually set down the doctrine which appealed to the mentality of the men of their own time, without, of course, intending to deceive their readers.

According to their theory, the men of apostolic ages were prone to explain every occurrence in terms of the miraculous, and thus the Apostles themselves seriously related miraculous effects which had never been brought about by our Lord.

It is the contention of these men that our Lord had preached and had Himself expected the physi­cal destruction of the world as an event which was to take place within a very short time from the period in which He began to teach. He and His disciples were supposed to have expected that He was to rule in glory over the survivors of this imminent universal ca­tastrophe. Hence it is called the eschatological  theory.

Critic: This concept of the gospel narrative is shown to be false by the very fact that the earliest Christians re­jected this same doctrine as manifestly an error, and contradictory to the teaching which had been given by our Lord.

All of these hypotheses fail in that they do not take into ac­count the manifest and clear assertions of the very documents which they attempt to explain.

The gospels were not written in obscurity. The teaching conveyed in them had been proposed by a living and active society for some years before these documents were put in writing.

The very men who had known Jesus of Naz­areth most intimately were the ones who received these gospels as statements of the truth about Him. They were in a position to know.

We, who wish to have authentic and historically reliable documents out of which we can learn of the claims and the ac­complishments of Jesus can most certainly find such documents in the four Gospels.

They are authenticated, from a purely natural and scientific point of view, more perfectly than any other historical narratives which have come down to us from ancient times. †