--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Morris, Nephi L. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 1 number: 5 published: 1898-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Nephi L. Morris, "Bible Studies, V," *Improvement Era* 1, no. 5 (March 1898): 323–331.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera15unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera15unse start_page: 323 end_page: 331 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1898-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera15unse publication_year: 1898 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1898, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Bible Studies, V BIBLE STUDIES. BY NEPHI L. MORRIS. In the last number we undertook to prove that from the very nature of the thing itself, the New Testament could not he a forgery. In this we shall offer the historical or exter- nal proofs of the genuineness and authenticity of the books of the New Testament. It is an old and quite generally accepted belief that the formation of the New Testament canon occurred while St. John was still alive. In fact Eusebius, with the utmost con- fidence, quotes as indisputable authority "that the books were originally collected by that apostle." But it is to be observed, says Moshiem, that, allowing even the highest weight to Eusebius' authority nothing further can be collected from his words than that St. John approved of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark apd Luke, and added his own by way of supplement. Modern infidels have made most strenuous efforts to fix the date of the composition of the Gospels as far this side of the apostolic days as possible. But there has been preserved to us three most valuable manuscripts which stand out in history as mile posts, the finger boards of which point unmistakably to the middle of the fourth century as the date of their origin. Those are the Vatican, sinaitic and the Alexandrian manu- scripts, which are carefully preserved in the libraries of Rome, St. Petersburg and London, respectively. They are unques- tionably the oldest copies of the Bible in the world. The wildest and most frantical infidel has not attempted the ab- surd task of making the date of composition appear later than that fixed by these three landmarks in history, namely 350 A. D. It will now be our purpose to descend as low as the fourth century and then ascend along the chain of with history, link by link, until it shall bring us face to face the contemporaries of Jesus Christ, the apostles themselves, and there we shall find them writing "those things which they have both seen and heard," and who, at this remote age, caoi conjure up a refutation of what they say? In explanation of the lack of evidence to prove that the New Testament canon was not officially formed or fixed in the very earliest days, let us make this observation: Those hot and furious persecutions of the first four centuries were carried on, not only against the Christians, but against the Christian writings as well. And had the councils assembled and publicly recognized certain books as being authoritative they would thereby have imperilled those very books they treasured so highly and which they so sincerely desired to pre- serve. And thus it was when the Council of Laodicea assem- bled, 364 A. D., it did not officially form the canon of the New Testament, but, as Dr. Lardner observes, simply men- tioned those books which were to be publicly read. This external evidence comes to us from the testimony of ancient writers who have quoted or referred to the books of the New Testament, in various languages, whose writings are stillextant. Among this class of witnesses will be found, not only Christians, but adversaries to the Christian faith, and together, they permit us to ascend right back to the very fountain — and source of Christian literature the apostolic days. This sort of evidence, Dr. Paley has remarked, "is of all others the most unquestionable, the least liable to any practices of fraud and is not diminished by the lapse of time.** Commencing, then, at the fourth century, which is so replete with witnesses to the genuineness of the New Testament, that we find among its writings not less than ten complete catalogues of these books. Six of them agree exactly with" our present canon; they are the lists of Athanasius (A. D. 315), Epiphanius (A. D. 370), Jerome (A. D. 392), Rufinus (A.D. 390), Augus- tine, Bishop of Hippo, in Africa (A. D. 394), and the list of books prepared by the twenty-four bishops assembled in the third council of Carthage (at which Augustine was present, A. D. 397). Three of the remaining four omit the Apocalypse BIBLE STUDIES. 825 and the remaining one omits it and the Epistle to the Hebrews as well. Of these catalogues Jerome's stands foremost. He was the most learned of the Latin fathers and he was particularly qualified, not only by his erudition, but by his extensive re- search and various travels, and his long residence in Pales- — tine all of which eminently fitted him for the investigation of the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testament l30oks. He separately enumerates the Gospels by their authors' names, mentions the Acts as another work of Luke's and says that Paul addressed epistles to seven churches and concludes iiis catalogue with the remark that the Revelation of John has in it as many mysteries as words. In other writings he expressly says that the Apostle Paul wrote the epistle to the Hebrews. Damasius, Bishop of Rome, employed Jerome to revise the Latin versions of the New Testament by many Greek copies collected for the purpose. This task, Jerome tells us, he performed with great care about the year A. D. 384. The aiext distinguished writer anterior to Jerome was Eusebius, IBishop of Ceasarea, 315 A. D. He was a man of deep learn- ang, good judgment and was a close student of the scriptures. Mis works abound with quotations from nearly every book of the New Testament as we have them today. In his Ecclesiastical History he enumerates and books which were classifies the •"universally received as the genuine works of the persons whose names they bear." Then he mentions under different classes all the books of the New Testament. He mentions the apocryphal writings and brands some of them as "spurious and impious trash." A few years prior