With more than the significancy that will strike one at the first sight, has the learned Montfaucon observed, that "when once a man begins to use his own judgment in matters of religion, it is no wonder that he should frequently be in error, since all things are uncertain, when once we depart from what the church has decreed :"*. that is, in other words, there is no other real argument for the truth of the Christian religion, than " He that believeth not shall be damned !"—Mark xvi. 16. CHAPTER XLI. THE FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. PAPIAS, A. D. 116. Bishop of Hierapolis. and THE first of all the Fathers of the second century, next immediately following on those of the first to whom exclusively is applied the distinction apostolical, is PAPIAS, placed by Cave at the year 110; according to others, he flourished about the year 115 or 116. He is said by some to have been a martyr. Irenæus speaks of him as a hearer of St. John, and a companion of Polycarp. Papias, however, in his preface to his five books, entitled An Explication of the Oracles of the Lord, does not himself assert that he heard or saw any of the holy apostles, but only that he had received the things concerning the faith from those who were well acquainted with them. "Now we are to observe," says Eusebius, "how Papias, who lived at the same time, mentions a wonderful relation he had received from Philip's daughters. For he relates, that in his time a dead man was raised to life. He also relates another miracle of Justus, surnamed Barsabas, that he drank deadly poison, and, by the grace of the Lord, suffered no harm." This deadly poison was certainly not arsenic. Dr. Lardner concludes his very brief account of this Father, with a remark which, from any pen but his, would * Cum quis eó devenit ut fidei dogmata ex sui judicii arbitrio definiat, nihil mirum est si frequenter aberret: omnia quippe sunt incerta, cum semel ab ecclesiæ, statutis discessum est.-Montfaucon in prolegom. ad Euseb. Comment in Psalmos. + I claim to be excused from giving the Greek text in all cases in which the translation is not my own. This is Dr. Lardner's. bear the character of drollery. Immediately after telling us that "Papias was a man of small capacity," he adds, "But I esteem the testimony he has given to the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, and to the first epistle of St. Peter and St. John, very valuable; but if Papias had been a wiser man, he had left us a confirmation of many more books of the New Testament." * It was convenient, however, for Dr. Lardner, and indeed essential to the policy of his whole work, entirely to suppress the important evidence by which his readers might be furnished with the means of estimating the value of this testimony for themselves. It is perhaps a very different impression of the character of this primitive bishop, and of the value of his testimony, which the reader would be led to form, upon consideration of the evidence arising from his writings themselves as preserved to us on the authority of his admirer and disciple Irenæus, in which he gravely assures us, that he had immediately learned from the evangelist St. John himself, that "the Lord taught and said, that the days shall come in which vines shall spring up, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch shall be ten thousand arms, and on each arm of a branch ten thousand tendrils, and on each tendril ten thousand bunches, and on each bunch ten thousand grapes, and each grape, on being pressed, shall yield five and twenty gallons of wine; and when any one of the saints shall take hold of one of these bunches, another shall cry out, 'I am a better bunch, take me, and bless the Lord by me.' " The same infinitely silly metaphors of multiplication by ten thousand, are continued with respect to grains of wheat, apples, fruits, flowers, and animals beyond all endurance, precisely after the fashion of that famous sorites of the nursery upon the House that Jack built, the malt, the rat, the cat, the dog, the cow, &c. all which Jesus concluded by saying, "And these things are believable by all believers; but Judas the traitor not believing, asked him, But how shall things that shall propagate thus be brought to an end by the Lord? And the Lord answered him and said, Those who *Lardner, under the head Papias. Docebat Dominus et dicebat venient dies in quibus nascentur vineæ, singulæ dena millia palmitum habentes, et in uno palmite denia millia brachiorum, et in uno brachio palmitis dena millia flagellorum, et in uno quoque flagello, dena millia hotruum, et in unoquoque botro, dena millia acinorum, et unumquodque acínum expressum dabit viginti quinque metretas vini. Et cum eorum apprehenderit aliquis sanctorum botrum, alius clamabit. Botrus ego melior sum, me sume, per me Dominum benedic.-Hac Irenæi textus translatio Alberti Fabricii est. shall live in those times shall see."* But even this Christian conceit wants the merit of originality. It is a poor plagiarism from the form of adulation in which the sovereigns of India were wont to be addressed, which was as follows: "May the king live for a thousand years, and the queen for a thousand years lie in his bed; and may each of those years consist of a thousand months, and each of those months of a thousand days, and each of those days of a thousand hours, and each of those hours be a thousand years."