ART. I.-Einleitung in das Neue Testament, &c. Introduction to the New Testament, by J. G. Eichhorn. Vol. I. 800. Leipzig. 1804.. London. Escher.

THE author of this work has long been celebrated for acuteness, liberality, and depth of theological research. To every subject which comes before him, he brings the most profound and varied erudition. His mind is too vigorous and robust to be fettered by the narrow prejudices of any particular system; and his love of truth is too strong to suffer him to conceal the truth which he discovers, however opposite it may be to any established creed. It is only from minds so constituted and from hearts so disposed, that we can expect the numerous errors which have been incorporated with the prevailing religious systems to be exposed, and the religion of Christ to be maintained in all its purity and truth.

We are required as Christians to be able to give to every one who requires it, a reason of the hope which we cherish in our hearts. Now this injunction necessitates investigation, and investigation not narrow and partial, but full, comprehensive and unrestrained. As long as truth only is the object of our search, that search cannot be too laborious or minute. For nothing can be considered as of trivial moment which relates to a truth of such vast and incalculable importance as that of the Christian religion. And conscious that that religion is inherently and substantially true, though it has been mingled with such a diversity of corruptions, and disguised or rather deformed by such a variety of APP. Vol, 10,

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interested artifices, we need not be afraid of enquiring foo far; for the farther we enquire, the more shall we recede from the associated errors,and the nearer shall we approach to the unadulterated and resplendent truth. The old saying that all is not gold which glitters, is true in respect to most of the prevailing systems of christianity, in which the outside glitter and superficial tinsel will be found the device of man, while craft has cast a veil over that which is really the work of God. The web of mystery and the gewgaw of ceremony have been employed to obscure the moral lustre of the gospel. The grovelling wit of man has been substituted for the unspotted irradiations of the universal mind.

That blessed doctrine, on obedience to which the righteous ground their hopes of a happy immortality, is contained in what are called the four evangelists, in its best, its purest, and its simplest form. Hence it becomes a matter of supreme importance to know from what sources these writers derived their information, whether they were eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses of the facts and the discourses which they relate, or whether like other historians, they compiled their several accounts from the most credible authorities, and the most satisfactory documents which they could procine. In the discussion of this question, we do not mean to include the evangelist John. He appears to stand on a very different footing from the rest. There are marks of an eye-witness and an ear-witness in him which are not quite so palpable in the others. The few miracles which he relates, are exhibited more in detail, and with a more vivid enumeration of particulars. The discourses which he delivers seem not only more copious and minute, but tinctured somewhat more with the characteristic manner, with the hallowed emphasis, the impressive energy, and the commanding authority of the teacher of righteousness. We do not say that these marks are not very perceptible in the other evangelists; but in John they are more forcibly felt, and more vividly seen. The discourses in his last chapters seem almost as full and particular as if they had been written down as they flowed from the mouth of the holy Jesus. They are so majestic, awful, and yet blended with such a sweet effusion of charity, that while we are reading them we seem to breath the air of Heaven. We are persuaded that it is the voice of no terrestrial being which we hear; but that the spirit of God is speaking through the mouth of

man.

Allowing then, as we do most conscientiously, the origi nality of John to be clear beyond dispute, we shall, per

haps, if in the course of our enquiry we see reasons sufficient to impress the conviction, be induced to believe that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were compiled from such sources and documents as appeared to them most worthy of belief. That various memoirs or short summaries of the life and doctrine of Jesus were written and published anterior to our canonical gospel, is a matter of historical notoriety, and is even distinctly acknowledged in the preface to the gospel of Luke. The principal design of the oral preaching of the apostles, and of the first written accounts of the ministry of Jesus, was to prove that he was the Messiah. Nor could this preaching or these accounts well take a different direction. For a native Jew had established the new religion. To Jews that religion was first made known; by Jews it was first taught, and the persons to whom it was taught, were Jews. It was necessary therefore, in order to support the new religion, to shew that it was the natural and predicted progeny of Judaism; and that the new dispensation was in spirit and in substance such as the prophets had imagined and foretold. The apostles could expect to make no converts, but by an historical and prophetical deduction that Jesus was the promised Messiah, whose doctrine was to produce that improvement in the religion and manners of the people which the prophets had so long announced. He, who was thus convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, was initiated into the new society by the baptismal rite. It was by this means that the apostle Peter made in one day 3000 converts, Acts ii. 22-56. It was after a similar instruction that Cornelius (Acts x. 37-41), the chamberlain of Queen Candace (viii. 31-39), the jailor (Acts xvi. 31-33) acknowledged the Messiahship of Jesus and were baptised. Hence to such an introduction to the Christian doctrine some account of the life of Jesus was requisite, and hence it was considered necessary that an apostle or immediate missionary of Jesus (Acts i. 21-22), should have been an eye-witness of what he brad said and done, from his baptism to the period of his ascension. Without this qualifi cation, how could an apostle in a satisfactory manner compare the history of Jesus with the prophetic delineations of the Messiah? This instruction was indeed most gratefully received from the mouths of eye-witnesses; but as it was not designed that christianity should be confined to the narrow confines of Judea, teachers soon became necessary who had not themselves been the associates of Jesus, and who were consequently obliged to appeal for the truth of what they asserted to the evidence of the apostles and

