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Luke, which in their present state contain that account. Mr. Evanson himself is but too ready to suppose interpolations of passages in those books, the genuineness of which he admits. But that a passage is weak and injudicious is no good reason why it might not have been written in the age of the apostles, or by some of the apostles themselves. He admits the epistle of Clemens Romanus to be genuine; but he says," Even that hath been evidently corrupted by an interpolation of the absurd Pagan fable of the Phoenix."* But absurd and Pagan as it is, what proofs has Mr. Evanson that Clemens might not believe it? I have no doubt but he did; and I see no reason why any other person, who must have been a Christian, should have inserted it. If the person who made the interpolation believed the story, why might not Clemens himself have believed it?

In the same arbitrary manner Mr. Evanson supposes the writings of Luke himself to have been interpolated." There are some others," he says, " in each of his histories, which are liable to much reasonable distrust. Such, for instance, in his Gospel, is the story of the demoniac possessed by a legion of demons, who petitioned and were permitted to enter into the herd of swine; and in the Acts of the Apos tles, the passage which says that diseases and lunacies were cured by handkerchiefs or aprons brought from Paul's body."+

If every person was thus at liberty to pick what he pleased out of ancient writings, as the young wife in the fable pulled up all the gray hairs out of the husband's head, and the old wife all the black ones, nothing might be left. If Mr. Evanson had scrutinized the Gospel of Luke with the same severity with which he has gone over those of Matthew, Mark, and John, he might have found so many objectionable passages, as to have pronounced them all equally spurious. For at present the difference is only in degree, the three Gospels being, according to Mr. Evanson, absolutely spurious, because, in his opinion, they contain many objectionable passages, and that of Luke only interpolated, though it contains a considerable number of them. But he should give some good reason for supposing that such writers as the apostles, and other unlearned primitive Christians, could not have written as they have done. That Mr. Evanson himself would not have written as they have done, is no evidence at all. I am, &c.

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LETTER V.

Of Mr. Evanson's Objections to particular Passages in the Gospel of Matthew, as contradictory to Passages in the Gospel of Luke.

DEAR SIR,

I MIGHT have contented myself with the preceding general answer to Mr. Evanson's Objections to the authenticity of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John. But to shew that I see nothing at all formidable in any of them, I shall fairly recite them all, not with a view to maintain the strict propriety of every thing that he objects to; for that is the business of the writers themselves, or their professed advocates; but to shew that, notwithstanding all his objections, they might have been written by the persons to whom they are usually ascribed.

These more particular objections to the Gospel of Matthew being numerous, I shall divide them into three heads, and make them the subjects of three separate Letters. The first shall comprise the passages that Mr. Evanson objects. to as inconsistent with the Gospel of Luke; the second such as he conceives to be improbable in themselves; and the third, such of these articles as he thinks are particularly unworthy of our Saviour. Concerning the first, however, it is obvious to remark, that the contradictions no more affect the authenticity of the Gospel of Matthew, than they do that of Luke; but I do not think that they in the least affect that of either of them.

1. Instead of "Judas the-brother of James," as in Luke, [Acts i. 13,] Matthew [x. 3] has "Lebbeus, whose surname was Thaddeus," which is said, as Mr. Evanson observes, to be "a Syrian word of much the same signification with Judas." But whether this be the case or not, or whether we can discover any reason for it or not, we know it was no uncommon thing for the same persons to have more names than one, as Matthew and Levi, and what is not improbable, though on this Mr. Evanson founds an objection to the Gospel of John, Nathanael and Bartholomew. According to Mr. Evanson, Silas must have been called Luke, though no ancient writer tells us so.t

Dissonance, p. 151. (P.) Ed. 2, pp. 188, 189.

† Mr. Evanson suggests," that Nathanael and Bartholomew" are not, “Jike Silas and Luke, of similar signification," and adds," As I depend much more upon

2. "This whole story," Mr. Evanson says, "of the removal of Jesus from Nazareth to dwell at Capernaum, is in direct contradiction to the history of Luke. For he assures us, (chap. iv.,) that the reason of our Lord's leaving Nazareth was because the inhabitants, offended with his discourse to them, drove him out of their city;" when he "went down to Capernaum, where he preached to the people for a short time;-but was so far from taking up his dwelling there, that, though the inhabitants entreated him to stay, and not depart from them,' he left them, saying, he must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also,' for that was the purpose of his mission."*

Now I see no real inconsistency between the two Evangelists; since dwelling does not necessarily mean taking a house, and living a number of years in it, but may mean Jesus making Capernaum the chief place of his resort, or where he was to be found more than in any other place; and the history shews that he was more there than any where else, and he might have been more there than any thing particularly recorded of him implies. Or the removal mentioned by Matthew may not mean so much that of Jesus himself, who does not appear ever to have had a house of his own to remove from, as that of Mary, and the rest of the family; so that if, when he began his public ministry, he could be said to have any home, it was there.

Luke says nothing at all of any removal from Nazareth, if by removal be meant ceasing to dwell there; but only of his not choosing to preach there. Nothing can be inferred from Luke, but that Jesus simply visited Nazareth as he did other places, in order to preach there at the time that he was rejected by the inhabitants of that place. There is no intimation of his having any house or home there at that time. On the contrary, it is clearly intimated by Luke himself, (iv. 16,) that the place of his residence, if he had any, was else where: And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up."

