The Secret Vault presents: The Christian and Pagan Creeds Collated. Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
By the Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
To be applied in judging the comparative claims of the Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels.
1. The canonical and apocryphal gospels are competitive, i.e. they are reciprocally destructive of each other's pretensions.
2. If the canonical gospels are authentic, the apocryphal gospels are forgeries.
3. If the apocryphal gospels are authentic, the canonical gospels are forgeries.
4. No consideration of the comparative merits or characters of the competitive works, can have place in the consideration of their claims to authenticity.
5. Those writings, which ever they be, or whether they be the better or the worse, which can be shown to have been written first, have the superior claim to authenticity.
6. It is impossible that those writings which were the first, could have been written to disparage or supersede those which were written after.
7. Those writings which have the less appearance of art and contrivance, are the first.
8. Those writings which exhibit a more rhetorical construction of language, in the detail of the same events, with explications, suppressions, and variations, whose evident scope is, to render the story more probable, are the later writings.
9. Those writings whose existence is acknowledged by the others, but which themselves acknowledge not those others, are unquestionably the first.
10. There could be no conceivable object or purpose in putting forth writings which were much worse, after the world were in possession of such as were much better.
11. If the story were not true, in the first way of telling it, no improvement in the way of telling it, could render it true.
12. If those, who were only improvers upon the original history, have concealed that fact, and have suffered mankind to understand that the improvements were the originals; they are guilty and wicked forgers, and never could have had any other or better intention, than to mislead and deceive mankind.
Data of Criticism.
To be applied in judging the comparative claims of the Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels.
1. It is manifest and admitted on all hands, that the apocryphal gospels are very silly and artless compositions, "full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders." - Mosheim, in loco.
2. It is manifest, and admitted on all hands, that the canonical gospels exhibit a more rhetorical construction of language than the apocryphal, and have a highly- wrought sublimity and grandeur, the like of which is nowhere to be found in any of the apocryphal gospels.
3. The canonical gospels, but more especially the canonical epistles, which are admitted to have been written before the gospels, do in very many places acknowledge the existence and prevalence of those writings which are now called apocryphal.
4. The apocryphal gospels, as far as we have any traces of them left, do nowhere recognise or acknowledge the writings which are now called canonical.
5. The apocryphal gospels, are quoted by the very earliest Fathers, orthodox, as well as heretical, as reverentially as those which we now call canonical.
6. The apocryphal gospels, are admitted in the New Testament itself, to have been universally received, and to have been the guide and rule of faith to the whole Christian world, before any one of our present canonical gospels, was in existence.
6-1. Indications of time, discovered in those gospels which were written first, will indicate time relatively, to those which were written afterwards - exempli gratia. It being proved that the legend A. was written before the legend C, there will be proof, that events which were contemporary or antecedent to the writing of A., were antecedent, a fortiori, to the writing of C.
6-2. Indications of the prevalence of a state of things, existing when the earlier gospels were written, will indicate relatively the state of things, when the latter gospels were written - exempli gratia. It being- proved that the earlier gospels were written under a universal prevalence of the notions and doctrines of monkery, there will be proof of the monkish character necessarily derived to the gospels, derived from those gospels.
DR. LARDNER's TABLE.
Dr Lardner's Plan of the Times and Places of writing the Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. (Supplement to The Credibility, &c. vol. 1. p. 4.)
Gospels. Places.
St. Matthew's. Judea, or near it. About 64AD.
St. Mark's. Rome. About 64AD.
St. Luke's. Greece. About 63 or 64AD.
St. John's. Ephesus. About 68AD.
The Acts of the Apostles. About 63 or 64AD.
A Table of St. Pauls Epistles in the Order of Time; with the Places where, and the Times when, they were written. (From Lardner's Supplement to The Credibility, &c. vol. 2. p. 4.) Epistles.
1 Thessalonians Corinth. 52 AD.
2 Thessalonians Corinth. 52 AD.
Galatians Corinth or Ephesus. Near the end of 52 AD, or, the beginning of 53AD.
Corinthians Ephesus. The beginning of 56AD.
Timothy. Macedonia. 56AD.
Titus Macedonia, or near it. Before the end of 56AD.
Corinthians. 1 Macedonia. About October 51AD.
Romans Corinth. About February 58AD.
Ephesians Rome. About April 61AD.
Timothy Rome. About May 61AD.
Philippians Rome. Before the end of 62AD.
Colossians Rome. Before the end of 62AD.
Philemon. Rome. Before the end of 62AD.
Hebrews Rome or Italy. In the spring of 63AD.
The Epistles of St. James Judea. 61, or the beginning of 62AD.
The two Epistles of St. Peter Rome 64AD.
St. John's first Epistle Ephesus. About 80AD
His second and third Epistles. Ephesus. Between 89 and 90AD.
The Epistle of St. Jude Unknown. 64 or 65AD.
The Revelation of St. John Patmos or Ephesus. 95 or 96AD.
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Next chapter 15. Of the Four Gospels, in General.