+ Papias, however, notwithstanding his intimacy with the Evangelist St. John, and the value of his testimony to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, fell into the slight error of believing that no such an event as the crucifixion ever happened, but that Jesus Christ lived to be a very old man, and died in peace in the bosom of his own family. Papias, with all his absurdities, had some respect for poetical justice, would have wound us up the scene decently, and give us gospel quite as true, though not so bloody. QUADRATUS, A. D. 119. The testimony on which the advocates of Christianity lay the greatest stress, is that of QUADRATUS. For earli ness of time and apparent distinctiveness of attestation, they have no other, equal, or second to it. He is the only writer, up to the period of the time of his existence, who has spoken of the miracles of our Saviour, in a sort of language which might make it seem that he believed them himself, and took them to be historical events. He was endued, says the Chronography with the gift of prophecy, and wrote an Apology to the emperor Adrian. He is not, however, placed by Lardner in his proper place as an Apostolic Father, or as next to an Apostolic Father, for reasons, which it is impossible for the earnest inquirer after truth not to suspect. He is of the same age with Ignatius, and has left us, says Paley, the following noble testimony.§ * Et adjecit (scil. Jesus) dicens, Hæc autem credibilia sunt credentibus. Et Juda, inquit proditore, non credente, et interrogante: Quomodo ergo tales genitura a Domino perficientur? Dixisse Dominum: Videbunt qui venient in illa. † Vir. clar. Thomas Hyde de Schachiludio et Nerdiludio.-Citante Fabricio ad locum. + Which I have frequently quoted. It is that by Melmoth Hanmer, to his edition of Eusebius, Evagrius, and Socrates, A. D. 1649. § Paley's Evidences of Christianity, vol. 1. p. 122. 1 The testimony of Quadratus. "The works of our Saviour were always conspicuous, for they were real; both those that were healed, and those who were raised from the dead, who were seen, not only when they were healed or raised, but for a long time afterwards; not only whilst he dwelled upon this earth, but also after his departure; and for a good while after. it, insomuch that some of them have reached our times.” * Paley adds not another word on this important testimony. It is only by referring to the authority which he affects to quote (which is evidently so much more pains than he ever took himself) that we learn that this famous Quadratus was, even to Eusebius himself, a mere hearsay evidence," Ainong those who were then famous," he tells us, "was Quadratus, whom they say, together with the daughters of Philip, was endued with the gift of prophesying; and many others also at the same time flourished, who obtaining the first step of apostolical succession, and preaching and sowing the celestial seed of the kingdom of heaven throughout the world, filled the barns of God with increase."-"His book," says Eusebius, "is as yet extant among the Christian brethren, and a copy thereof remaineth with us, wherein appear perspicuous notes of the understanding and true apostolic doctrine of this man. That he was one of the ancients,§ may be gathered from his own words." Then follows the famous passage which we have given. Quadratus, according to such an account of the matter as we may gather from the Ecclesiastical History (or rather ecclesiastical romance, for such it is) of Eusebius, was fourth bishop of Athens, reckoning St. Paul the first, Dionysius the Areopagite the second, and Publius, his immediate predecessor, who as well as himself is said to have suffered martyrdom, the third. From a letter of Dionysius bishop of Corinth to the Athenians, it is indicated that the Athenians had not only embraced the faith previous to the martyrdom of the predecessor of Quadratus, but that "they were now in a * The whole passage from beginning to end is— Κοδατος, κ. τ. λ. ιστορεί ταυτα ιδιαις φωναις τα δε σωτήρος ημων τα έργα αει παρην, αληθη γαρ ην. Οι θερα πευθέντες, οι ανασταντες εκ νεκρών, οι ουκ ωφθησαν μονον θεραπευομενοι και · ανισταμένοι, αλλα και αει παροντες. Ουδε επιδημεντος μόνον το σωτηρος, αλλά και απαλλαγεντος, ησαν επι χρονον ικανον ωστε και εις τους ημετέρους χρόνους τινες αυτών αφικοντο.”Τοιουτος μεν ουτος, κ. τ. λ. †Дoyos εxε—“ as the story goes,' ""the tale has it."-Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. iii. c. 31. E. linea 3, Ed. 1612. Ibid, lib. iii. c. 3. linea 11. § Καθ' εαυτον αρχαιότητα. manner fallen from it, and were by the zealous labours of Quadratus reclaimed.” * But what if it should turn out that this Quadratus was no Christian at all! That he was a Pagan priest, who officiated in the temple of God the Saviour Esculapius, then established at Athens, and that this pretended testimony to the Jew-Jesus, is nothing more than a broken paragraph out of some account that a heathen bishop had given of the miracles that were wrought by the son of Coronis. Let the reader return to our article Esculapius, and propose to his own conviction, and solve as he may the important queries thence emergent : 1st. If such an apology as this purports to be, had been written to the emperor Adrian, and Eusebius had possessed or seen a copy of it, why he should not have given us the whole of it, or at least enough to have given it distinctiveness of application and sense, so as to put beyond all doubt those three grand primaries of every written document-who it was that wrote-to whom it was that it was written,-and what was the subject of the writing? Of these inquiries, the broken sentence which Eusebius has given us, affords no solution. It might have been written by any body else as well as Quadratus-to any body else as well as to Adrian; and of, and concerning Esculapius, as well, yea better and more probably, than concerning any other figment whatever. No mind that hath the faculty of critical comparison, can shut from their influence on its conclusion these eighteen predications of the case: 1. That Eusebius was a Christian-evidence manufacturer, and was labouring and digging in any way, or on any ground, to find or to make a testimony to primitive Christianity. 2. That he lived and wrote in the age of pious frauds, when it was considered as the most meritorious exploit to turn the arms and defences of Paganism against itself, to pervert documents from their known sense, and to support the cause of Christianity, not only by forging writings, but by supposing persons who never existed. 3. That Eusebius himself indirectly confesses that he has acted on this principle, "that he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed *Eusb. Eccl. Hist. lib. iv. c. 22. |