others, who had heard and seen what Jesus had said and done. Hence some written account of the points of greatest importance in the life of Jesus became necessary as a basis of instruction and a manual of the doctrine which they had to teach; and hence probably originated the first brief narratives of the points of principal moment in his history.

To such a sketch of the life of Jesus, which was to serve as an historical formulary for the associates of the apostles, nothing more was requisite than a summary of those points in his life and doctrine, which, in that early age, were deemed essential to direct the faith and the practice of the Christian. These accounts, without making any mention of the conception and birth of Jesus, or any circumstances of his life previous to his ministry, appear to have begun with his baptism, and to have ended with his resurrection (Acts x. 37-41. Comp. i. 21. 22). And as they were the compositions of men illiterate and unexercised in the arts of composition, they were drawn up without any historical plan, any artificial or elaborate representation, but tending in the most direct manner to prove that Jesus was the expected Messiah.

We still possess four biographical narratives of Jesus under the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; but it must immediately strike us that these formularies could not be those, which were designed as a manual of instructions for the assistants of the apostles in the functions of their mission. For these narratives do not appear to have been rude or hasty sketches; and they in some measure contain parts of the life of Jesus, which had no place in the primary memoirs. Besides this, the use of at least the three first gospels in their présent form did not begin till the close of the two first centuries. For till the end of the second century all the fathers of the church whose works have come down to us, made use of gospels very different from the present; and though they may in many parts agree with the three first canonical gospels, they were not the same identic compositions.

Anterior to any mention which history makes of the gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and others with which we are acquainted either from tradition or from fragments, there are traces of a gospel of the Hebrews (Evangelium secundum Hebros, Ευαγγελιον καθ Εβραίους). This was used by Ignatius, according to Jerom; and according to Eusebius by Papias and Hegesippus, who wrote in the beginning of the second century, and who do not quote any of our present gospels. This circumstance justifies us in ascribing a.

very high antiquity to the gospel of the Hebrews. In the most antient times it was without exception denominated Ευαγγέλιον καθ ̓ Εβραίους, Evangelium secundum Hebros. And as the title Evangelium secundum Matthæum, Marcum, &c. designates the gospel which Matthew, Mark, &c. had written, so the Evangelium secundam Hebræos must undoubtedly signify a gospel which Hebrews had composed; but still it is a point of uncertainty who these Hebrews were. But in the interval between Origen and Jerom, it was called not only 'secundum Hebræos,' but secundum XII. Apostolos.' Thus the tradition of a later period seems to have defined that, times which more likely to have known, appear to have left obscure and indeterminate. This title was probably affixed in order to increase the authority of the work. From the beginning of the third century our present canonical gospels had acquired a general and exclusive consideration, and only the party of Nazarenes and Ebionites adhered to the gospel according to the Hebrews. It is not improbable therefore that they might have been tempted to ascribe to this gospel the venerable names of the XII apostles, in order the more readily to defend it against the objections of the catholic church. The title which this gospel generally bore in the time of Jerom, Evangelium secundum Matthæum, is still more destitute of truth. In proportion as the fathers lived later, they pretended to know more, and spoke with less hesitation of the more early transactions of the church. But the name of Matthew was probably given to this gospel because it had a closer resemblance to the present canonical gospel which bears his name, than any of the rest.

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This is certain, that the oldest gospel according to the tra dition of the earliest periods of the church was composed by Hebrews; but it does not appear to have been known who those Hebrews were. But of this gospel secundum Hebræos', the farther we go back, the more general we find the use. Justin Martyr shews no acquaintance with any but the memoirs of the apostles,απομνημονεύματα των αποτόλων, which, if they were not the same as the gospel of the Hebrews, had a nearer resemblance to it than any of our present gospels. The fathers before Justin Martyr never speak slightingly of the gospel to the Hebrews, as of an apocryphal book. Hegesippus employed it in his writings, (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iv.22), and from it Papias derived the history of the adulteress, Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. 39. In the earliest remains of the Christian fathers, we find traces of the gospel to the Hebrews. These traces begin with Papias, and run through Ignatius, Hegesippus, and Justin Martyr, to Origen,