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3. Mr. Evanson finds a contradiction between Matthew, [iii. 7,] who says of " the Baptist," that ". Pharisees and Sadducees came to this baptism ;" and Luke, who "expressly assures us, (vii. 30,) that the Pharisees and

the testimony of Luke than on that of all the other Gospels, and all the fathers of the apostate church taken together, I am very far from being satisfied that Levi the publican was one of the apostles, or that Matthew the apostle ever was a publi

can." Letter, p. 45.

* Dissonance, pp. 132, 133. (P.) Ed. 2, pp. 164, 165.

lawyers were not baptized of him. It is not possible," he says, "that both these contradictory assertions should be true; and on which the guilt of falsehood rests, every man must judge for himself."* But might not some, and even many of the Pharisees be baptized of John, though the generality of them were not? It is evident from Matthew's account of the conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees, at the time of his last visit to Jerusalem, that he did not consider the great body of the Pharisees as having been the disciples of John; for he makes them to say, (xxi. 25,) “ If we shall say, from heaven; he will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe him?" So that, if there be any inconsistency, it is in Matthew himself.

4. Mr. Evanson founds several of his objections on the Sermon on the Mount, and the circumstances in which it was delivered. He thinks "that so full and ample a moral lecture would have been postponed, at least, till all those who were to be his apostles were called to be his disciples, and actually appointed to their office," and "accordingly St. Luke informs us this really was the case."†

But where is the improbability in supposing Jesus to have given the same instructions at different times, and even to have repeated them very frequently? Besides, I think it not improbable, but that Matthew, having occasion to recite some of the moral lessons that Jesus delivered on this occasion, added to them others of a similar nature, delivered on other occasions, that every thing of the same kind might be found in the same place. This he has evidently done with respect to the instructions to the twelve previous to their first mission; for they contain several things which do not at all suit that occasion, but only their future mission after his death, as what relates to their being brought before kings, and their being exposed to persecution. Mr. Evanson might not have preferred this method, but Matthew did.

From the first and last beatitude," Mr. Evanson says, "as well as from many entire passages of Luke, interwoven in different parts of this sermon, it is evident he had St. Luke's Gospel before him." If this was the case, and if he had no other source of information concerning this discourse, why did he depart so much from it, and introduce it in so different a part of the history? But where is the great improbability of two writers having, in some measure, dif

• Dissonance, p. 181. (P.) Ed. 2, pp. 162, 163. ↑ Ibid. p. 188. (P.) Ed. 2, p. 172.

↑ Ibid. p. 139. (P.) Ed. 2, p. 175.

ferent sources of information, concerning a long discourse, giving even a more different account of it, at the distance of thirty years, than Matthew and Luke have done of this?

5. Mr. Evanson supposes that because, according to Matthew, [v. 1,] this discourse was delivered on "a mountain," Jesus sat himself down on the very summit of it, "which, from its convex form, must necessarily prevent all but those who immediately surrounded him from either seeing or hearing him." He also ridicules the idea of his having there set himself down before he began to teach them" whereas "St. Luke, on the contrary, informs us, that he came down, and stood in the plain."' It is well

known, however, that the usual posture of a Jewish teacher was sitting in an elevated place; and though this discourse is said to have been delivered on a mountain, all that was meant might be that it was in a mountainous part of the country, and there might be such hollow recesses about a mountain, as would give a speaker even a better opportunity of being well heard by a multitude than any situation on a plain. Had Mr. Evanson been as ingenious in solving difficulties, as he has been in finding them, this might have occurred to him.

6. With respect to what, according to Matthew, [v. 17,] Jesus says of his not coming to destroy the law, &c., Mr. Evanson says, it is "an assertion which flatly contradicts the prophets of the Old Testament, St. Luke, St. Paul, and the whole scope and intent of the gospel covenant." But let Mr. Evanson prove that the gospel was intended to supersede the law of Moses with respect to the Jews, in answer to what I have urged in the Theological Repository.+ I think I have sufficiently obviated all that he has advanced in this publication to the contrary. § Both our Saviour and the apostles strictly conformed to the law of Moses, and so

Dissonance, p. 141. (P.) Ed. 2, p. 175.
See Vol. XII. pp. 442-482.

↑ Ibid. (P.) Ed. 2, p. 175,

Mr. Evanson refers to "St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians," (see Vol. XII. pp. 470, 471,) by which he considers his opponent's "system effectually and satisfactorily overthrown." He then strongly expresses his disapprobation of the opinion, "that when the predicted New Jerusalem has descended from above to bless all the nations of the earth with perfect freedom, the Old Jerusalem shall be restored to the Jews alone, and they again be subject to bondage; and that after the Jews themselves, together with all other nations, shall by their conversion to Christ have attained a rational, manly maturity of religious knowledge and wisdom under the new covenant of the gospel, they alone shall be sent back to school again, and submit for ever to the childish discipline of the law of Moses." Letter, p. 47. On the adaptation of "the Mosaic ritual" to " the future and final state of the world," see Vol. XII. p. 482.

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