to the time of this historian, or about A. D. 300, lived Ambrosius, a teacher of arhetoric in Africa, and Lactantius his pupil. They, together •wrote, among other books, an elaborate vindication of the Christian religion, in which they quote from the New Testa- anent, which clearly proves their acquaintance with and accept- ance of the New Testament writings. Lactantius made the observation that the Christians of his age were so familiar with the language of scripture that they could not easily avoid the at least seven witnesses are extant, in which they either cite the names of the New Testament books or make direct and respectful references to them; but at this time (A. D. 260),. away off in Germany lived one Victorinus, Bishop of Pettaw,. who is particularly worthy of notice because of his remoteness from the learned Africans, Origen and Cyprian. He wrote commentaries of various books of the Bible, particularly oft the Apocalypse, a treatise on some passages of Matthew's- Gospel and a number of controversial treatises against the heretics of his day, in which we have fine testimonies to almost every book of the New Testament. Of all the fathers who lived in the third century the most learned and laborious unquestionably was Origen, who was-, born in Egypt about the year 185 A. D., and died A. D. 253- It is said of him, that his life was a stronger recommendation to Christianity than his writings. So high was the estimation in which he was held by those who knew him, both for hi© piety and learning, that even among the heathen philosophers there were some who submitted their works to his revisal and even dedicated their works to him. He wrote profusely alon^ the lines of commentaries, tracts and homilies and through his works he uniformly bears testimony to the authenticity ofe the New Testament, as we now have it; and he is the first t© give us a catalogue of those books which are universally con- sidered as genuine by Christians. Two of Origen's pupilsj^ Gregory and Dionysius, both of whom were bishops and mera of recognized learning and piety, afford us many testimonies to the New Testament. The martyr Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, gives us copious quotations from nearly all of the books of the New Testament. His death occurred in the year A. D. 258. Going back to the year 230 A. D., a period opens to us which extends from that date to the beginning of the century j, which supplies us with fragmentary documents quoting pro- fusely from the New Testament. Notably of that period was; Caius Romanus who quotes from each of the Pauline epistles;; and in that same early period of Christian history a harmony of the four gospels was prepared by one Amonius; and con- temporary with him lived Julius Africanas who undertook th© BIBLE STUDIES. ^ task of removing the seeming contradictions in the genealogy of Christ as related by Luke and Matthew. Leaving the third century and ascending into the second, we come first upon TertuUian, who was born about A. D. i6o, and died sixty years later. "He uniformally recognizes the four gospels as written by the evangelists to whom they are ascribed; distinguishes Matthew and John as apostles and Mark and Luke as apostolical men, that is, companions of the apostles, and asserts the authority of their writings as inspired books, acknowledged by the Christian church from their original date." This writer's quotations are accompanied by the name of his authority. Dr. Lardner has observed that quotations from the small volume of the New Testament by TertuUian, "are both longer and more numerous than the quotations are from all the works of Cicero, in writers of all characters, from several ages." And it must be remembered, as TertuUian asserts, at the time of his writings the Christian scriptures were open to the inspection of both the Christian and the pagan world. It would appear that there was at that time a Latin version of the New Testament. Contemporary with TertuUian lived Clement of Alexandria who quotes nearly all of the New Test- ament books. His testimony is of great weight, for the reason that it comes from a man of learning, who travelled very ex- tensively in quest of authentic information, and did not accept as true the Christian books until his deep and earnest re- search had elicited truth and fact sufficient to banish all his doubts and pre-conceived prejudices. In the year A. D. i8i Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, wrote three small books in which are found quotations tnost unmistakably made from the writings of Matthew, John and Paul. The most polished and elegant writer of Christian antiquity, Athenagoras, a phi- losopher of Athens, who lived about i8o A. D., in his apology for the Christians written to the Emperor Marcus Antoninus and in his treatiseon the Resurrection of the dead, indis- putably quoted from the gospels of Matthew and John, the epistle to the Romans and both epistles to the Corinthians. Prior to these, and about the year A. D. 170 lived Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, who is distinguished in the fact that he was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John. He was familiar with many who had both seen and heard the Apostles and received from them the gospel. Of the many books which came from this author, only five remain and they were written chiefly against the heretics of his day; but from them it is evident that he received as authentic nearly all of the books of the New Testament and ascribed them to their various authors as we do today. Lardner says, **his quota- tions are so numerous and many of them so long as to afford undoubted evidence that the books of the New Testament which were known to the disciples of Polycarp, are the samt books which have descended to the present age." About this time (170 A. D.) or at any rate during the reign of Marcus Antoninus, the Christians in Gaul endured most cruel persecution, particularly at Vienna and Lyons. They wrote to their fellow religionists of Asia, to whom they narrated in an affecting manner what they suffered. In this correspondence, most of which can be found in Eusebius, book IV. there are direct references to the Gospels of Luke and , John, the Acts, six of the Epistles and the Apocalypse. Con- temporaneous with this occurrence lived Melito, Bishop of Sardis, a most voluminous writer, as the titles of thirteen of his books are handed down to us. This bishop, in order to determine the Jewish canon, travelled into the East and left us a catalogue of the Old Testament; there is good ground for the assumption that at that time there existed a New Testa- ment. Melitus wrote a treatise on the Revelation of John. Hegessipus, a converted Jew, born early in the second century, relates that in his journey from Palestine to Rome he conversed with many bishops, all of whom held one and the same doc- trine; "and that in every city the same doctrine was taught, which the law and the prophets and the Lord teacheth," in which passage by "the Lord," he must mean the Scriptures of the New Testament, which he considered as containing the very doctrine taught and preached by Jesus Christ, observes Qr. Lardner. About the year A. D. 172, lived Tatian, a gentile, who was converted to Christianity by comparing paganism with the Qew faith. After the death of Justin, whose follower he is said to have been, he fell into heresies. However, he com- BIBLE STUDIES. 83l> posed a harmony of the gospels, called the "Diatessaron," cf the four. In this work he is charged with having changed the texts so that they would conform to his heretical views. Fragments of this production are preserved by Clement of Alexandria who wrote against Tatian. Among the several eminent Christians who wrote concerning this work is Theo- doret, Bishop of Cyrus, of the fourth century. He says that he saw the work which was changed and corrupted and "was in use by many of the orthodox themselves, from whom he collected and took away two hundred copies in order to sub- stitute for them others which were not altered." One of the most learned and heroic fathers of the second century was Justin Martyr who joined the church in the year A. D. 133, and suffered death for his convictions, 164 A. D. After a careful study of most of the systems of philosophy he threw them aside and accepted the Christian faith. His sin- cerity, learning, and antiquity makes him a witness of the highest importance. To the synoptic gospels he makes the following direct references. "Memoirs of the apostles and their companions who have written the history of all things concerning our Savior, Jesus Christ." He also expressly states that the writings of the apostles were read and ex- pounded in the public worship; from which it is evident that the gospels were at that time well known in the world. In his writings he either quotes from or makes direct references to at least twelve books of the New Testament, and expressly says that the Apocalypse was written by "John, one of the apostles of Christ." The public life of Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis in Asia, is placed between the years A. D. no and 116. He was well acquainted with Polycarp and John the presbyter, and most probably knew John the apostle. He bears direct testimony to the books of Matthew, Mark, two Epistles, the Acts and Revelations. Link by link have we followed the unbroken chain of wit- nesses back to the very age in which apostles themselves lived. Among the fellow laborers of the apostles five men stand out in particular prominence,whom the Christian world is pleased to call the apostolic fathers: they are Barnabas, Paul's com- panion (Acts XIII:2, 3, 46, 47; and I. Cor. IX: 3); Clement, 330 IMPROVEMENT EKA. Bishop of Rome, and an associate of Paul in the ministry (Phil. IV: 3); Hermas, whom Paul also mentions in Romans (XVI: 14); and Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, A. D. 70, who suffered martyrdom 116 A. D. It is claimed by some that he was one of the little children whom Jesus took up in his arms and blessed. Polycarp was a convert of the Apostle John, by whom he was also appointed Bishop of Smyrna. He had conversed with many who had seen Jesus, and he is supposed to be the angel of the church to whom the epistle in Revela- tions is addressed. Each of these fathers have left us various writings which are still preserved and classed among the Apocrapha writings of the New Testament. They quote from the books of the New Testament; and one of them, Polycarp, in one epistle, as many as forty times makes al- lusion to the different books of the New Testament. The Apostolic Fathers were the chief person, from whom the writ- ers that immediately succeed them received the information, which they have transmitted to us concerning the authors and the general reception of the books of the New Testament; hence the importance of their testimony. We may observe of the preceding testimonies that the Apostolic Fathers, without any professed intention to ascer- tain the canon of the New Testament, "have most effectu- ally ascertained it by constant quotations from it, or by their explicit reference to it as the authentic scriptures, received and relied on as the inspired oracles of the whole Christian church. And what is of chief importance on this subject, in all the questions which occurred to them, either in doctrine or morals, they uniformally appealed to the same scriptures which are in our possession today.'* Audit is reasonable to believe that at that early date, the first century, the New Testament existed in the form of a volume collected together. This supposition is supported by the following from fairly well Ignatius, who says, "in order to understand the will of God, he fled to the gospels, which he believed no less than if Christ in the flesh had been speaking to him, and to the writings of the apostles, whom he esteemed as the presbytery of the whole Christian church." The gospels and the apostles in the pluraj suppose that the writings referred to had been collected and BIBLE STUDIES. 831 were read together. Lastly, we have the contemporary apos- tles referring to each others' writings; thus Peter, speaking of Paul's epistles, says (2 Pet. Ill: 16) "that the unteachable and unstable wrest them, as they also do the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." In reviewing the body of evidence which has now been stated, *'it is considered of great importance that the witnesses lived at different times,and in countries widely remote from each other," as already noted in each case. And all authorities on this subject concur in this fact, that the books of the New Testament were equally well known in distant coun- tries and were received as authentic by men who had no inter- views with each other.